Jump to content

America's Cup, Louis Vuitton Series


likalar

Recommended Posts

Advertisement (gone after registration)

M9, 135mm Elmar, cropped...Today I finally went to the shoreline to see the giant boats in action. The LV series precludes the actual America's Cup races by several weeks, and gives the teams much needed practice time to tame these beasts. Today, the New Zealand boat, seen at the right, beat the Italian Luna Rossi boat, at left, once again.

 

Larry Ellison's Oracle team, as holder of the Cup, doesn't need to race in the LV Challenger series. His spot is guaranteed, but his team has been practicing in the bay often, getting to know the equipment as much as possible before the America's Cup series. The boats are so radical that most of the teammates are on a sharp learning curve.

 

The boats are technical wonders, lightweight 72ft. catamarans speeding along at 50 mph in 20 knot winds. Hydrofoils lift the hulls several feet above the water, as seen here. The main "sail" is a fixed wing 130 ft. tall. They are prone to crashing, and 1 life has been lost already (Andrew Simpson, an Olympic gold medalist of the Artemis boat, died as a result of a capsize/boat breakage on a practice day a couple months ago). I'll post a few more shots if anyone is interested. Thanks for looking!

Larry

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Larry -

 

Beautiful. Two summers ago we saw two of them all in black on Naraganset Bay off Newport. Very impressive. A few months ago Wired magazine did a story on the technology -- even higher tech than these.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Advertisement (gone after registration)

This fine picture deserves to be commented on again because of the nice view of the NZ boat that would win the right to challenge and their outstanding effort in the Cup race. In the 132 year history there has never been such a commanding lead held (8-1) with best 9 out of 17 series and the outstanding job done by the Oracle Team America to come back and win 9 races for the victory.

 

And thanks to you, Larry, our forum has a picture of the NZ team.:)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...