America’s Cup – San Francisco will play host to a very different America’s Cup Finals. With a focus on enhancing the overall event experience, substantial enhancements are being added to both on and off the water elements.
‘San Francisco couldn’t be prouder to host the 34th America’s Cup. With our natural stadium at the footsteps of the City and our consistent, heavy winds, San Francisco Bay will be an arena for some of the most spectacular racing the world has ever seen,’ said Mayor Gavin Newsom … Pictures & More
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Giant Steps – was the first of the gigantic multihulls that continue to capture the public imagination, especially in FranceDubbed the “aluminum octopus†because of its radical appearance, Eric Tabarly’s 68-foot trimaran Pen Duick IV was the forerunner of today’s record-setting ocean-racing multihulls. The boat had to withdraw a few days into its first Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR) in 1968, but it won the quadrennial event in 1972 in a record 20 days, 13 hours and 15 minutes, with Alain Colas at the helm. Colas went on to sail Pen Duick IV singlehanded around Cape Horn as well. Tragically, Colas and Pen Duick IV were both lost at sea in 1978 during the inaugural Route du Rhum singlehanded race from France to Guadeloupe.
An Innovator’s Innovator – Dick Newick’s multihull designs didn’t just break with convention, they left it standing still. In the late 1960s, Newick created the 40-foot proa Cheers, which finished third in the 1968 OSTAR. (Unlike other sailboats, proas are double-ended and “shunt†back and forth instead of tacking, basically reversing direction rather than turning through the eye of the wind.) Newick’s 51-foot Moxie, pictured … Pictures & More
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San Francisco – After months of debating, speculation, rumor and intrigue, it was announced on the very last day of 2010 that the city of San Francisco has won the right to host the next America’s Cup. The event will be the first America’s Cup held in the United States in over 15 years, and the first time the Cup has ever been held on the San Francisco Bay, and it is hoped that the venue will introduce millions of new fans to the sport of sailing.
“Today is one of great celebration, with San Francisco winning the right to host the America’s Cup, and all of the economic benefit, jobs and excitement that comes with it,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “San Francisco is the best place on Earth to host an event of this stature, and we could not be more proud to be the city that brings the America’s Cup back home to the United States.”   … Details
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If you thought that the America’s Cup controversy ended last February, then you’d be wrong. In a move which has shocked many and so far apparently pleased few in the world of sailing, it seems that the 34th America’s Cup racing will be anything but traditional, and quite likely even farther out of the reach of anyone but the super-rich than any non-DOG Cup race ever. For the first time in the cup’s history, the entire fleet will be on hi-tech winged catamarans, and the era of the America’s Cup monohulls may be gone forever … More
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