It is better than I hoped!

What is he talking about now? 

The America's Cup races from my place in San Francisco.  It was a pretty good bet that I'd have a good look at the race as it progressed. Well, what I have learned this week is that it is more than just pretty good. From my little studio I can see the start line, the leeward gate, the windward gate and the finish line all without obstruction.  It is unbelievably good! Absolutely Amazing!  

One of my guests called this the 'Candy Corn' as in, "I see they are towing the candy corn out to set the gates for the race."  Yup, candy corn it is!  The boats had to race up and down the course and there were two pairs of candy corn (i.e., the gate) setting the turning points windward and leeward

Each race day I hosted friends who wanted to view the race. The price of admission is quite reasonable with parking being the big issue.  Fisherman's Wharf isn't the best place to park a car for free and my building only has five guest spots so it can be a challenge. Once here, however, the view is out of this world. 

The beginning of the fourth race and Sweden's Artemis takes an early lead. You can see both boats are up on their (hydro)foils. But, Artemis was penalized and then penalized again for ignoring (missing?) the first penalty.  A penalty means a time delay and they never recovered.  

The start of a yacht race is a true puzzle. Both boats must be in an imaginary box behind the start line at least 1 minute before the race starts. Well, its a relatively small box and the objective is to put your competitor in a bad position as the race begins with the sound of a starting gun.  For the 3rd race, Luna Rossa was so effective, it has the Swedish team sailing away from the start line as the gun sounded.  The Swedes apparently took the lead in the 4th race but the judges ruled they had faulted the Italian boat during the starting maneuvering and were given a penalty.  They ignored the penalty and were given a second penalty for ignoring the first.  It wasn't a surprise about ignoring the penalty, the TV announcers, experienced yachting competitors themselves, were claiming the Italian boat had fouled the Swedes!  So I guess the Swedish team was not looking for the penalty signal as appeared they would be the beneficiary. 

Unfortunately, in this competition, a penalty means you have to slow down for a fixed number of seconds while your competitor gets to sail away at full speed.  And, at this point in the race (2nd leg), the Italians were sailing downwind meaning a speed in excess of 30 mph while the Swedish team waited for the penalty to time out.  

The race has seven segments and this is the Artemis boat near the end of its 2nd leg (sailing downwind) at the turn marker while Luna Rossa is on its 3rd leg (sailing upwind) after completing the turn. The lead by Luna Rossa is the result of the penalties incurred by Artemis at the start of the 2nd segment. 

The difference between sailing downwind and upwind is the advantage of being able to hydrofoil in the downwind direction.  In the bay, when the boats are sailing from west to east (left to right), there is enough speed that they can 'foil' to go even faster.  In these pictures of each boat you can see the boat is up on the foils in the downwind direction. Think about this--the boats weigh in excess of 7 tons and they are riding on a carbon fiber hydrofoil.  It looks like they have three foils in this pictures but in reality there is one main foil and two rudders. The rudders do provide some lift and weight bearing but not much.  

In last month's preliminaries, Luna Rossa had not yet mastered sailing and maneuvering on their foils. It appears they learned a lot in the past several weeks.  

Both boats are up out of the water riding on their 'foils'.  The speed while downwind on the foils often exceeded 30 knots (about 35 mph) although they were being driven by winds that were half that speed. Amazing technology!  

Now compare the two pictures of the boat in the upwind direction. Their speed is cut to about 20 knots (about 24 mph) because one of the two pontoons are down on the water.  Having a pontoon in the water creates more 'drag' than being on a hydrofoil so the boats are slower. 

Upwind results in one pontoon being in the water and reducing the speed. 

Also upwind and also going slower. The rigging you see is the Barcalutha, docked in the Maritime museum on Hyde pier.
Click here to see the USS Barcalutha. 

The lead created by the penalties was insurmountable.  Artemis was the team who suffered the horrible accident in the spring where one of their sailors was killed.  The boat was destroyed and they did not get a competitive boat until two weeks ago. So they were competing against an Italian team that had more than 100 days experience on these big, fast boats while they had only a couple of weeks.  I and my guests cheered for the Swedish team, but it didn't help very much!  

My last views are of the race as it ends.  Luna Rossa crossed the finish line a full two minutes ahead of Artemis. 

Luna Rossa finishes the fourth and final race of the semifinals. In the background is the new bay bridge and Yerba Buena island 

You can see the candy corn of the far mark at the finish line. The other candy corn that forms the finish line is hidden by the buildings on the wharf.

The next series is the finals for the Louis Vuitton Cup starting Saturday August 17.  By beating the Swedish team, the Italians have earned the position to compete in the best of thirteen finals against New Zealand's Emirates team. The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup then competes starting September 7th against the Golden Gate Yacht Club's Oracle Team USA for the America's Cup in a best of 17 series. This is the 34th competition for the cup which began in 1851 with the winning boat, America, beating the English competitor. 

Besides these pictures, I have more posted at:  http://patlamey.smugmug.com

You'll find me here watching the races!  Let me know if you'd like to come over and watch too!