Testing
Testing
Anyone who knows about elite yachting knows that to enter a yacht into the Americas Cup contest requires lots (that’s LOTS) of money. That obviously limits entrants to millionaires (maybe billionaires) who can fund the development and testing required to produce two very technical craft for the challenger series, followed by the main Americas Cup event itself. The next Cup series will be sailed in 72 foot catamarans with wing sails and a crew of about a dozen sailors. And these craft literally fly on their winged dagger boards.
This image was taken at the limits of my 18-200 mm zoom telephoto lens. From camera position to the Emirates Team New Zealand cat is approximately 4 km, with the lens zoomed right out. The image has been cropped to give an even “closer” view. Although there was only a light breeze the yacht still had one hull lifted completely out of the water. Already when testing their yacht in San Francisco Bay, Team Oracle have managed to nosedive and flip their boat, spilling all the crew into the water. Its expensive having an accident in these yachts!
Chris Gregory's Alphathreads 