any idea of the heights of the 3 masts?

Tall

Taller

Tallest

I think they're between 150 and 180 feet tall. This is only the fourth day they've been on the boat since they installed their Alinghi-matching engine powered hydraulic system too.

Thanks... that clears everything up!...

because i heard they were tall, shorter and shortest... i am so cornfussed~!

Good time to throw the wing on.

Good thing it happened in training and not during the DoG racing!

You think someone may have forgotten to hit the "Stop" button while sheeting the main in?

What is it called when they drop the wing? Would they de-wing?

pics:

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/blog/2009/11/bor-90-dismasted.html

That's a real mess. You just KNOW that made a BANG!

Who has the account to do team laundry? They'll earn their money tonight.

“After this Match, Ernesto said that if he wins, he is going to keep these giant multihulls. We are not going to do that. If we win, and I think we are going to win, we are going to go back to traditional monohulls and traditional match racing, where all of the teams can participate in a traditional multi-challenger event. Probably in boats that are a little more modern and faster than the Class 5 America’s Cup boats that we raced in the 32nd Match. This is going to be a one-time only extreme sailing event for the America’s Cup.”

- Larry Ellison

Me thinks Larry is scared of speed...

No matter, at this rate he won't have to worry about winning it. He'll have to worry about showing up.

"...where all of the teams can participate in a traditional multi-challenger event..."

Proves my earlier point entirely. To the "normal" sailing crowd; apparently, lots of teams showing up and racing cats doesn't qualify as a "traditional multi-challenger event..."

As for the demasting, just shows that there's no shortage of ways to get killed on one of these beasts.

Mike

Just found this while reading SB:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MNkkIXnqh4

Say what you want about Ernesto, as Americans we despise some of the shenanigans, but in this video you can clearly see that he has a deep love for the speed and power of the cats. Larry has shown the complete opposite in his recent rant.

Mike

He certainly hit the points that make cats my drug of choice... dare I say, he "gets" it?

Make the next AC in VX40 class boats. Big enough to have a team of people on it, small enough to be affordable to "the masses" (of upper class folk), and fast enough to make it interesting to watch on TV for the non-sailing public.

He made a very good figure there. Sounds like a sailor who race monohulls for a challenge in competition but multis for the experience. (not that I doubt that he is a cuttroatch competitor)

OK, there went 23 seconds of my life that I'll never get back. Other than listening to the engine(?), what was the point of that video?

I was really hoping it was going to show the mast coming down. Anyone got that?

Mike