It was the EPIC SUMMER of RACING 2013 in San Francisco Bay! Seemed like every weekend we were at a regatta, except when we weren't we were at that other regatta known as America's Cup.
The Louis Vuitton Cup made it look like America's Cup was cratering because only 2 teams could race. Some races were raced solo because of the round robin format and Artemis didn't have a boat.
Well once the racing got on it wasn't very close racing. Because of this, America's Cup Park and Village were very pleasant places to be.
Emirates Team New Zealand dominated the Italians, but at least we got to see a real race.
Sailing fans know it's all about the start and this was textbook. The Kiwis blocked Luna Rossa to a standstill and then accelerated to the line well after the horn, and never looked back.
From our Marina Green view, it looked like ETNZ was foiling all the time. Prada was in the air a lot too, but thy weren't nearly as fast as Emirates.
I created AlamedaWaterfront.com in the spring of 2010 following BMW-Oracle's victory in the 33rd America's Cup. While I knew very little about yacht racing, I was just watching what Larry Ellison was saying about transforming the America's Cup and growing it's audience via technology and television. I knew it had to be in San Francisco and some of my local sailing friends hinted that Alameda Point would be a perfect place for an America's Cup village. I had been learning a lot about Alameda Point from another volunteer project...
America's Cup 34 has already started. Remember those two zippy Oracle catamarans cruising the bay this summer? Teams Spithill and Coutts (my kids love to say koootz) have already raced at World Series events in Cascais, Portugal and Plymouth, England - which just concluded. Next up is San Diego in early November.
We've been watching Live From Europe with our morning oatmeal via youtube.com/americascup. Once you start to "get" it... it really gets entertaining. It's all about teamwork and technology! They are working very hard to appeal to a wider tv audience that knows little about sailing with the assistance of precision GPS, onboard cameras, helicopters, and computer graphics by Stan Honey, the same guy who brought us the 10 yard line in football, the hockey halo, NASCAR's RACEf/x, and baseball's PITCHf/x, among other triumphs.
We watched fleet races, where all 9 teams compete at the same time, and match races where they face off in duals to win the bracket. So far in the total standings, Emirates Team New Zealand is in 1st place followed by Oracle-Spithill (Spithill is the captain), Oracle-Coutts (koootz!) in 3rd, Sweden's Artemis Racing, and Team Korea in 5th. Watching Team Korea blossom in the final days of Plymouth was the biggest thrill at our house. Maybe we are just real keen on the white tiger graphics, but it was huge fun watching them emerge.
