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Come on Sir Ainslie and crew....
Oracle FTW but Ben to qualify coming second.
My mates are mark laying and have been out for the practice sessions, say Ben has the speed but has made some tactical errors (unusual) hopefully he'll sort that out 😆
Proper wind for ,Saturday if anyone's down my way, you can see you it all from Alverbank.
It isn't the Americas Cup. It is the Americas Cup World Series; an event contrived to provide a fig leaf for BAR's plundering of national and local taxpayers' money and the setting aside of planning guidelines to build the carbuncle of a boat shed in the heart of historic Old Portsmouth.
I hope he sinks!
But Portsmouth is a carbuncle!
But Portsmouth is a carbuncle!
+1
Dam him for having the audacity to build a shipyard in Portsmouth.
Been watching them setup from work the last 10days. Proper fast looking boats!
Thankfully the traffic was light this morning still!
I am thinking of going down to have a look, but will I see anything from the shore ? Or will I need a telescope ?
Can you get close up in a marina, or will it be like F1 and all very expensive and distant ?
ohnohesback - Member
It isn't the Americas Cup. It is the Americas Cup World Series; an event contrived to provide a fig leaf for BAR's plundering of national and local taxpayers' money and the setting aside of planning guidelines to build the carbuncle of a boat shed in the heart of historic Old Portsmouth.
Yes! Yes it is, but whats your point exactly?
😀
Double post
To Trimix's question; the latter.
Amazing boats/ships/floaty things but not exactly a spectator friendly or easy to participate in sport.
Trimix, There's a grandstand you can (or could, presume it's sold out) pay to get into or you can watch from anywhere with a view. It'll be quite close inshore, more likely to struggle to see over peoples heads than anything else.
Amazing boats/ships/floaty things but not exactly a spectator friendly or easy to participate in sport.
While it's not the cheapest sport in the world, for kids you could buy a boat, PFD and club membership for less than a PS3. You could get a years sailing in for about the same cost as entering them in a 5-a-side league for a year (and sell the boat afterwards).
As an adult (or a serious kid) a weekend's racing at an open meeting is £20-£30, club membership is usually £200 for as much local racing as you can shake stick at, and boats don't depreciate or fall apart like bikes, so a good boat starts at about the same or less than a good bike (£1k would get you a boat that left you few/no excuses at club level).
Looking at the Americas Cup and saying it's not [i]"spectator friendly or easy to participate in"[/i] is like looking at the Premier League and telling your kid they can't have a kick around in the park because a stadium costs £2billion.
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Blimey, that has utterly ruined that beautiful patch of dockland. 😐
I'm excited for it- I don't believe BAR can do it but if they do end up winning everything, blimey wouldn't that be good?
Pigface- it's pretty easy to get into sailing at a normal level, you could in theory buy our old Enterprise for about £200 in lovely sailable condition and learn the ropes (lolz!). Then if you turn out to be amazing at it you can work up to an America's Cup yacht. In the same way you could buy a 20 year old Ford Fiesta and go rallying and if you're amazing you might end up F1 driving- which is not an easy to participate in sport.
I suspect there'll be a grandstand, and camera boats with it being shown on telly. Heck I did a race at Ullswater three weeks ago and they put on a steamer for people to follow the race and that was just an amateur event. We also get people turning up at our club and sitting on the bank with binoculars watching the racing, which is free and goes on all day- better than 90 minutes of football for £60!
There's actually even cheaper ways of getting into it, turn up at the club a couple of hours before a race and see who needs crew, you'll end up on the 4ksb at the back, but someone else is paying the bills so who cares! And once you've figured out that being foredeck crew is more like a crossfit workout on a bouncy castle than that scene in Titanic you'll get invited out on the faster boats.
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[/img] http://www.dryshirt.com/merchant5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Dry&Product_Code=SAFUT&Category_Code=Club
I did that when I lived in Sydney and it was great- boats were always short a crew member and they would be happy to ply you with beer once all the hard work of beating was finished!
aaah remember one summer when just being in the right place at the right time had me do the last race in a spring series in the solent which led to a trip to the south of france for some metre boat stuff, back to Brittany for a nationals (still no idea why it was in France), then Cowes, then straight onto a boat for the Fastnet. Think it was 2001 and the Jubilee regatta was in there as well. Oh to be a student again... I think I had to buy a ticket to Nice and a few beers and that was it. Trying to do some sums on ownership at the moment so I can give others this sort of opportunity, but it's not looking likely for a while 🙁
Will this event be available to view online? As the last Americas Cup in San Francisco was and if so, where please?
Thank you 😀
Try Virtual Skipper.
Or the Americas Cup site..
Thanks bikebuoy. Ive just done a bit of Google. The official site has a subscription live stream and Ill go check virtual skipper.
Hmmm... not a Mac friendly game! Racing Cruisers on the Norfolk Broads is where the proper boat handling is at and unfortunately, round the cans in lots of navigable water is overrated for me 😉
I'll bet Conservative clubs the across the land are showing 24hr coverage.
I think BT Sport are covering it, and I'm pretty sure they'll be plenty of coverage on YouTube via the AC channel.
I'm going down to Portsmouth on Saturday morning to watch the racing - Fanzone on Saturday, blagged a place on someones boat for water-based spectating on Sunday. Looking forward to it loads!
Nick
It's been ages since I used virtual skipper but in their day they were pioneers of plotting races via live gps feeds, so forgive me for that dead end.
But the AC site did have live tracker feeds and graphics last time around, but true I forgot about the YouTube vids they show.
I'm going over on Sunday, Saturday looks property windy and may stand on the shore at either Alverbank or Southsea.. Probe Alverbank.
I'll check with the club, see if they know of any feeds..
Come on, what's not to like?
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I can't quite get over the cost... He said last night on a radio interview he's raised £80m... For a boat race...
Those photos look good, but from the shore I think the view may be a little less exciting.
I need a 600mm lens, not the 300 I currently have.
its not really sailing anymore. but should be quite entertaining. and £80m for the top racing of an already quite expensive sport, is not much really. Whats the budget for one of the lower grid position F1 teams?
less than this...
#edit - sorry for the poor use of English grammar there.
£80m... For a boat race...
Not quite a 'boat race'... This is billionaire willy waving...
@yetidave - interesting link. This specifically:
The cost seems to be close to £100 million just for regular points finishes
So, that's £100m a year for a regular F1 team. I think the quoted £80m figure for Ben Ainslie Racing is to cover 3 years of operations. Makes sailing a bargain, relatively 😉
Nick
I love the way they look when they float out of the water like that. Why is one of the keels bent inward? Is it to help it get airborne?
Nah, it's about lift in the water, the foil acts like a wing under water and provides lift. When ones up, the others down and providing lift (clearly depends on what tack they are on..)
nickb, that was the point I was trying so badly to make, not sure why I made it so difficult to get my point across..!
Here's a vid of Foiling Moths. Gives you an idea of where it all started..
We've got 35 of them at the club and if you are bored one day and don't get chance to see the Americas Cup well head over to Hayling Island and take a peek in Chichester Harbour on a Sat/Sun afternoon..
Anyone know if there's any live/online coverage of the practice races this afternoon? Looks like BT Sport are only covering the racing on Saturday and Sunday.
Nick
SA were hinting they were going to have free video coverage, keep an eye on the front page?
SA - what/where is that?
Thanks
Nick
bikebuoy- we were racing against one of those on Ullswater. The wind was very shifty and had huge holes in it between 2 and 6mph. He didn't look to be having a good time! Fortunately it got up to 26mph out of nowhere later.
www.sailinganarchy.com
SA is a more abusive version of STW, but for sailorers...
Sa used to be a giggle, but they just seem to diss and bash anything these days.
Bitter? Oh yeah.
Nothing like STW.
I like the good old days when the boats actually sailed on the water. 😉
bikebouy - Member
Here's a vid of Foiling Moths. Gives you an idea of where it all started..
We've got 35 of them at the club and if you are bored one day and don't get chance to see the Americas Cup well head over to Hayling Island and take a peek in Chichester Harbour on a Sat/Sun afternoon..
I love Moths. Built a couple back in the 70s when the tunnel hulls started coming through. Never knew you could buy ply so thin...
Did Sailing Canoes for a while too. Luckily I then discovered windsurfing and then kitesurfing. And the scariest time ever was on a foiling kiteboard. Thanks a bunch Laird Hilton.