It was interesting to watch just to see the technology they were using.
It wasn't a normal regatta as in the past. BMW/Oracle from Golden Gate Yacht club basically forced a 'Deed of Gift' challenge through their lawyers in court. Alinghi the Swiss defender was forced by the court to hold the match. It was a best 2 out of 3 series with just the two boats, no challenger series with many boats as usual.
Because it was a 'Deed Of Gift' challenge, there were very little rules on the boat designs, the only real constraint was a 90' water line length. BMW/Oracle built a very light Trimaran that was 90' long on the waterline and had a 90' beam. It carried a 223' high hard wing main sail, the biggest wing sail ever built, far bigger than the wings on a A380 plane. Alinghi answered with a Catamaran also 90' long on the waterline and 90' on the beam. It carried a 180' high mast with soft sails.
The deciding factor in both races was clearly the wing sail on BMW/Oracle, it was just plain faster on all points of sail. Alinghi also suffered from some bone head helmsman mistakes in both starts that left them with a penalty turn each time. However in both races by the time they reached the finish line and did their turn they were so far behind it didn't matter.
BMW/Oracle made mistakes as well. In the first race, after they forced a penalty on Alinghi for failing to keep clear, they sat in a 'dial up' for a few minutes and lost control. BMW/Oracle ended up stalled in irons and it took forever for them to get going. By then Alinghi had started and was way ahead. With the wing sail however BMW/Oracle was so fast up wind that they caught and passed Alinghi and had a big lead of their own by the windward mark. Unlike the usual AC courses race 1 was a single upwind and downwind leg each 20 Nm long.
What is amazing to watch is these monsters sailing. Both could easily fly their hulls in only 2-3 knots of wind. Their normal speeds were over 3 times the true wind speed. The boats were regularly sailing 18-20 knots upwind and were in the mid twenties down wind. On the reaches they were pushing 30 knots. All this in wind that average 6-10 knots. At one point during practice BMW/Oracle was clocked at 22 knot in only 2 knots of true wind speed. They create so much of their own apparent wind that even going down wind the head sail is sheeted in tight and the main is still on the center line.
While it may have been a strange match, it really showed what is possible when the designers are given a blank slate without a bunch of artificial constraints.
You should be able to watch replays at
http://www.espn360.com with Gary Jobsen doing the commentary.
More info here
http://www.cupinfo.com/ and here
http://www.americascup.com/en/index.html
By the way, NZ never used a cat. Back in the 90's NZ also forced a 'Deed Of Gift' challenge in the courts and brought over a huge monohull. Dennis Conner met that challenge for the US with a cat with a hard wing sail although it was much smaller than these boats. The cat ran circles around the mono hull.
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