A grand design

May 11, 2017

Getting ready for the America's Cup. AC Class Oracle Team USA tuning on Bermuda's Great Sound. Credit Talbot Wilson- The Royal Gazette

Getting ready for the America’s Cup. AC Class Oracle Team USA tuning on Bermuda’s Great Sound.
Credit: Talbot Wilson- The Royal Gazette

The teams competing in the 35th America’s Cup will race in the new America’s Cup Class boats. The 15-metre foiling catamarans are the fastest boats to ever be sailed in the competition, reaching up to 50-knots on the water.

Each team must design and build its own America’s Cup Class boat. These boats are built to a design rule, but that rule allows designers and engineers to express their creativity in their designs. All racing in 2017, from the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers to the America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton, will be match racing in ACC boats.

Today is day 15       #AC35Countdown #ACFunFacts #AmericasCupBrief

 

Proving their worth

May 10, 2017

12 Meter Charters - 1958 Americas Cup Winner ColumbiaIn 1958 a new class of sailboat, the 12-metre class, was introduced as the racing class of the America’s Cup. Off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, sleek and fast, Columbia (US-16) stunned its competition with a sweeping win of the first 12-metre America’s Cup, proving that the design was a justifiable competitors in the coveted America’s Cup.

16 Days    #AC35Countdown #ACFunFacts #AmericasCupBrief

 

A bitter battle

May 10, 2017

09 S Ashbury James 1870

The America’s Cup has a long history of squabbling and bitter legal battles among the teams, and the first evidence of that was in 1870, when the New York Yacht Club entered 17 schooners into a fleet race for the Cup. James Ashbury, the sole English challenger, objected to the race rules, prompting a second challenge the following year.

The 1871 America’s Cup match was a precursor for many of the legal battles that would engulf the Cup over the next 100 years and more. After reportedly consulting his lawyers, Ashbury insisted on racing against just one boat, not an entire fleet and protested both the scoring of the races and the race committee who set the racecourse. In the end, he limped home complaining bitterly about poor sportsmanship on the part of the Americans and insisting he had actually won the America’s Cup, to no avail.

 17 days     #AC35Countdown #ACFunFacts #AmericasCupBrief