Quote:
Originally Posted by NoBozo
I have to agree. They got their butts kicked.
I have NO idea how Oracle bailed themselves out of the SF thing three years ago.
I think we have to remember this whole thing is now "Commercial". This suggests to me that the goal here is to increase the interest....by hanging back for awhile. Maybe Oracle has a "Special" pair of dagger boards (foils) that they are holding back for the "right" time to put on the boat.
Remember: They pick the boards on race day. They can't change out the boards in between races on a given day. The boat has to be OUT of the water to change the boards. The boards are the key.  NB |
A huge driver of overall speed during the race is the percentage of time spent foiling--sailing with only the dagger boards in the water. The key to Oracle's victory last time was that they figured out how to modify the foils to increase that percentage. Alas, for our guys, the boats are now spending almost all their time foiling. So it will be much tougher for them to gain speed from here.
Still thrilling to see these guys fly across the water, and even the losers will have been the second fastest sailors of all time.