. . . unless your competition has some boat speed and can successfully luff you up (twice). Not such a great position after all now is it?

Wow.. Just wow..

I'm just getting back from some of the best most exciting sailboat racing I've ever watched. The atmosphere in the grandstands was amazing and at the end of race two I was high fiving total strangers like I was at a college football game. The people cheering, the close racing, the huge crowds and great weather all combined for an amazing experience. If I fall in front a city bus tomorrow, This trip has been totally worth every dime I paid just for today's experience.

Man I'm loving this.

Gary Jobson Notes

Boy, did Oracle nail the start in R4 yesterday or what?

Oracle is faster in breeze as long as they don't tack any more than necessary. I think they had their VMG angles a little screwy in the first couple of races but it may have been the more moderate breeze that exposed some weakness in boat speed. It still blows my mind that these guys are hung over from mono-hull race tactics after all of this time - I'm watching Oracle in R3 wondering what they were doing by initiating that tacking duel when they had the advantage as tacking only introduces more risk (unless you are certain that you are not going to hang onto your lead and the risk is warranted). In the first race, race #3, yesterday, Oracle seemed desperate upwind and initiated the tacking duel that did them in quickly. As some of you noted here, they're also struggling to keep the bow out of the water when tacking...which is a bit strange. It will be interesting to see if they can put up a similar fight in more moderate breeze.

I dug before my original post...I couldn't find any quotes. The best I can find is Grant Dalton saying they'll poll the competition. That very well may mean a switch back to monohulls but I doubt it. The sailors are enjoying learning these new beasts, it's obviously great for T.V and the crowds when the racing is close as in the finals, and they employ a lot of people. Canting-keel monohulls can't be raced close to shore and typically require an engine to boost the hydraulic pressure, so the mono is no good for high speed, and probably not too good for the T.V

Personally I would like to see a AC45-like boat, one design hull shape, open soft-sail rig and open foils, essentially what Morrelli suggested. Notably cheaper, speed the same, more teams etc. Probably not in the best interest of the defender so unlikely, but one can dream.

To be fair to oracle.. In r3 if they had just pegged ETNZ on starboard outside that five boat length boundary they would have sealed it I think. ETNZ would have had to short tack in very short order along the very puffy water in front of where I was sitting in the grandstands. It really was a matter of a few meters...

From the looks of things we'll find out what they'll do. Oracle's got a pretty deep hole to dig out of. Even with them saying that they'd switch doesn't make it etched in stone. Statements only seem valid until the press conference ends, just like politics.

"This time, Kostecki told Spithill to sail a more strategic race as if there were 20 boats on the course. OTUSA wanted to avoid the close quarters battle that did them in the previous race."
Source: Jobson's notes

What your suggesting is not the format for the AC. The AC is a design competion as Morrelli said. Forget about the one design any thing concept.

With kiwi talent like Burling etc they would be mad to go back to monos.

In the past skippers came from classes like the Finn, Star, Yngling, etc, but the new young guys all come 49ers, Moths, and multis.

Yes, that is not true to the DoG, so it'll be open development. As a spectator, I want to see more boats line up as challengers, so lowering the costs is key, but billionaire's think differently.

Biggest surprise to me is ETNZ has Grant Dalton on board as a grinder for at least one race a day, at his less than youthful age. Really that is great news for everyone, if you stay in shape you can still get the job done even at 40+ kts. That suggests the current team might be sticking around for the next cycle.

I'm impressed at ETNZ's speed honestly. I thought they would have an edge, but was 50/50 before this weekend, thinking Oracle would come out of the gate much stronger. Well in Race #4 they did but the delta was 8 freaking seconds!! Why Oracle didn't hire M&M from day 1 was always dumbfounding...

Article Jimmy Spithill

Well done.

Really? More actors? Really? Hey Genny, why don't you do a real piece on somebody, say, like the Alter Cup Champion.

The class of boats doesn't have much of anything to do with the Deed of Gift. They can run it however they wish as long as the defender and challenger agree. The challenger series is a relatively new development in the history of the cup and certainly wasn't any part of it's history prior to that. It was the Defender racing the sole Challenger for most of the Cup's history. It could technically be a strict one design but given the bank accounts, typical personalities coupled with the lack of ability to leverage expensive technical advantages in a one design setup, we'll probably never see it.

Dalton has been grinding for NZ from day 1.

I know the TV time was short, but it would have been nice to see more discussion on the design of the boats, differences and similarities, etc.

Mike

I'm heading out to San Francisco this Wednesday for about a week to watch the AC. Anybody else heading out and want to meet up? Hoping for a good show.

Wow--Amazing cats and great racing--how great is this for the sport?

The boats themselves are the stars of the show

BTW--what is the handicap # on these ;]{joking as always|

have fun
Carl