Americas Cup World Series- Cascais Spain

Brent Dowell

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Am I the only nut that want's to watch these races and will try to do it over the internet?

Yes, It's Yacht racing, No I don't own a yacht, but I do have a slow as get out sail boat.

I got hooked watching Americas cup races when I was in Grad school and would have to stay up all night to watch the races. Can't believe they were actually broadcast on TV back then.

Still quite a ways from the actual cup races, but this is the first in the series to determine the 'challenger'. The actual races will be in San Francisco.

It's kind of like Nascar, but with really big expensive boats on the water. They occasionally even trade paint! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
At least it will be on very early in the morning, so if I sleep through it, it's not Like Nascar where I have to feel guilty about napping through it in the middle of the afternoon...
 
I'll be watching too Brent. Right after the golf tournament, cricket match and watching the grass grow :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Yeah, with the summer curling season in full swing, I don't know if I can pull myself away long enough to watch some boat races. :p

Actually, I like watching those boats and the teams that run them. I just don't do it very often.

Brent, do you by chance have a link for a live feed?
 
One of my favorite things to watch, but unfortunately, I can't find them on TV anymore. Do you have a web address? No I don't have a yacht either. I've been working on a little 12' sail boat for at least 5 years, well I started it about 5 years ago. I am determine I will finish it up one of these day. I have never sailed or even been in a sail boat, but I hope to. I'd better hurry, I'm getting old!

Is this the place to watch them?:

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12992_7079110,00.html
 
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Yeah, with the summer curling season in full swing, I don't know if I can pull myself away long enough to watch some boat races. :p

Actually, I like watching those boats and the teams that run them. I just don't do it very often.

Brent, do you by chance have a link for a live feed?

They say there will be a live feed here somewhere, but I'm guessing you have to wait till it's actually one? :huh:

http://www.americascup.com/
 
One of my favorite things to watch, but unfortunately, I can't find them on TV anymore. Do you have a web address? No I don't have a yacht either. I've been working on a little 12' sail boat for at least 5 years, well I started it about 5 years ago. I am determine I will finish it up one of these day. I have never sailed or even been in a sail boat, but I hope to. I'd better hurry, I'm getting old!

Is this the place to watch them?:

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12992_7079110,00.html

Well that link looks like it should have something Paul! Thanks for that!
 
But seriously, watching the races on TV when they have all of the computer tracking and you can watch the tacking duels and see the lines they take, it's really kind of fascinating. At least to a frustrated sailor in the middle of Nevada...
 
Looks like a race is about to begin on AmericasCup.com.

What I didn't realize is that on these fancy boats, they don't have all the fancy electronics like they used to. No compass, no windgauge, no gps plotters. It's all down to instinctual sailing, on an enormous catamaran....
 
Looks like a race is about to begin on AmericasCup.com.

What I didn't realize is that on these fancy boats, they don't have all the fancy electronics like they used to. No compass, no windgauge, no gps plotters. It's all down to instinctual sailing, on an enormous catamaran....

Been so long since I've seen the AC that I didn't even know they'd switched to catamarans. I thought they were still using the deep hulled, weighted-keel design.
 
Yeah, It's a whole new ball game for sure. Instead of a typical sail, they have a large 'wing sail'.

Race one had light winds, not much in the way of speed. The boats are made to be able to sail with one of the hulls lifted in the air and can move I think they just said up to 25 knots? When they get more wind, it should be pretty cool to watch. Guess I need to hook up a computer to the big screen.
 
Well, I have got to figure out the schedule. I only got there in time to see Oracle cross the finish line.

By the way I don't think the link I gave is good. I couldn't find the live feed when I went there.
 
I'm watching race 3 right now on my little android tablet. It's actually doing pretty good duty as a small color TV :thumb:

There are only 3 races scheduled for today, and they are pretty short races, only scheduled to run about 20 minutes each with a total of 5 legs per race.

This last race is already on leg 2 and should be over shortly.
 
Really hard to follow what is happening as far as position during the race. If it weren't for the ongoing commentary, I'd be lost. And I always get the little pauses with the feed. I bet this really gets exciting when the wind picks up. Can't wait until tomorrow.
 
I did have to drop the rate on the video from 480 to 360 to get it to work without the glitches.

What I do like is when they show the tracks and lines for the boats. That's about the only time you get a feel for who is really in the lead, since they are never actually pointed directly at the finish line...
 
I love to sail. The races are sort of fun but I don't follow them much. Nothing against catamarans but that is just not longer America's Cup racing.

It certainly is different, I'll grant you that. I kind of liked the old ones with the big yachts and huge crews. The winner of the cup gets to make the decisions about the format of the race, so my guess is the only constant is that things will change again someday.

Todays races were short, and slow. It will be interesting to watch the races when the winds pick up. My guess is it will be a bit more exciting then...
 
After watching the last two races of the day of the America's Cup it got me crazy in the head. This afternoon I had sunstroke and went into the garage/yard sale storage building and once again found my sail boat (took me a couple hours moving stuff again). I took the deck off and found the it had set long enough for the popcorn styrofoam to settle in and was able to add about 1" more. Then I started clamping the deck down It fits pretty good I have a few little cuts to make and some filing and I well be ready to screw it down. More America's Cup races tomorrow morning so I should be stoked enough to get the cuts and filing done, maybe even screw the front portion of the deck down.

By the way, I like to watch Curling also!:eek::dunno:
 
Thanks for posting this Brent, I too love watching these races. Its difficult spectator sport for television i think.

I used to race catamarans and love sailing. Always said to Loml that i would sell up tomorrow and go buy a boat if she was willing.

To understand it properly one needs to know the basic rules and to appreciate whats involved one needs to have had some exposure to the issues of getting a yatch, cat, dinghy around a marker with the course set correctly so the wind direction at each marker is appropriate and then do it without touching the mark.

These teams make it look real easy. I like the fact that there is no equipment and its up to sailing skill.


The class of cats i used to sail, when came time for our annul championship, the manufacturer in SA stepped up to the plate and would produce 10 identical boats. They even weighed each hull as it was manufactured to make sure the each had exactly the same weight.

All the sails were white as was the hulls (there used to be a great deal of debate about what colors did to the speed:)).

Then the final 10 skippers and their crew got to race against each other in a series of races with these brand new boats.

It took all the cheque book sailors out of the equation and showed who can really read the wind and sail a boat.

I would love to get sailing again. I think its a great sport to keep fit and instead of mindlessly working the treadmill or whatever in a gym at least one uses ones brain and body together and at the same time get some fresh air.:D
 
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