Our favorite billionaire, Larry Ellison is doing his best to make the America's cup sailboat racing into some kind of X-games meets sailing. After a relatively interesting series of 45 foot catamaran races, the team is gearing up to the full size (72 foot) boats for next year. The 45 footers had some amusing crashes, but his full size boat wiped out yesterday and got carried out to sea by the currents under the Golden Gate for 4 miles before they could coral it. Out there, the waves apparently destroyed the sail. Should have said "wing", sail is just so old fashioned. This morning the boat was floating upside down next to their base a pier 80 in San Francisco.
I wonder if this will further reduce the number of competitors. At last count it was down to 5 teams based on the estimated $40 million to mount a campaign. Maybe when teams realize how fragile these beasts are it will knock out another team or two.
I will limit my comments about creating a class of boat that is so expensive and not seaworthy. But, people, this ain't sailing. It's just showing off. But if that's what the current hipsters want to see, then enjoy.
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