Oracle boss Larry Ellison wanted to make the America's Cup as exciting as Nascar. He's succeeded.
His team, the defending champs at Oracle Team USA, capsized one of its wickedly fast AC72 catamarans in San Francisco Bay on Tuesday during the team's eighth day on the water, then scrambled to keep it from drifting out to sea.
"We've been pushing the boat all the time and every day we go out we're pushing it more and more," team tactician Tom Slingsby told reporters. "We found our limit."
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America's Cup Racers Push Sailboats to the LimitNo kidding.
These boats are fast and mean, designed to be the most demanding sailboats on the water with the most skilled crews on the planet. They don't use sails, but wings. They're made largely of carbon fiber, and they're huge: 72 feet long, with a beam of 46 feet and a mast 131 feet, 7 inches tall. They can hit 30 knots, and it takes 11 people to sail them.
According to the Cup folks, conditions were "fresh," with 25-knot winds and one of the strongest ebb currents of the year. As the team turned downwind away from San Francisco, the bow dove, the stern rose and the boat pitch-poled.
In other words, it flipped.
“When the nose went down, the wing hit and a few guys went in the water,” Slingsby said in a statement. “We were unsure if the wing would snap, so we all climbed off the boat.”
The boat slammed into the water on its side, destroying the carbon fiber wing sail and scattering very, very expensive bits of carbon fiber over the bay. No one was injured, but the current pulled the boat through the Golden Gate and out to sea even as the team, joined by a crew dispatched from shore, tried to rein in the wreckage.
"It was amazing — we watched it tip right over, and it looked like the top of the wing came right off," one witness told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Then the big ebb tide just took it right out under the bridge, and it was obvious there was nothing they could do."
The team managed to return the boat, or what's left of it, to shore Wednesday morning. The wing was destroyed and the boat, which costs $8-10 million, needs extensive repairs. The rules allow each team to build two AC72 boats; this was the first of the two launched by Oracle. The second hits the water early next year.
“There's no question this is a setback. This will be a big test for our team,” said skipper Jimmy Spithill. “But I've seen these guys in a similar situation in the past campaign before we won the America's Cup. A strong team will bounce back from it.”
