The 34th America’s Cup competition has started in San Francisco and it is spectacular, even on TV. The boats are 72-foot catamarans with hydrofoils that routinely touch 40 knots of boat speed in the winds that rip through the Golden Gate. The competitors are New Zealand, Sweden, Italy and the U.S.
Prada (Italy) boycotted the first race because they were irritated over a rules interpretation, so Emirates Team New Zealand sailed around the course alone to collect one point. Some things about the Cup never change, do they? Live coverage and written articles are on the America’s Cup Internet site but they don’t seem to keep video afterwards:
The New Zealand One News channel does have some video to watch later, and you can find it here:
http://tvnz.co.nz/americas-cup
You really should see those boats under way. Incredible stuff. SAIL Magazine this month (and on their Web site at sailmagazine.com) has excellent descriptions of the boats and the event.
The next race is Tuesday, July 9 starting at 1215 PST. The schedule is at:http://noticeboard.americascup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Schedule-70613.pdf . I’m streaming the Internet content to a 50″ TV via my AppleTV interface and it’s mighty impressive.
I found even better video coverage of the America’s Cup racing. It’s on YouTube:
This makes it easy to see on your TV if it is Internet-enabled or has a box like an AppleTV or Roku. Just go to YouTube in the TV menu and search for “America’s Cup”.
The YouTube site keeps videos online for later viewing and, I think, also streams it live. The next race (actually the first real race start, since Prada forfeited their first one yesterday) is on Tuesday at 1215 Pacific Time, if I’m reading the schedule on the official America’s Cup site correctly. That should be 3:15pm Eastern Time.
Enjoy!