whale watching???
Until now I thought about a straight forward for ETNZ and the AC going to NZL,
but with that UFO-problem, all those seals, dolphins, sharks in the bay…
And those slow pelikans flying around the crews heads 
read this on the AC cup site…man they are pretty high on themselves…
+++++++++
In ‘The Cutting Edge’, the AC72 takes center stage as one of the heroes of the 2013 America’s Cup. As a piece of engineering, it is the most highly advanced sailboat in racing, meeting the standard now of what will be possible 15-20 years forward.
The AC72 should not be flying above the water at 50 mph, for example, but that is exactly what it is doing.
+++++++++++
UM…hello ETNZ… Looks Like from the getgo was designed exactly for this…just because no one else was smart enough to think about it doesn’t mean it should not happen…
Sheesh, a boat thats the hero… I guess the winged keel on Australia II sits at the table at Gods right hand…and “America” sits at his left…
shtty self promoting articles like this and worse the “competitive” sailing and crappy commentators makes this just another snoozefest.
Just give the trophy to ETNZ so we can put this crap behind us…
I think you can rest assured that the Cup will be in a good place. In the U.S., not many people know about the America’s Cup, and they think sailboats are REALLY SLOW.
So what do you think of the LV cup? Here is how it looks to me:
ETNZ: they are happy as a clam, wit the boat working perfectly(except for that one jib snafu, which turned out to be not all that bad.)
Luna Rossa: They just can’t get a break. They were really competitive in the AWS, but now the big boat seems to be ‘always broken’ and the can’t get the speed they should have at the level of the AC.
Artemis: Are they actually going to compete, ever? It seems too late, but the announcers keep mentioning Artemis will get a shot at LR in the semi-finals, for whatever it means (how do you even get to te semi-finals without
competing at least once?
Oracle: they’re still going to race, right. I know thery’re the defenders, but everybody else has been racing, so what is Oracle doing Zen Yoga?
So the question for yourself right now is, what do you do for the next week? Are ther no webcams to watch the 72s?
LR…have been their own worst enemy with unforced penalties. You can’t run out of bounds and expect to stay in the hunt.
Art…seems like a lot of wasted $$$ if they don’t sail…not to mention it kinda sh!ts onthe memory of Bart to rebuild the boat only to not sail in competition
Oracle- the defender never sails in the LV. Since no one else has put up a defense they only get to play with themselves until the AC races. They do have two boats, and they been been “racing” against each other, but its all going to be guesswork as to the performance potential of OR against a challenger. Since they have not had any official races, there is no reliable speed data. Each time LR and ETNZ race, with each race Oracle can see the mountains of data produced by the network with race tracker, ect… so they have a bit of a leg up and have an idea on what their challengers are doing. This is why I think ETNZ should not be showing all their cards. IE layback and sandbag, don’t give OR any more info than they have to. Whether ETNZ wins by 7 minutes or 20 seconds, the end result is still a win.
Everytime OR sails I’m sure they are capturing data and using that data and what ever data they can mine from the race tracker on the challenger races they are able to make up a computer program to compare the boats, speed on most points of sail, but that only goes so far.
Do you suppose Oracle and LR should get together to sail in the meantime?
How about a different thing to think about while we are ‘in between things:’
What kinds of souvenirs, like books or posters or videos, can be collected or recommended? Obviously, this AC event is historic, regardless of how it turns out (if it will continue with foiling cats or go back to monohulls, or move on to Trimarans even.) Can you say radio-controlled IACC boats? :lol:
The current format of the race means that you could possibly sail anywhere in the world, even on a big lake, like Lake Erie, provided that you first put together a team to race on salt water.
I’m a little disappointed that it’s called “match racing” but none of the boats are matched enough to sail on the same tack for long. We are again back to the ‘winged keel’ days where the technology and design is more important than the sailing team’s or skipper’s skill and effort. The course seems fair, that it does take about an hour to sail with 7 legs, but it seems to me to be a little too commercialized with the way the finish line is right in front of the grandstands. Maybe we’ll be seeing guys called “billy Joe” sailing and boats with “Budweiser” or “Valvoline” painted on it? :rolleyes:
Do you think it’s peculiar that no women are on the boats? With the crazy way things are lately, politically, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some liberal groups complaining that the feminine gender isn’t represented. Maybe we’ll see an all-girl foiling cat soon?
At least it’s nice that the safety suits aren’t plastered with sponsor names.
BTW- isn’t it nice that no one has had to use the safety suit? Those guys are running around and bouncing on the trampoline that probably wet from the spray off the foils, but no one’s slipped yet, that I have seen.
No, it woudl serve no purpose expect to have boat racing, it would mean nothing score wise and it woudl only allow the challengers to better see how fast/slow OR really is plus it puts the defender at unnecessary risk for collision, damage, ect…
…
LVC Semifinals start next tuesday
do we get another series of one-boat-races ?
they sell tickets for the semifinals, $300 for the Pier 39 Garage Rooftop (is the car parking included?)
I wonder if that’s worth the money.
Still confused about LR’s Round Robin:
Two unforced errors (out of bounds),
not that deep at the broad reaching,
not that high at the close haulded.
My hope, they didn’t want to show their potential befor the LVC Finals.
Maybe they have a little surprise at the LVC Finals and we might see some two-boat-races.
We’ll they have shown their potential to sail poorly, not sure they can sail any worse… as you stated, sailing out of bounds twice, and then getting beat by a partially rigged boat… Plus looking at the stats and how much farther they sail on the same course…
Maybe artemis has a chance to beat LR…
I don’t think we’ve seen ETNZ full potential yet either…
that’s what we have seen so far
I would like to see any improvement, but the jnavas2 videos on youtube tell another story
the artemis story is quite chaotic:
wing crash in valencia
structural problems with the front beam at the first towing test
last minute foil design
Bart tragedy after a capsize with structural problems before or after the capsize
hope this line has come to an end.
With those few training lessons I don’t really expect some close races in the semi finals.
But who knows…
To me, LR is confusing, because they did fairly well in the ACWS, and they did get the design for an AC72 from the Kiwis, so you’d think that they could possibly be a little better than they appeared.
The AC72s are that much different?
… and LR didn’t protest against the ETNZ chase boat, when it forced LR to tack into a low wind zone while they saved ETNZ’s jib!
no Protest! hey, that’s the AC!!!
mysterious
‘No teams planning to sail on Friday in San Francisco. All 3 challengers planning to train on Saturday…’
looks like AR is still under construction 
I thought the sail retrieval was odd, but LR did not have to tack just a minor bear away to avoid the boat to keep the speed up would have been the proper course. They should have flown the protest flag and I was surprised it did not show up…
the ACWS was one design racing…all boats equal… better skippers win those kinds of races… but I think the ETNZ has a great platform with their AC72… much better than LR (obviously) and I think its going to be much better than OR…
Well the way LR sails…unable to point, can’t go as low as fast, and wants to sail out of bounds… You or I might be able to beat LR… 
ups,
‘In the United States, all races covered by NBC / NBC Sports Network will be replayed on YouTube immediately following the television broadcast’
and
‘Louis Vuitton Cup Semifinals
August 9 - Race 3 - NBC Sports Network - 7:00pm ET (tape delayed)
August 10 - Race 4 - NBC Sports Network - 6:00pm ET (tape delayed)’
Do they plan with 4 races during the semi finals?
So live coverage only on race 1 and 2 in the United States, brought to you by YouTube
(my sincere condolences)
well, let’s have a try:
LR : AR
4 : 0
no, wait:
4 : 1
(LR makes a left turn at mark 6 instead of a right turn to the finish