ORACLE TEAM USA training in Bermuda with the new America’s Cup Class boat, the ACC. © Sam Greenfield/ORACLE TEAM USA
35th America’s Cup, Bermuda Pre-Cup Qualifiers, Playoffs and Final Cup Race in June In May, the 35th America’s Cup began in Bermuda. The teams are again competing in the high-performance catamarans that raced in the 34th Cup in San Francisco in 2013 when these boats reached peak speeds up to 40 knots (46 mph) on hulls that sailed on foils, raising the boats out of the water— which enabled them to reach such incredible speeds.
Watching the Cup Races on TV Unless you are fortunate enough to go to Bermuda, the best seats are in front of the TV screen. You can catch up to videos from the last two years of racing on the America’s Cup YouTube channel (just search for America’s Cup). The clarity is extremely good and if you have a large monitor, all the better. Although in 2013 the YouTube channel carried the races, this year they won’t be carrying them live, just the highlights, the day after the races. If you want to watch them and then re-watch them, you will have to record them from your TV yourself. On regular TV, NBC Sports has live coverage of the Qualifiers on May 26-June 3 and the Challenger Playoff Finals on June 10-12. The Challenger Playoff Semi-Finals (June 6-8) will be covered on the Cup’s Facebook page and
the official America’s Cup APP. NBC National TV will cover the final Cup match on June 17, 18, 24, 25, 26 and 27.
The Challengers The five challenging teams are: Emirates Team New Zealand (the final challenger that lost to Oracle in 2013); Artemis Racing (Sweden); Groupama Team France; Land Rover BAR (United Kingdom); Soft Bank Team Japan. (Although teams represent countries, the crews include sailors of other nationalities.) These points earned in nine previous events around the globe over the last two years count in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers, which began on May 26, running through June 3. The series is a double round robin, and of the five challenging teams, one will be eliminated. June 4-8, the four remaining challengers will race against each other in the Challenger Playoff Semi-Finals, first reducing the four to two. Next, two will race in the Playoff Finals, June 10-12, reducing the playoffs to the final challenger, which will race against Team Oracle in the final Cup series, June 17-27. In the final Cup race, points gained from the Qualifiers and playoffs up to the final race will help in determining the winner. The first to gain seven points wins.
The Boats Although the boats raced in the AC45F foiling cats in the last two years, in Bermuda the teams will race in the America’s Cup Class boats, known as the ACC boats, which are carbon-fiber, hydrofoiling catamarans of each team’s own designs. All the boats are within a 45- to 50-foot length range. Although each of them is unique, they all fall within certain design parameters. One unique difference between the AC45Fs and the ACC boats is that in the former, the grinders are turning winches that mechanically operate sails and daggerboards. In the ACC boats, the grinders grind only to build up hydraulic reserves for the very complex systems that operate the boats. 26
June 2017
SOUTHWINDS
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