The America Cup

The America Cup races recently held were a disappointment to me for more than one reason. I’m not a sailor; I’ve only gone sailing one time. But I have always been fascinated with this yacht race. The race was last held more than three years ago. In recent times there were five or six teams vying for the cup and there was a series of elimination races until they were down to two. Then the finalists raced a series of five races and the winner had to win three out of five. This year there were two yachts. They were racing two out of three.

The two teams were the Swiss team, Alinghi, and the American team, Oracle. But first they had to argue in court for two-and-a-half years before they could race. They did not race in single hull yachts, but in trimarans, triple-hulled yachts. Apparently there were no duels rounding the marks, when a sail was taken down and a spinnaker went up. This was one of the most exciting parts of the race, as far as I was concerned.

But then I never got to watch. In previous America Cup races one of the networks, one of the sports channels, carried all of the qualifying races as well as the final races. This year there was no television coverage. There were only two races, as Oracle ran away form Alinghi and won two races. This brought the America Cup back to the United States since sometime in the mid-nineties. It would have been fun to see how the huge trimarans handled and how the crew got around on them. In what I have read there was a good deal of talk about a particular sail, but I have yet to find photos of it. Or maybe wouldn’t recognize it if I did see it. But alas! The winning yacht, Oracle, was built in Anacortes, WA, just up the sound (Puget Sound) from Seattle. A small consolation.