UKC

Not seen a thread on the America's Cup so far (unless my search was too simplistic) but well done to team Ineos for getting through all the stuff so far to become the actual challenger to NZ - first time we've been the actual challenger for 60 years and we've never won the actual cup.

The racing itself is mighty impressive to watch with these foiling yachts getting up to 55 knots (that's 63 mph).

I’ve just watched one of the women’s races…I think I prefer the format as they have 6 teams racing at once.

youtube.com/watch?v=dnuUIGiiq_8&

Amazing. I love the old J class yachts, and have actually seen Velsheda. Beautiful.

There's a place for decadence, and this is it

Sir Ben Ainslie is an impressively driven athlete.

Fingers crossed ! Radcliffe, whatever other faults you may think he has, has put a lot of money into British sport in the last few years.  With the Americas Cup, he does have the superstar of UK sailing driving the team, unlike the situation at Ineos cycling and ManU

How much has he poured down the drain of Manchester United?

And the cycling team are going backwards. 

I’ve been disappointed to follow this over the years, having a personal interest (I used to knock around with Ian Walker, if you’ll excuse the NameDrop) and you are right; there is a chance!

2-0 NZL

From todays showing the chance is pretty slim, maybe with stronger winds we will see something.

It's called Sportswashing, money well spent if he believes it cleans up the image of his hideous company 

 He has done well from a council estate in Manchester. Perhaps he just now enjoys spending his wealth on sports he is interested in.  Life. Long fan of Man U , runs marathons etc etc. 

Bought Belstaff and a few other things as well….because he can 

perhaps he may just be interested in these things?

Works for me ! Plenty of owners of 'hideous' (Ineos isnt ALL hideous, is it ?) Don't put anyrhing back into society.

Exactly how Sportswashing, greenwashing etc is supposed to work.

As one of the largest producers of single use plastic in the world you need to throw a lot of money around to 'clean' the brand name.

Maybe he'll receive another knighthood for services to sport while trashing the environment.

Aren't the companies that use single-use (or recyclable) plastic, legislators, and consumers also culpable?    

That's quite a trick!

Considering the list of producers who feature include huge Saudi and Chinese oil companys etc , he is a minnow. Some balance from a global perspective on that view is required.

If we measure everyone's ethical and environmental standards by comparing them to Chinese and Saudi oil companies we really are fooked.

Talking of which, the Saudi crown prince has been upping the Saudi profile with a bit of Sportswashing in the last couple of years. Golf, boxing, F1 etc, but I guess when you are fully complicit in the murder a journalist you need to throw even more cash at cleaning the image.

Bur sadly, we still seem to demand single use plastic.  

Not a great day again.  Its hard to see how the apparent speed discrepancy can be overcome.

Ok, so today makes it a bit more interesting. 

Great they’re making a fight of it, they didn’t have the best of luck in the earlier races.

Be great if it goes down to the last race.

Today's race was great. I wish NZ hadn't won it so we could have more of those to see.

Overall, though, I can't – as a sailor – enjoy this form of "yacht racing". Sure, it's spectacular and I'm happy to have watched it for free but it's upwind-downwind in a rectangle with extremely limited boundaries and – frankly – it's boring as f--ck. They could really just make it one, short upwind leg (an anti-slalom if you will) or decide each race based on who wins the first cross out the box, then up the match to something bonkers like 100 bouts of it. The format would only be better.

Even today's final race was basically "GG" after the first cross. The commentary crew crowed about how the Brits supposedly "won" the start but both boats issued forth perfectly from the box in my opinion: UK getting a sliver of an advantage up the course but NZ getting the right-hand side in time for the left shift (EDIT: that is, the lefty while they were still on port, out the box, heading to the right boundary), leaving them in phase, with options to hit from starboard at the cross.

After that, NZ got away. Marginal mistakes opened the door for a UK counter-attack which made a later upwind leg a close thing (indeed) but NZ reverted to discipline, tacked on the UK bow and weren't to be passed.

I'm awaiting what Mozzy has to say about it. His coverage is just about the only reason the AC holds any interest at all, for me. (Certainly: I'm not here for the official broadcasts which never ever fail to cut to shots of the crowd on-shore just as I'm watching to see the execution of those vital bear-aways after a mark rounding!)

NZ will be the defenders again and they'll write the rules for the next one so here's a thought: why don't they pick one of the famous spots from the Aussie 18-footer competition circuit and put the next incarnation of the AC75's around one of those courses, with islands in the middle and choices of which lane to take and wot not. Now that the boat rule is pretty solid (and, it is. I like it. It's a monohull that does 40 kts in 10 kts of breeze and cants to windward for upwind gains, who wouldn't?) why don't they really show that they're ready to do some actual yachting with them?

I watched a number of the highlights of the races and as you say it was a bit boring once they had started…

Did any boat actually overtake and win a race after coming off second best at the start? Always seemed to be a bit of procession once on boat got 50m lead.

It's hard to see how the interest level matches the cost.

The women's races with six boats in slightly too light winds were interesting - seeing who could keep their boats up on the foils, but I suspect there was an element of luck as well as skill with that

I have to admit to missing the glorified dinghy racing tactics in the old J classes too.

I didn't see a race with an overtake, myself. I did not watch them all.

The same problem is demonstrated by other foiling vessels. Take windsurf foil-slalom: after someone is in the lead, it's basically up to them not to crash and their race to lose. Touch-down and all is instantly lost, stay flying to win.

The PWA somewhat solves this by holding windsurf races at crazy venues (like Pozo or Sylt) with bonkers swell and chop and wind-speeds and stuff. They don't solve the underlying problem but they do make "not crashing" as hard (and interesting) as possible.

But computerised, pneumatic-ram-controlled rocket-ships on flat water at 9kts? Precisely *what* do they expect to go wrong, except for catastrophic material failure? A "crash" would basically never occur outside of hitting a semi-submerged object or a breakage.

Imagine trad. climbing, but no hold *ever* breaks and no gear ever falls out, the walk-in enjoys 5 metre GPS accuracy the whole way, the route is marked with a projected laser-line, the rock is always dry, never polished, and nobody is ever caught out in a downpour: it's 100% deterministic.

Would that make for a good story?

But that's the point of match racing, two equally matched boats and the result is decided by skill. The NZ boat was possibly marginally faster but always (except for one day) their crew sailed better in every race by winning the start and not making a mistake.

The foilers are better than previous generations because the penalty for a mistake is brutal, they have to drive the boat right on the limit but one misjudgement and you are literally dead in the water. Top-level sport in almost any discipline is all about covering your opponent tactically, if you want spectator fun then go to World Wide Wrestling, not every sport has to lower itself to the average TV audience level.

Imagine they make rock climbing an Olympic sport??? Want a good adventure then knock up a 60ft foiling trimaran and race it alone around the world.