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OK, I’ll admit it, I was sceptical about the upcomiing America’s Cup World series event just held in Newport, RI over the past weekend. I still have lingering memories of the last go around and all the rather annoying courtroom activity. Sailboat racing gone bad, rich dudes whining…. it all just turned me off to the whole thing. But, I have had a change of heart after watching the event from the water this past weekend. Check out one of the Oracle boats here:
These new boats are cool! Who can’t get a bit excited watching a sailboat that can get going up to 45 mph and has to be run by 5 very athletic people wearing crash helmets. The on board cameras and live TV coverage were just spectacular!
This event brought just under 60,000 people to the city by the sea, and a few more on the water in this near shore event. We heard that NBC attracted 1,000,000 viewers to their Sunday broadcast of the final event. Those are really good numbers for a US crowd. I think that once the word gets out about how exciting this can be, more will follow. It is really fast action that will attract any sports fan’s attention. As long as the promoters can keep the teams from bickering and the lawyers out of the game, I think this is a revitalized event. I’m thrilled to be able to say that.
So, to all who’ve heard my rant about how the whole America’s cup thing is no longer relevant to anything, I take it all back. This has finally been turned into an exciting sport, as fun to watch as football, NASCAR or any other sport. Why, I’d go so far as to say it is far more exciting than watching a golf match, or an MLB game.
So, the boat you see above is around 45 ft. in length. The boats they will actually use in the America’s Cup finals will be 75 ft. versions of what you see. Trust me folks, it is going to be awesome!
