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Prada capo Patrizio Bertelli's Luna Rosa makes its Golden Gate premier run...and looks fantastic. Easily the best graphics of the four AC72's. A sunny contrast to the grim faces and complaints of the previous day about the wind speed racing limits, too high in Bertelli's view following the Artemis fatal crash, for the safety of the crew and the boats.



Pix by Carlo Borlenghi.

All the controversies over the transition of the America's Cup into the 21st century and back to the original intent of Cup being the pinnacle of competition between nation's in the unlimited and most advanced sailing machines possible, all the controversies seem to fade every time the boats get on the water and remind everyone how fantastic the AC45's and AC72's are....

David Glenn in Yachting World argue for shutting down the multi-hulls as too fast, too dangerous. But Glenn misstates several facts.

The reason for the multihulls was not some ""idea" that Oracle had. It grew out of a classic America's Cup of AC33, run by the basic unlimited rules of the...

Not "pilot error". The description of witnesses is that the Artemis boat suffered a structural collapse. If the Artemis boat suffers from bad design there is likely little Artemis can do at this point to correct it. It may be Prada and Emirates competing to see who races Oracle for the Cup.



Photo and story from, Wired Magazine, of all places with the caveat it is early in the news cycle and much is speculation.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/05/americas-cup-crash/

Grant Dalton of Emirates is at it again. After being wrong on every aspect of AC34 beginning with Dalton and Barker once calling the AC45's and AC72's a cheat to now calling it the most fantastic sailing ever. Now Dalton is claiming AC34 is trying to cheat him by wanting to make the race's longer because the big AC72 cats are proving to be faster and more exciting then anyone realized. The result is the planned race courses are obviously too short. The races will be over too fast.

AC34 is proposing making the courses longer based on the new facts of the success of the AC72 design.

Emirates is such a hypocrite team, plain bad sports. They claimed the multihulls would give Oracle an advantage. Proven wrong. They said the AC45's would be dull and no one would want to watch. Proven wrong. They said the AC72's would be impossible to build and sail in match races. Proven wrong. And no one proves...

Artemis and Oracle have rigged there AC45's with foils making them mini-AC72's and are using them to practice match racing on foiling cats.

Cool pix and some great videos.









Artemis Racing and ORACLE TEAM USA have been using their turbo-charged, foiling AC45s to get match fit on San Francisco Bay.

As ORACLE TEAM USA coach Philippe Presti says, this is a risk-free way to get race experience in foiling boats, without putting the AC72 program on the line.

“It’s going to be pretty hard to sail two AC72s in race mode so close to the Cup,” sailing coach Presti said. “There’s a lot of risk with that. So to have the AC45s in foiling configuration allows us to push hard with...