Thread: Italians tops Americans in opening race of semis

Anybody else watch this stuff?


I, for some reason, find it very interesting.
;D

VALENCIA, Spain (AP) � Emirates Team New Zealand and Italian boat Luna Rossa won their opening Louis Vuitton Cup semifinal races Monday.
The Kiwis, who finished top of the round-robin standings, beat Desafio Espanol of Spain by 43 seconds, while Luna Rossa defeated American entry BMW Oracle Racing by 2:19.

"Windshifts were the name of the game today, that's for sure," BMW Oracle Racing navigator Peter Isler said. "We always thought we'd get one race with that tricky offshore breeze. We just hope that it was that race."

The two winners of the best-of-nine match racing series will meet in the June 1-11 Louis Vuitton Cup final to decide which boat will race defending champion Alinghi in the America's Cup from June 23-July 4.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/saili...tton-cup_N.htm

Explaining the America's Cup

For those who think the NBA and NHL playoffs are too long, here's a change of pace: Three years of regular season, then a quick finish.

That's the America's Cup. Sort of.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/sportsscop...ning_the_.html

I've done some sailing and have watched some of the Cup races with more serious racers.
Its pretty amazing the money that goes into these things and how serious they take it.

Definitely a rich mans game, but there is a lot to it and I can definitely appreciate the skill and teamwork involved in a making these things fly.

I like it alot now that they have the computer generated tracking and an increase of the onboard cameras.

If you ever get a chance to crew on a boat with guys that know what they are doing, you should take them up on it.

It is very technical, but the guys who excel are the ones who seem to have the best "feel" for what the boat and the environment are doing.
I've only done small boat stuff, but in very irradicate wind conditions where little mistakes really get amplified and take you out of a race pretty quickly.

The high tech stuff on the coverage makes it a lot easier to understand some of what these guys are going through.
Before they added a lot of the computer aids on their coverage it was pretty much just two boats plugging along.

Also notice how good of shape the crew is on these things, they are working hard and get pretty beat up during a race.