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Billionaire Boys Cup (America's Cup 2003)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the toys-for-tots dept.

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."

4 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. About as boring as Formula One is now... by torpor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... and I mean that: Formula One is boring.

    Bringing in all sorts of high tech crap to make your boat/car go faster is one thing.

    Sailing using your hands, eyes and ears instead, is something entirely different.

    Given the choice between watching a bunch of Rich Borgs re-compile their trim calculation program in between tacks, and watching real men sale real boats, I'd take the real boats.

    And I come from Perth (near Fremantle). We were *proud* to have made a technological dent in the history of the America's Cup, but frankly I think it was a bad, bad day when technology trumped the Americans. It just gave them fodder they needed to destroy the true spirit of sports like this.

    Americas Cup = Formula One = Robo Wars. Same thing, different toys.

    Yawn.

    --
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    1. Re:About as boring as Formula One is now... by barnaclebarnes · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I went to school with Dean Barker who is Team New Zealands Skipper.

      You can hardly say that it is just technology that wins. This guy has been sailing Optimists and P Classes since he was a young lad. You can hardly call a 1947 and a 1923 desgined boat state of the art. The optimist is a complete pig to sail and he still won in that, even though all the boats were one design

      What makes him a good sailor is years of skill, practice and a city where sailing is part of your school ciriculum from when you are 10 years old.

      Also technology is making the sport a lot better to watch check out the Virtual Spectator software. cool.

      Rock on Team New Zealand and hope we can keep the cup again!

      /b

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  2. As a sailor... by rimmon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...I like to point out, that most sailors I know (that includes myself) are not really interested in the AC. There're races wchich are way more demanding, no matter if you look at the technology or the human efforts.
    Sure thing, these machines are really awesome, at least for 5 hours of consecutive sailing.
    But the the real thing, at least in my opinion, are long distance races.
    The Volvo Ocean Race, Cape Town - Rio, Jules Verne Trophy and so on.

    The greatest thing about the AC is not the real sailing but the High Tech Stuff that drips down to other races and classes.

  3. Racing as a skill by MosesJones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Watching One Design races is much more interesting on these short (less than several days) races. Every boat is identical so its purely down to the skill of the sailors. This makes for tight races rather than the first race making clear who has the best boat.

    And for real interest watch old working boats racing, slow as hell and there is always a crash or near crash.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi