No race at all, thanks to no wind off Valencia this morning, and no desire on the part of the defender, Team Alinghi (SUI) to convert to an afternoon schedule, when winds typically are better this time of year.
Thousands of U.S. fans staggered out of bed at 3:30 a.m. this morning – after the biggest U.S. television night of the year for sports fans – the American football Superbowl XLIV (New Orleans Saints 31, Indianapolis Colts 17).
After the first race of AC33 was postponed, most of them went to work, or back to bed, grumpy or crabby, depending on where you went to school.
For the next first race of America’s Cup 33, the opportunity is – yet again – boot up your computer at 3:45 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, February 10.
If you plan to get up early, watch online, and create an exciting multi-media AC33 experience that you control, here are your best choices:
ESPN360.com
This is ESPN’s streaming online sports feed, offering a diverse mix of live and recorded U.S. events, including America’s Cup live. AC33 coverage is hosted by veteran AC sailor and commentator, Gary Jobson (USA), one of a handful of classic America’s Cup commentators. Connect>
Sailing Anarchy’s Layline 33rd America’s Cup
This is for grown-ups. The reason is that critics believe members of this highly informed and highly opinionated discussion forum are, well, children. We disagree. They are adults who should know better.
Nevertheless, you won’t find better informed sailors, better able to express themselves, anywhere else online. Yet viewer discretion is advised. Commentary is spontaneous, unedited, and at times, profane. That’s not necessarily standard operating procedure for discussion forums, but it is for this one.
Sailing Anarchy – a free site – is working hard to make AC33 fun for their community. Alan Block, a lawyer and sailor known to the community as Mr. Clean (his language is anything but) is on the water in Valencia, interviewing participants, looking for opportunities, and struggling to connect online from his boat offshore, following the action.
This morning, he ‘borrowed’ an online connection from the crew of Larry Ellison’s amazing and extraordinarily beautiful yacht Rising Sun, designed by the late Australian naval architect, John Bannenberg, seen here in 2007 during the Louis Vuitton series, off Valencia:
Connect here > to be part of SA’s Layline 33rd America’s Cup forum and scroll down for the links to content. SA is picking up BMWOracle Racing’s video feed, which you can watch on the site. You can also log into SA’s discussion forum (use the lo-res option offered at the bottom of the forum page) to follow comments by members.
If you have the nerve, become a Sailing Anarchist member, join the discussion, and enjoy the perspectives and perceptions of sailors who both know – and don’t know – what they are talking about. Don’t tell your mother.
BMWOracle Racing
The America’s Cup 33 Challenger racing team has its own video link (already co-opted by Sailing Anarchy) providing info-streams on the BMWOracle team, special interviews by respected America’s Cup commentators like Martin Tasker (UK) and Peter Lester (NZL), and once racing starts, the so-called World feed live from the water and from the air. Same video as Sailing Anarchy, but no forums, no discussion online, and no profanity. Connect >
MarineTraffic.com
This is an amazing website. It collects and presents AIS data (maritime collision avoidance data) from merchant vessels all over the world, as well as from private vessels who elect to participate in the system – essentially, data that identifies the vessel, its port of origin, heading, speed, and other factors, and then pictorially displays the data on a searchable website that refreshes every 90 seconds.
This morning, we watched vessels around the start line off Valencia, including Vava, Ernesto Bertarelli’s private yacht. We also noted Rising Sun, farther offshore, probably at the buoy mark, probably also ‘anchored’ by its GPS positioning system – no pick, no chain. Connect >
These four sites are more than enough to make your AC33 real.
Just sleep first.
1 comment:
Well, I appreciate reading your posts, but on this one I think you might be doing desinformation rather than information. The race was not cancelled because of the defender not wanting to race in the afternoon, but because the wind went down because of the rain (not to mention the difference of orientation along the "path" which caused problems in the morning. Both the defender and the challenger spent 9h at sea (and temperature conditions in the NW Mediterranean Sea at this time of the year don't make it a "nice time at sea"). If there would have been a chance to race they would have taken it.
In the emirates we would probably know the winner of the AC33 by now (at least for what concerns the sailing part). Just remind me who pushed to have this competition in Valencia?
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