The America’s Cup returns to America

After just two races of the 2010 America’s Cup a victor was declared: the USA’s Team BMW Oracle.

Commentators were particularly struck by the way in which the American team’s boat out-performed Team Alinghi’s, with many references made to the former craft’s “towering wingsail”.

Unfortunately the beginning of the first race was marked by a display of petulant and unsportsmanlike behaviour by BMW Oracle’s skipper, James Spithill, who vowed to colleagues that he would put a penalty on Alinghi before the start of the race. He succeeded, forcing Alinghi to gybe during the starting sequence before raising the flag to protest at their failure to stay clear.

In the second race Team Alinghi received a penalty for being in the pre-start area before the designated time and, although they managed to pick a better speed than they had during the first race, in the end Team BMW Oracle proved that it had the better boat, the exquisite lines of the trimaran proving as effective as they are beautiful.

Clutching the massive trophy, BMW Oracle’s skipper James Spithill said, “It’s an amazing feeling. The amount of work the whole team has put into this boat and now to go two races without any issues – you just have to hand it to the shore guys, the boatbuilders and all of the support team and designers. They gave us an awesome tool.”

Now the America’s Cup will return to the USA for the first time since 1995. We can only hope that the 34th series of races will be undertaken in a more generous and sportsmanlike spirit.

Visit the official America’s Cup website at www.americascup.com

New post on at Monday, 15 February, 2010, 4:17 pm and is archived in Lifestyle, Sport. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.