Photos & Video: Oracle Team Sail AC45 Boat
The defending champion of the America’s Cup launched its training boat today [May 4] for the first time and put in over two hours of testing on the future race course of the America’s Cup.
“Today is the first day for our AC45 out on the Great Sound. We’ve been working towards this moment for nearly six months since Bermuda was announced as the venue,” said Tom Slingsby, the sailing team manager and tactician for Team Oracle USA.
“The goal today is to commission the boat. While this AC45S has sailed before in February, today we need to get out there, check all the systems and make sure everything is working as it should.”
.
Although Slingsby said the real training and practice would take place later in the week, it didn’t take the team long to start pushing both boat and crew.
“Pretty much from the start we were foil-gybing and we even took a crack at a couple of foiling tacks. It was fantastic. A perfect day in Bermuda with 15 knots of breeze. ” said skipper Jimmy Sptithill, who also navigated the boat at speed through a local race course.
“The International One Design fleet was out having a race and we were absolutely tearing past them and we were getting a few hoots and hollers,” Spithill said. “People are really blown away when they see what this boat can do.”
Oracle Team USA will continue to train on its AC45S as well as the smaller foiling Phantom catamarans and Moths on the Great Sound over the coming weeks.
“It’s a real statement to be the first ones out there on the 45-footer and to get a feel for the race course on a boat of this size,” Spithill said. “It can only help to give us an advantage as we come into the race period.”
Click to enlarge photos:
Read More About
Category: All, News, Photos, Sports, Sports, Videos
So… As usual.. The Americans (With a KIWI in control for the $$$) already think they control everything??? I HOPE the Kwiw’s come in and *SAIL THEIR A$$* off – like they did in Auckland!!!
I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THEM!!!
whoa.
someone hasn’t had their coffee yet
Who cares if the skipper is a Kiwi it’s not the Olympics & just like in F1 the teams are based in a certain country & they hire drivers from another country.For example Lewis Hamilton is British & drives Mercedes Benz a Germany team based in Britain. Maybe you should watch the last America’s Cup to see how bad the Kiwi’s got slaughtered in the last 8 races & Team Oracle’s historic comeback.
& furthermore Team Oracle is owned by an American Larry Ellison and by that logic every team in the EPL is a fraud when most owners & players aren’t english. Please get your facts right before you speak again & to help you understand here’s another example, Chelsea F.C.: owned by a Russian, managed & coached by a Portuguese man.
Can hardly wait!!!:-)
Still think the AC62 would have been much better to watch – these just look like souped up Hobies or Tornados…
The AC62 definitely would’ve been more of a spectacle during the 2017 event. It’s a shame that we won’t see those boats in Bermuda. However, I’m certainly in favour of a boat that will allow entry for more teams to enter the competition. There just weren’t very many boats in the last challenger series. I had more fun watching the final race series and the WS events in the AC45 one design boats.
I think it will be interesting to see how they apply the lessons from the last few years to a 48ft foiling cat and what kinds of speeds we will be seeing when 2017 rolls in.
Why no other teams here yet……….? Is this going to be a fair race…. My donkey!
Other teams are either in hot pursuit to finish set-up here or they have their bases in their home countries for now.
It all depends on how fast teams can design and build thier boats then ship them here. Out of all the teams Oracle has the largest(im pretty sure) budget so they can afford to do things faster. But to answer your question yes it is fair because there is still plenty of time to prepare(in terms of the cup).For the AC world series it will probably be a slight advantage but nothing to major.The biggest thing about learning a venue is learning the sailing conditions but the conditions we get at this time of year tend not to be the same as what we get late October. You can fine tune boat handling no matter where you sail.
Racing in the ocean is a lot different from racing on land. The ocean is ever changing & moving, tides going out & in, currents & wind directions & also water conditions such as chop or it being calm. It doesn’t matter who’s sailing more you can set a boat up one day & have to change it the next.