Monday, September 23, 2013

Flying Sailboats

Wonderful picture by Justin Sullivan of the "boats" in this year's America's Cup, hydrofoiling on the downwind segment of the race. The Americans won two races yesterday, whittling the New Zealanders' lead to 8-5.
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2 comments:

ArEn said...

Do they really count as sailboats.

And what does it mean whittling down the lead of 8-5.

September 23, 2013 at 9:22 PM
John said...

New Zealand was leading 8-1 a few days ago, but the Americans -- really the team from Larry Ellison of Oracle -- have come back.

As to whether they are sailboats, that is a hard questions. The sailors call them "machines." I gather it does not feel like sailing, because the boat doesn't go up and down much with the waves. You still depend on the wind, but I don't know how different handling one of these solid, airplane-wing sails is from handing canvas sails.

September 24, 2013 at 7:38 AM

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