Americas Cup

Yeah those evil Boeing baddies!

If it was a genuine comeback, then they deserve all the congratulations they get.

But seeing the speed gain they got from the boat overnight, for many , is a bit suspicious.

True, it certainly is a bit fishy. That being said they were awesome to watch. Great comeback too, got to be down to Ben Ainslie though

No, it's a common thing in America's Cup racing to alter your boat to gain a speed advantage during the racing; it's not sour grapes; that's the way the America's Cup is fought. There's no sportsmanship or fair play in this competition, that's why its so important to win. It's not Formula One where you start with each boat being identical, you do whatever you can to win. The prestige of winning an America's Cup is huge because of the fact that the odds are always stacked against the challenger. This is one reason why the Kiwis couldn't win; they are too nice and have too much of a sense of fair play, not to mention a smaller budget than Oracle. Spithill is an ideal captain; he's a bulldog, Dean Barker is a great helmsman, but he's hampered by his lack of animal instinct. The America's Cup is about Victory at all costs.

As for the racing, ETNZ was faster than Oracle on the upwind legs in the first nine races by a country mile, then never won another and was never able to gain any kind of speed advantage unless Oracle made a mistake. ETNZ most definitely had the faster boat to begin with, but Oracle pulled out all the stops to rectify that in the only way an American funded syndicate can. Do you honestly believe that just changing a tactician is going to win for you when the opposition's boat is much faster than your own? There is a long history in America's Cup racing of doing this.

I know for certain that there were many in the sport who were hoping ETNZ would win because the Kiwis announced that they would change the format and the boats if they did to make the competition fairer and less expensive in order to open up the competition; the AC-72s are far too expensive to build an operate to enable a fair competition, but Larry Ellison has stated that he'll keep the AC-72s. I wonder who'll mount the next challenge; Grant Dalton of ETNZ has stated this'll be his last cup challenge.

Very few Kiwis I've met that I didn't like.....

Maybe next year will be one boat, manned by one Yank!

forget the nationalities, its the people that won. In the nd, no matter how fast the boat, how much technology is poured into it, its people out there doing the racing or getting the boat up to speed or managinng the whole shabang that made the difference. Introducing new design midway through a race does have its risks....i bet even that was assessed by the US team.

But contest between NZ and the US this was not.

I should add that the Kiwis proved that as a team they could convincingly beat the Americans; if the competition was even and the boats were identical throughout the competition, the Kiwis would have won hands down; they were the better yachtsmen, but that's not how the America's Cup is raced. Even in the very last race, Oracle made some poor decisions and sloppy sailing.

I view the Americas Cup like I do formula 1 or Nascar. Sure the driver is very important and his/her nationality is irrelevant to the team. All the engineering that goes on behind the scenes is the interesting part to me.

Yep, I agree, Matt, the technology in those AC-72s is amazing. The difference between America's Cup and Formula One and Nascar is that on the whole, in the motor races the cars are roughly the same and teams cannot and do not alter their cars mid way through a race, unlike the yacht racing. Parsifal, if individual skill as a yachting team held sway in the last America's Cup, ETNZ would have won; they were far more polished and handled their boat far better than Oracle.

nuuumannn said:

Parsifal, if individual skill as a yachting team held sway in the last America's Cup, ETNZ would have won; they were far more polished and handled their boat far better than Oracle.

Click to expand...

If the most skilled team always won, the US Olympic Hockey Team would never had beaten the Soviets in 1980. (33 years and this still blows me away - Sports Illustrated named it the #1 Sporting Moment of the 20th Century)

If the richest teams always won, the New York Yankees would have won more than one World Series since 2000 and the Dallas Cowboys (worth $500 million more than the 2nd richest team) would have won at least one Super Bowl since 1996.

In the 2012 baseball playoff, the Giants came back to win their division series after being down 2-0 in a best-of-five game series, then coming back again in League Championship series after being down 3-1 in a best-of seven game series, then went on to sweep in the World Series (so they won seven straight). (Two amazing comebacks followed by a sweep.)

In the 1960 World Series, the Yankees won three games: 16-3, 10-0, and 12-2; the Pirates won four: 6-4, 3-2, 5-2, and 10-9, and thus the World Series. In total, the Yankees outscored the Pirates a total of 55-27, out-hit them .338 - .256, and out-homered them 10-4. (All the numbers save the number of games won point to the Yankees thrashing the Pirates.)

And as of right now, with just a couple games left in the season, the Oakland A's ($65M payroll, 4th lowest of 32 teams) have the third-best record in the Major Leagues, behind only the Red Sox ($157M, 4th-highest) and the Cardinals ($116M, 11th). The team with the 3rd highest payroll - Philadelphia at $160M - is sitting at a 73-88 record. The Yankees with a $230M payroll, highest in baseball, have only the 8th best record in the American League and were long ago eliminated from the playoff. (In this case I just hate the Yankees, so I'm gloating!)

The list of unthinkable underdog triumphs goes on and on, which, of course, is why the games are played.

(And, yes, I was bored enough to go ahead and research this WAY overblown post. As long as the Cup uses catamarans I'll be protesting; I wanna see traditional single-hull sailboats!)