ORACLE TEAM USA won the 34th America’s Cup in a winner-take-all 19th race, defeating challenger Emirates Team New Zealand by 44 seconds in today’s clincher. Led by 35-year-old skipper Jimmy Spithill, ORACLE TEAM USA won by the score of 9-8.
This is the second America’s Cup win for ORACLE TEAM USA and Spithill, which won the 162-year-old trophy in Valencia, Spain, in February 2010. Then 30 years of age, Spithill became the youngest to ever skipper a Cup winning team.
In the past week ORACLE TEAM USA has steadily improved its boatspeed to the point where it could hydrofoil upwind at 30-32 knots, incredible performance never seen before in the America’s Cup … Pictures and more
www.stokednews.com
G’day Deano and the crew.
This is from us back home. You’ll be having some strategy meeting. Knocking around a few ideas. Hell, you might even be asleep. Us at home? We’re doing that too. You’ll have your eye on the big picture, the San Francisco bay weather, the clouds, the rules, what the Americans (or is it Aussies?) are doing to their boat over night. Probably giving the big outboard motor a polish, if the last few days are anything to go by.
We don’t know about any of that stuff. We know bugger all about sailing … More
www.stokednews.com
When did sailors start wearing helmets?
If you haven’t been watching the America’s Cup – and odds are you haven’t – then you’ve missed the transformation of a stodgy old race into an X Game.
Yes, the America’s Cup – to be decided on Wednesday in a final, winner-take all race between the United States and New Zealand – has become an extreme sport, complete with breakneck speeds (on water anyway), whip-fast turns and danger, so much so that one sailor has already died … More
www.stokednews.com
After staging an improbable comeback from 7 points behind and with no margin for error, ORACLE TEAM USA has forced a winner-take-all race tomorrow for the 34th America’s Cup after sweeping both races today.
ORACLE TEAM USA won Race 17 by 27 seconds and Race 18 by 54 seconds and now stands even with Emirates Team New Zealand on the scoreboard with 8 points each. Only twice before in the 162-year history of the America’s Cup has there been a winner-take-all final race, in 1920 and 1983. In 1920 the defender won and in ’83 the challenger won.
The Kiwis have been on match point since last Wednesday, Sept. 18, but … More
www.stokednews.com