Posted on 02/11/2010 10:38:40 PM PST by cabojoe
Race 1 of the 33rd America’s Cup Match has been postponed until Friday. Today’s attempt to commence the best-of-three Deed of Gift Match between Defender Alinghi and Challenger BMW Oracle Racing was postponed due to rough sea conditions on the Mediterranean outside Valencia.
“The waves were the biggest problem. I think they were about 1.3m average size in the start area,” said Alinghi strategist Murray Jones. “That means we could’ve had a peak of 1.8m and that’s the biggest issue.
“There was a swell coming from one direction and waves from an offset of 90 degrees to that. We’ve been out in conditions not quite that bad, but it’s heinous. I think they’ve done the right thing by not sending us out there,” Jones said.
Jones explained that strong winds in the north of Spain near France were churning up the sea, which was confirmed over the phone by Will McCarthy, an Alinghi sailing team member, out spotting at noon: “It’s very bumpy out here, confused, cold and we have seen 20knots this morning.”
The next attempt to commence the match is scheduled for Friday at 10:06. The race schedule is for one day to intervene between each race day as agreed with the Challenger. Paragraph 6.5 of the Notice of Race states that: “If a race is cancelled, abandoned or postponed that race will be sailed on the next scheduled date and the subsequent races shall be postponed for the day accordingly.”
The first attempt on Monday was postponed until today due to unstable wind conditions.
Webcast and broadcast information and links.
Weather Forecast for America's Cup
America's Cup sailors dealing with weather article at NBCsports
Here's why America's Cup boats can sail faster than the wind article at Freep.com
BMW ORACLE Racing eager for racing Friday article at USA 17 Website
BMW ORACLE Racing: Man in Motion YouTube video
America’s Cup ping
BOOOO HOOOOO!
Those waves are over 3 feet tall!
That’s too big!
Hey you two billionaire egomaniacs, get out there and race.
By the way, I hope those cheating Swiss rat bastards get there asses kicked.
I hear ya.
Go Alinghi!
Right now it sounds like they might actually have a race today.
The racers look serious and the race could go off...good coverage at http://bmworacleracing.com/en/news/livestream/index.html . Same coverage is at http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/player?gameId=8378&sportCode= but requires a download.
did they have preliminaries this year to select the final challenger and defender? or just go straight to the cup match?
I haven’t been paying attention other than hearing about a bunch of courtroom activity
Straight to the match via court. It is quite a spectacle right now. Absolutely gorgeous, and I’m not even a sail boater.
Pretty pathetic that you can’t have a race due to 3 meter waves. I undertand these ships are optimized for speed and need ideal conditions but I am sure the early American Cup ships would of easily handled some rough seas. How about changing the rules and requiring sailing in any condition, except for obviously dangerous, and then the designers would be forced to come up with some innovative tradeoffs between speed and endurance.
amazingly good streaming coverage at the BMW site. looks fascinating but I prefer the older-style yachts.
Yeah the coverage is great!
It's not about sailing anymore, it's just technological bravado. Bleh.
Kind of like the Raingutter Regatta on steroids.
USA 17 wins race 1 by 3.5 kilometers.
I agree...but a point that was brought up in the coverage was that the referee boats could barely keep up in today’s weather. The refs were getting pounded in their power boats.
Race delta including Alinghi penalty turn was 10 minutes.
Oops, USA 17 won by 15 minutes 28 seconds.
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