ACWS San Francisco

Fender bender.

That was a wild crash, but I was very surprised at how little damage there was to both the cat, and the committee boat! That thing must be made of steel, I figured they would cut right into it, but instead they bounced right off it. Looked like all they need is some duct tape and they'll be good to go. Amazing.

But the two fleet races today were very good, lots of lead changing going on. Great to watch.

ACC is fixing the damage right now, and it will be virtually invisible for races tomorrow.

Here's the repair as it looks at the moment.

There are other neat things to see in The Bay this week too! Really neat!

It wasn't wild, it was stupid.

If you watch the 2 minutes before the start, you see Couts way up high all by himself. He then proceeded to barge into the start and had no where to go.

20 and 0 in America's Cup races, World Championships and Olympic Gold Medal and he pulls a bone headed stunt like this. He couldn't get away with this move in one of our fleets let alone one of this quality.

I agree, I don't know why he thought it would work, but I'll bet he won't do it again!

Did you see the port/starboard cross with Swordfish, on starboard, having to fly a hull right over the top of Korea to 'miss' them? That was pretty funny, but Korea got hit with the penalty which tubed them. They had done a great comeback by going out into the current going downwind and went from 5th to second place, but then the penalty killed them.

I was wondering why more boats were not going left (looking downwind from the A mark gate) with all that current to help them, when going downwind. It seemed to me that the few boats who did go out there made big gains going downwind.

Yeah, but they are all reaching to the start line on those starts. One boat in the middle could point up into the wind and take half the fleet into the committee boat if they wanted to. There is a bit of a complicated give/take going on there and I can see how he might have thought they were all going to play nice.

We were at the Hobie Midwinters East at St Augustine Beach many years ago. Some sailors from West Virginia had set up next to us on the beach. As we were discussing tactics, one of them said,

We quit drinking beer on the boat. About 3 minutes before the start we take a good swig of White Lightning and get real aggressive on the starting line

.

It's going to be on TV today, is that right?

On NBC, about 2pm east coast?

With my luck we'll lose the power, or the cable, or the internet, or all three, about 2pm! The Weather Channel is saying power is out in Miami right now.

Hold on tight down there Rick and Mary!

I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the reaching start. The reach at the end, sure -- it's relatively pointless, just a parade, but the RRS can accommodate it -- but the rules aren't designed for reaching starts.

For the fleet racing it would waste time, but I was wondering why the leeward boat didn't take up his competitor in the match racing. Before the gun of course. Drive him up above the boat ,then bareaway and start,leaving him to have to tack around to start. Maybe there are some special ACWS rules to cover that.

Who sails a blue wildcat with red sails in SF?
One of the helicopters filmed them while they where trying to right the boat <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

Charles has a Black hulls with red sails.

The best part was the boat that took him up. Spithill.

Did you hear the comment with Russel after another tight mark rounding with Spithill? Russel gave him some room and the commentator ask him if it was the sporting thing to do. Russel replied that if it was the other way around he would have been run into the mark boat. Sound like the boss gets no respect.

Better yet,
The local news cuts in during the match race about the

horrible tropical storm

and by the time they come back the race is over. BRILLIANT!

Yeah, that happened at my house too! The horrible...rain event. We've had much worse winds and rain from every big thunderstorm all summer long!

We must have the same NBC coverage (Storm Team 8, Steve Jerve, right?).

http://www2.tbo.com/weather/local/interactive-radar/

The first Hurricane always gets hyped to desensitize you for the rest of the really bad ones.

Yup, way too much hype, and then they wonder why nobody listens when they say to evacuate...

We've had more rain than I expected. A lot more...

Well could you please send some of that over to Sebring? My lake is still 5 feet below 'normal'! I was hoping we'd get a foot of rain, but I doubt we even got 4 inches, it's stopped now.

Looks like the sun may be coming out soon. I was just out walking the dogs, other than a couple trash cans lying on their sides, no 'storm damage' to report.

You boys in Nawluns have fun with it, I hope it doesn't intensify too much before it gets there, of course you do have Jim Cantori there to save you if it does!

Looks to me like it's surrounded by dry air, so I doubt it's going to blow up into more than a Cat. 1.

not sure why, but I was able to pick up Sat and Sun racing live (or close to

live

- I turned it on 17:00 EST) with no commercials on two different internet enabled TVs with YouTube.

The announcer pronounces it

Jimmy Spittle

which makes me giggle.... The drooling dude is winning!

They were out there several days, and I couldn't help but leave my photographic post and take shots from my peeps!

J,
You must be so stoked over there!

Enjoy it, you deserve it.