Oracle USA

[My900ss]

There were only two boats this year and in the past there were a lot more.

I believe you are confusing the qualifier races with the actual cup races.

"From the first defense of the Cup in 1870 through the twentieth defense in 1967, there was always only one challenger. In 1970, for the first time, there were multiple challengers, so the NYYC agreed that the challengers could run a selection series with the winner becoming the official challenger and competing against the defender in the America's Cup match. Since 1983, Louis Vuitton has sponsored the Louis Vuitton Cup as a prize for the winner of the challenger selection series."

 

[carries an axe]

couldn't decide to put this in .gifs or here

 

[NorCalAthlete]

couldn't decide to put this in .gifs or here

Beat you by 5 minutes

 

[OldMadBrit]

couldn't decide to put this in .gifs or here

Its incredible that that's 22,000lb of boat traveling at ~25kts and it pivots on a ~20" wide piece of carbon fiber.

Somebody told me that they pull in excess of 1.5g when they gype

 

[jc2ducati]

The insanity is spreading to kiters as well. At Crissy at least, it started with one kiter using a hydrofoil. He of course started breaking all kinds of records. Recently, i saw at least a dozen new boards with hydrofoils on them.

 

[carries an axe]

Beat you by 5 minutes

then I chose correct

 

[carries an axe]

Its incredible that that's 22,000lb of boat traveling at ~25kts and it pivots on a ~20" wide piece of carbon fiber.

Somebody told me that they pull in excess of 21.5g when they gype

yeah, looks like they're hovering.

 

[greener]

[youtube]3k4FAnqPBM0[/youtube]
(sorry if repost)
If, like me, anyone missed the live shit, here's a good place to start if you want to see what was going on. The video overlays with currents and winds were very enlightening.

 

[Eldritch]

Did anybody else feel like the fix was in on this thing? I mean, New Zealand was cleaning our clocks on this deal and then Oracle USA wins like 8 straight to take the cup? It stank of a fix for ratings to me.

 

[augustiron]

Did anybody else feel like the fix was in on this thing? I mean, New Zealand was cleaning our clocks on this deal and then Oracle USA wins like 8 straight to take the cup? It stank of a fix for ratings to me.

Keeping the longest race ever going until Oracle World opens here also.....

 

[HellFyre]

See, this makes me wonder if there could be a kit to retrofit foils to, say, a Hobie 16.

You could go even simpler with a foiling kit for a Laser.

[youtube]Pxb6BRe7Weo[/youtube]

 

[V4]

congrats to oracle...

now tell your 50 year old fanboiz wearing tommy hillfiger windjackets, cargo shorts, and topsiders to go back home to livermore...even the gay population are complaining how ghey the fans making the city look...

 

[Poxy]

Did anybody else feel like the fix was in on this thing? I mean, New Zealand was cleaning our clocks on this deal and then Oracle USA wins like 8 straight to take the cup? It stank of a fix for ratings to me.

There was a critical personnel change, and as was mentioned a learning curve that was happening during the races. Oracle learned how to foil upwind continuously which changed everything.

 

[jc2ducati]

Mother Russia wishes to challenge Ameriski's with their toy boats.

http://www.vincelewis.net/ekranoplan.html

[youtube]pCXhMftu5u8[/youtube]

 

[GAJ]

For a layman, what is the difference between this years boats and the ones of the past? Was there really that huge of a technological jump in sailing?

Here are some of the boats raced over the years...the last image was one of the new foiling boats and what can happen when things go wrong...sadly a British sailor died in that wreck:

 

[OldMadBrit]

The insanity is spreading to kiters as well. At Crissy at least, it started with one kiter using a hydrofoil. He of course started breaking all kinds of records. Recently, i saw at least a dozen new boards with hydrofoils on them.

Yes Surfer Laird Hamilton on Maui pioneered foiling surfboards in 1995 and then filing kiteboards a few years later. On a kiteborad, the foil gives much better upwind performance, which you need to got off the North Shore but they were slow to take off elsewhere - until they started breaking speed records.

During the early 90's there was a fleet of experimental foiling windsurfers that launched out of Berkeley and were lead by an engineering Prof at UC Berkeley. That's where a lot of the innovations in passive balancing systems came from. Before that, the foils needed lift, pitch and roll controls which made them tough in flat water and impossible in waves.