Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Old-time listeners will recall that since my ownership, as a young man, of KC 166 (which was Canada’s Tornado-class Olympic catamaran the year before I purchased it), I have been keeping abreast of developments in the fields of multihull and hydrofoil sailing, as a result of which we have had previous mentions here at LNR of, for example: the hydrofoil trimaran l’Hydroptère (and here ~ she’s currently the world’s fastest sailboat, at just under 90 km/h), of the sixty-foot ORMA-class ocean-going Brossard and Géant (and here) trimarans, and, of course, of HMCS Bras d’Or.
So it should not surprise that I have been keeping track of developments in the perhaps bizarre saga of The 33rd edition of the venerable America’s Cup yacht races, which, if all goes as planned, and if no more legal challenges are launched over the next two days, will begin, in Valencia, Spain, on Monday morning at 02:00 Mountain time. Furthermore, if all goes as planned, it is my understanding that live streaming video will be available at the americascup.com website. I’ve scheduled a little party for that time here at my place.
While I find some of the legal wrangling kind of silly (I s’pose a deed is a legal matter, though) it remains the case that these 90-foot “load waterline length” multihull sailboats in this 33rd cup are fascinating reflections of the state of the art in sailing technology. Not only that, in my experience as a multihull skipper and occasional monohull crewman, the strategy and tactics of this sort of race will be radically different from that of a monohull challenge. We shall see.
Anyway, I just wanted to give y’all a heads up about the timing of the first race and the streaming video option, so that those who may be further interested in watching, live, how this all turns out, will have time to prepare.
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.