34th America’s Cup – Highlights

A few hours ago the 34th America’s Cup finished, in what I consider the most spectacular comeback in sporting history. In the 19th race, an all or nothing winner takes all final race, the USA team won. The New Zealand team dominated the early races. They have been at match point for 8 races but had not been able to capture that final point. During a lighter wind race #13, New Zealand was ahead by over kilometre when the race reached the time limit and was abandoned, they only had 3 minutes of sailing left to win the whole event.

This was an amazing event.  The coverage was unbelievable, with live streaming from YouTube and amazing on water graphics that really allowed an audience to understand what was going on. San Francisco was an amazing venue to the event, providing fans great viewing from shore.  Larry Ellison’s vision for this cup had many critics but it came together in an amazing way, close match racing in boats travelling 40 plus knots. I can’t wait to see what he has planned for the next one.

Here are a few highlights worth checking out.
Emirates Team New Zealand bow down in race 1 (3 min)
Emirates Team New Zealand nearly capsizes (2 min)
Highlights: America’s Cup Finals Races 9 &10 (46 min)
America’s Cup: Apparent Wind (2 min)

The first two are just crazy things that happen on these boats. In the first check out the amount of engine power that the rescue boat requires to keep up with the AC72.

Race 10 was amazing, really worth watching.

The Apparent Wind video does a really nice job of explaining the concept and why on these boats it is so important.

My thanks to everyone involved in the event, special mention to my favourite team Team New Zealand who should be proud of their performance and sportsmanship. Big congratulations to Oracle Team USA on an amazing comeback, especially Jimmy Spithill for his never wavering conviction they could win.