America’s Cup races this weekend

If you haven’t heard, the America’s Cup races, well the pre-races are this weekend in San Francisco. As anyone who has sailed in the bay in summer knows, the wind can be quite strong and on any given weekend a number of boats will be damaged. As for the AC45 cats running around on the bay, those wing-sails are a blessing and a curse. They make the boats very fast but it is hard to de-power them when the conditions get tough. On most sail boats, the sail can be adjusted to ‘spill’ air and de-power the sails. The wing is not able to de-power the same as a ‘soft’ sail and the result is the cats flip. What is good about the wing is that they are extremely efficient and allow the boats to sail very fast.

This gives this America’s Cup series something new and adds excitement. The old keel boats could at times be very slow and to watch them is not very exciting. But the bay is a great place to sail, with great conditions and excellent viewing. It is a shame that sailing in America is relegated to an almost non-existent coverage in the media. Other parts of the world follow the sailing action, but the US is far behind in that. What America wants is something that makes money and can be scene by many spectators (make more money) and is simple to follow.  Foot ball, Basketball, Baseball, car racing (not F1), golf are simple to understand. Put the ball in the hole or basket, drive in circles, no need to understand what is happening. Sailing take skill and tactics, there is no defined course to a mark, it is done away from shore and crowds can take hours or even days to finish a race and it is not easily covered by TV. So Americans can’t be bothered to invest some time to watch or to even follow a long off shore race. To bad…..

The JP Morgan Racing AC45 boat skippered by Ben Ainslie, of Great Britain, sails past the China Team AC45 boat that flipped over during a practice on San Francisco Bay for the America's Cup World Series sailing event in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012.

Team Korea goes over