Looking back on how Oracle Team USA staged one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history, it’s hard to be it all happened in only a little over a week. As late as a 11 days into the 18-day regatta, an Emirates Team New Zealand victory was pretty much a forgone conclusion, as they led series by an apparently insurmountable score of 8-1.
Oracle USA and skipper Jim Spithill not only did the “impossible” in successfully defending the America’s Cup, but in the end they almost made it look easy —a feat that is all the more incredible given how far the team came in so little time.
Meanwhile, over in Falmouth, England, no less than 11 wing-sailed catamarans are taking to the air in the International C class Catamaran Championship regatta—or “Little America’s Cup,” as it’s more commonly known.
For all the talk of foils and wings in the 34th America’s Cup, it may ultimately be the less glamorous “guts” of the latest crop of AC72s that make the difference between first and the proverbial nonexistent second.
Wing sails? Check. Full foiling? Check. Crash helmets? Check and check.
Thursday will be “Judgment Day Two” on San Francisco Bay.
After months of waiting, Oracle USA and Emirates Team New Zealand are finally providing the kind of racing Larry Ellison promised so very long ago.
What was already destined to be a difficult defense has become exponentially more difficult following the jury ruling on Oracle’s cheating during the AC45 World Series
As expected, it will be Emirates Team New Zealand against the defender, Oracle USA and the Golden Gate Yacht Club, in the 34th America’s Cup regatta, now that Kiwis have prevailed over Luna Rossa in the Louis Vuitton challenger series.
The Louis Vuitton Cup finals is beginning to look like a race of the pit crews as Luna Rossa and ETNZ have both been experiencing a spate of race-ending mechanical failures.
Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from SAIL Contributing Editor Christopher Birch’s upcoming book The Four Seasons of Boat Maintenance(available for order soon)—a compendium of
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