Neither Libby and I are sport fans by any definition. Football? Nope. Baseball? Golf? Tennis? Soccer? Nope x 4. Wrestling? Olympics? Hockey? Superbowl? Nope nope nope nope. The one only sport I enjoy is The Americas Cup finals. That sure cuts down my TV watching time to once every 4-5 years. In recent years though even that interest has faded. As the races got away from the 12 meter rule for yacht design, I thought that they became more and more contests of machines, not of men. They went from being dramatic to being boring.
I almost boycotted, watching this round of Americas Cup Races from San Francisco, but I relented and watched on youtube.com I'm glad I did. There was plenty of tactics, skill, excitement and drama in this years races. Therefore, I'm delighted to be proven wrong in my pessimism.
Who should we root for? Of course there's the national bias. Our Kiwi friends are rooting for the Kiwis, so we should root for the Americans. But Larry Ellison is not a very likable guy and I'm reluctant to root for him. So my choice is to root for drama. If Team America could even the series, leaving the final result until the final race, that would be extraordinarily dramatic.
Actually, the Americas Cup series I enjoyed most was the one from the year 2000 (more or less). Using the cutting edge technology of that time, I purchased a subscription to Virtual Spectator. That software allowed me to watch animated replays of the races. I could go forward, or reverse at any speed. I could set my vantage point to any place, including at the helm of either yacht, from above, or from 1 meter above the water between the two yachts. I could and did play the key maneuvers over and over from different vantage points.
However, I do wish they would return to the old 12 meter rule. I'll risk being a technical Luddite in this case. In fact, I wish they had identical boats, so that the entire contest would be determined by the skills of the crews, and at speeds more comparable to what"normal" sailboats sail at. I would even support dual Americas cups. One cup for identical 12 meter yachts. The other for technologically unlimited (except no stored energy) boats that could even be robotic with no people on board if they want.
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The America's cup historically was all about nationality; boats originally had to be designed and built using only technology, skill and materials from the home country and further sailed to the venue on their "own bottoms" to demonstrate sea their worthiness. Yet, sailed with professional sailors. The modern AC has morphed back to it's billionaire origins (minus the seaworthiness factor).
ReplyDeleteI too miss the "Corinthian" (non-professional) spirit of the 12 meter era sailed in sea worthy boats.
Just look whose skipping these boats to see who the best sailors money can buy are--a Kiwi and an Aussie.