To grasp the strangeness of the modern America's Cup, once the world's premier sailing competition, it is helpful to imagine a Kentucky Derby that occurs not annually but intermittently and involves different ridable quadrupeds — horses, zebras, camels, elephants — each time the event occurs. The winners choose the venue of the next race, and there are, inevitably, legal challenges of one sort or another along the way. Then the race is run, and the process begins all over again.
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This year's America's Cup finals — featuring a new, high-tech boat design — will be held in September, and the qualifying races leading up to it are under way in San Francisco Bay. No one watches the America's Cup hoping to see a crash, as some people watch a Nascar race, yet accidents have now become almost a routine part of the event, including the capsizing of a 72-foot Swedish challenger that killed Andrew Simpson, a crew member, in early May.
The AC72, the boat being raced in this year's Cup, is a high-speed wonder — a catamaran that, at top speeds and racing downwind, seems to fly above the water. Racing upwind, it sails, literally, on a knife edge; in high winds, it sails at the limits of the crew's ability to control it.
The Cup has drawn a lot of well-deserved criticism this time around. Only four boats are racing, each one a corporate conglomeration. The promised financial boon to the city of San Francisco is unlikely to pan out. The racing so far has been lackluster, except for the horrifying feeling of wondering when the next catamaran will catapult its 11-person crew into the Bay. The America's Cup has always been a rich man's sport, but there was a time, not that long ago, when its yachts bore a passing resemblance to ordinary sailboats.
No longer. Instead of sailing against the elements, making the best of wind and wave, the crews of the America's Cup are sailing against the very boats themselves.
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