Americas Cup: Follow the Leader… to New Zealand

Images Chris Cameron. | Changes & modifications for Oracle following TNZ were not enough, they managed to fly just as good and even little bit faster. But upwind and tacking there is nothing John Kostecki, Ben Ainsle or Russell Coutts can do. They missed the self tack Jib though… what were they thinking? In each tack OR assigns man power to this operation when Kiwis drink an expresso while walking through the space age tramp …

I though that in Mid range conditions like they had yesterday, 12-13, knots OR could improve their performance upwind , but it was not the case. The Tractor hulls kept speeding, I wonder now if with -10knots TNZ could show any drag penalty against OR hulls…

We will never know I guess as San Francisco is like a Wind stadium, where turbo wind engines are working 24×7. Thus the key aspect on designing specifically for SF. Have you noticed that this regatta is running like a Swiss clock? No delay whatsoever and perfect conditions each day, going for this venue was a midfield goal.

Sometimes money cannot buy you everything, and Larry Ellison might be wondering what went wrong. Pushing for Multis in 2010 & in this edition with Coutts was a bold move and a great benefit for us all, a futuristic preview of things to come, in the process he lost this Cup being local and with some valuable Multi & Wing knowhow advantage.

Emirates Team New Zealand were flawless perfection in every aspect, it was clear for some months now that they were in extremely good shape, they ended being untouchables on their combined crew & design skills.

For us sailing fanatics this was a mind blowing show, an event to be remembered for many generations to come.

On Monday some renders from TNZ 3D scaled as an F18 compared to the F18OP & Cirrus R.