America's Cup Sailboat Racing

zathros

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The Kiwi's (New Zealand) have kicked butt!!!!! thumbsup:King::Bravo:
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
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Casually, I sailed a friends 10 Meter Pearson boat with as 12' 6" beam, 6' foot fine keel, 50 foot mast, roller furling on the jib, the jib was a 150% Genoa, and a fully battened Marconi main sail, and we had a huge Blooper sail, for 6 years. It was a fast boat, and I raced against some small groups we would find out in Long Island Sound, a treacherous piece of water. I also owned a 16 foot Whitbread trainer that was hand built, Teak brightwork and interior, Marconi Rigged with a self tending jib. I sailed that on some of the big lakes in Connecticut, we have one 18 miles long. I had a sailfish too. Sailing is a blast, I don't know if my Spinal injuries would let me sail some lake boats, that's what stopped me doing blue water sailing. The Pearson's chainstays went through the hull right to the keel, a truly blue water ocean going boat. It slept 6 people. I sailed it with a girlfriend from City Island New York, going under the Whitestone Bridge, to Norwalk Connecticut, slept off the Norwalk Islands, then sailed to Mattituck Long Island, with my girlfriend. No GPS back then. We had Lorac C for Navigation, going past the Stratford shaols was a bit scary. Long Island has one of the highest amounts of ship's sinking in the world. Storms come out of nowhere, and because the shape of the sound, the waves really kick up fast and hard.

The New Zealanders are the only other nation to have ever won the America's Cup. They have held it for 24 years. It would be nice to get it back. The race is held every four years. This years the ships were mono hull racing on foils, they were doing up to 36 knots!! With the new computer graphic overlay, it is much easier to follow the race and the helicopters and chase boats, and on board cameras, plus the microphones being broad cast from the ships, the race is really immersive. :)

The Win:

 

Revell-Fan

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I'm fascinated by these new catamaran style boats. I haven't been following the cups on a regular basis but when I tuned in this year I was like, what kind of weird scifi stuff is THAT??? I was about to think that the hull would break immediately when it was lifted out of the water. Seeing the boats go up and literally slide on the water was unbelievable. And the technology that went into this is so simple. They had the basics in theory around for several years but not the technological means to implement them. Now the time has come and it looks beautiful. A model of one of those ships with its "foot" down would grace any desktop. :)
 
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