I am having a bugger of a time wrapping my head around the America’s Cup. I thought it started today. In fact it’s the last of the preliminary rounds called Act 13 and this is the last chance for the challengers to move up and down the rankings before the challenger series starts. The real thing starts in a couple of week. What I can’t figure out is what happens then. Do some teams go home?
Today’s racing was a mixed bag as the weather was iffy apparently. Second race was cancelled. In the first race, BMW came out of nowhere on the last leg to overtake 5 boats and cross the line first. My favorites, Shosholoza came in second. I would love to see them win the whole thing. America’s Cup in Cape Town possibly the same year as the World Cup (soccer that is). I might emigrate.
I was also a little disappointed by the multimedia coverage. In this age of Youtube, you sort of expect it all to be free all the time but the America’s Cup organizers must be short of a few bucks/bob as they charge an ambitious $39.99 for multimedia coverage. This is to watch very hard to follow animations and videos. Quelle Rip-off! You can see a demo here
The start of the “real thing” is two rounds of match races between all the challengers. After that, indeed, a lot of teams will be going home as only the top four from the round robins will go forward to the semi-finals.
Something like this should be free for the world to see