| 33rd America's Cup starts tomorrow |
 Tomorrow, Monday 8 February 2010,at 10.06am(CET, GMT +1), the first race of the 33rd America's Cup will be held in Valencia, Spain (click here to see the venue on Google Maps - map, satellite, street view with zoom in/out capability).
The defender, Alinghi, is a catamaran. The challenger, USA (formerly BMW Oracle Racing Team), is the challenger.
This race will be fascinating as both teams rely heavily on cutting edge technology and good old fashioned guile.
At a press conference last Friday, USA's founder, Larry Ellison said that he’s looking forward to "what he thinks will be one of the greatest regattas in the long history of the America’s Cup."
He continued, “This is extreme sailing. This is the ‘X’ version of the America’s Cup. It’s the limits of technology. These two boats are the fastest sailboats that have ever been built and they’re going to match off one against the other. I think it’s going to be the greatest spectacle in sailing history and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”
USA's Australian Skipper, James Spithill said that "It’s a dream to be honest. If you told me two and half years ago I’d be sailing a 90 by 90 trimaran with a 68 metre wing sail, I’d think you were crazy. We’ve become a little bit accustomed to the boat, but I just took my father down there this morning to show him, and he was just blown away with it. This has been an incredible experience.”
Shannon Falcone, a member of USA's crew says, "You have to pinch yourself sometimes to realise that you're 30 feet up in the air and doing 25 knots upwind. It feels like flying. When the two hulls lift out of the water and you're slicing through the water on one hull it's a very smooth motion. At those speeds, on any other boat (if any other boat would do that speed) you would be soaking wet and hanging on for dear life. Here, it's much more relaxed. Just sailing."
According to Alinghi's website, "Alinghi 5 (is) a 90ft catamaran on load waterline that spans 110ft overall, with a mast that towers more than 17-storeys above the sailors and settles on a foundation the size of a tennis ball. The boat has taken approximately 100,000-man-hours to build and is deeply rooted in the multihull heritage that Switzerland is so well-known for.
Brad Butterworth, the Alinghi team's Skipper (who is also, incidentally, a four time America's Cup winner) said that “designing and building Alinghi 5 has been a huge ask in such a short timeframe, and the guys on the design and shore team have done an extraordinary job in giving us this boat. Our opponent is formidable, BMW Oracle has a very good sailor in James Spithill and their boat is a credit to their design team. I speak for all of us on the sailing team when I say we are looking forward to racing and getting the sport back on the water where it belongs”.
John Kolius, a Corsair Marine Dealer and 5 times America's Cup sailor (three as skipper), wrote recently in an article entitled Trickle on down! The America's Cup, has cautioned us though with respect to our level of expectations: "The boats are going to be pushed for the first time at the start of the first race. It should not come as a surprise to anyone if one or both boats fail to finish one or more of the races.
"If one or both of these big dogs comes apart, it has the potential to be quite dramatic. Hard core sailors are not going be too moved by something like this but beginners and potential sailors can possibly be turned off if they equate these fragile multihulls to the more robust multihulls that buoy the racing and cruising the world today."
Corsair Marine has built more than 1,600 production trimarans and catamarans over the past 25 years. Borrowing from John's language, our models are "robust" (in fact, a Corsair Marine 31UC will sail the North West Passage, amongst the ice bergs of the North Pole, in June this year. More to follow).
John continues, "The real work for multihull sailors, builders and designers will be to tap the thousands of great ideas that are going to come from this research while filtering out the things that are not appropriate for real world application."
As it happens, Corsair Marine is actively tapping into some of this research for application in our future designs.
Alinghi and USA are expected to breathe new life into the multihull market and the design of all future production multihulls should improve with the technology. This is an incredibly exciting time to be a sailboat designer, builder, sailor and spectator. And not just for multihull enthusiasts.
See these websites:
- - For live coverage from www.americascup.com
- - For live coverage of USA's races (scheduled for 8, 10 and 12 Feb), click here.
- - For Twitter News Feeds from the 33rd America's Cup site, click here.
- - Photo of Valencia port (above), click here.
Corsair Marine's Calendar and Dealers:
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