Billionaire Boys Cup (America's Cup 2003)

morpheus 2001 writes "Wired has a story on the fight to win the America's Cup 2003, a sailing race held every 3 years. The story carries the title 'Billionaire Boys Cup', referring to both the competitors and the millions of dollars that it now takes to field a team. This time around the two US teams pit Craig McCaw and Larry Ellison against each other using their respective technological prowess to beat each other and the rest of the world. The story mentions that all of the teams competing will drop collectively over $700 million, with $30 - 40 million to be spent on R&D (per team) alone. The story gives an excellent description of how the use of technology and massive databases work in concert to give a team an edge of mere seconds, which can be the difference between winning and losing a race."

Comments

I'm guessing you're not a sailor then.

[BitGeek]

It doesn't matter how much technology is on the boat or how many computers, you still sail with your hands, eyes, ears, and instincts.

Technology gives you improved perception-- a better idea of what the wind is likely to do, better knowledge of what the wind is doing mid mast rather than just on the deck or at the top, a better idea of what sail trim you should have....

But you still have to use your mind, body and muscles to execute the excellent control over the boat necessary. You make it sound like they could sit at home and tell the boats to sail themselves. They probably could if they outfitted the boats with the autopilot stuff that's available, but they would LOSE and LOSE BAD if they did.

I'm not the biggest fan of sailboat racing-- I think boats are more fun cruising around away from the mass of humanity-- but I have raced and I have raced on relatively high tech boats at a level that -- if sailing were as popular as football is-- would be televised.

All the technology in the world can only give you an idea of what the current situation is with the wind, water, and boat. But you can't win a race knowing the current situation-- to win you have to know the best tactics and use the your best judgement about whats *going to happen* to change the current situation, and execute those tactics flawlessly.

The televised america's cup racing I've seen has been a blast, and rather exciting-- I just wish they gave us more on the boat coverage and less quick cutting of the races.... to hear the crew chatter about tactics and where they think the wind is going to go during a race and then to see how it actually goes and how they handle it would be wonderful.

But so it goes. Sailing is one of the last competitive sports where so much technology is *necessary* to compete at that level, but still so ineffective compared to the human level. Ball games are low tech, hockey is low tech. Technology doesn't matter for them. Formula one racing-- technology makes a huge difference but you know where the track is and you just go-- and there's one driver so he has perfect coordination of his actiosn.

With sailing you have to have both the best technology and the best human brains and the best coordination of your team in order to win. IF you seriously lack any of those, then you loose.

You're wrong-- The americas cup is still about real sailors. Anyone who enters the americas cup without the stamina and fearlessness and judgment of a free climber combined with the technical prowess of your average programmer is going to loose.

It is not a sport for the idle wealthy, weak, easily scared or technically ignorant.