After two cancelled race days and hours of waiting this afternoon in Valencia, the 33rd America's Cup has finally sailed its first race, and what a race it was! With such extreme and unique boat designs in this edition of the Cup, no one quite knew what to expect this afternoon (6am where I am) when the boats took the course. Out of the gate, the competitors--USA's Trimaran, BMW/Oracle (the challenger) and SUI's Catamaran, Alinghi (the defender)--showed the world what a spectacle this series could be.

Alinghi entered on port, not required to round the pin as is usual for a match race, but a separate mark to leeward of the line, designed to make the maneuvering easier for the giant multihulls. BMW/Oracle entered from the boat, dipped the line and aimed right at their opponent. Just as thousands of match races over the years have begun, the first race of this year's series began with a dialup. Before Alinghi was able to complete the tack to avoid BMW/Oracle, the American entry rounded up to avoid and pulled out their Yankee flag. The umpires agreed that Alinghi did not avoid the right-of-way boat in time and penalized Alinghi. Then, with only a minute left to go and both boats luffing above the line, Alinghi bore away to round the pin and start on time. BMW/Oracle hesitated, apparently stalled due to the light breeze, and then tacked, losing control of Alinghi and positioning themselves to be very late to the start, giving up the advantage they had won for themselves at entry.

Then the real race began. As everyone speculated, Race 1 came down to boat speed. The unconfirmed estimates were that Alinghi would be faster in the light stuff and BMW/Oracle in the heavy air. With much of the race sailed in the 5-8 knot "crossover zone," hopes were high that we would not see a blowout. But in the opening minutes after BMW/Oracle cleared themselves and got up to speed, it became very clear that a blowout was indeed a possibility. The trimaran, with its amazing monstrous wing sail, closed Alinghi's 600m gap in a matter of minutes, sailing higher and faster than their opponent. As they crossed the halfway point of the beat, BMW/Oracle dropped its jib and sailed on the wing alone. To my amazement the boat did not slow down. Instead, it harnessed the increased wind speed by trimming in and sailing even higher while maintaining its 20-knot clip that was steadily leaving Alinghi in the dust.

As the boats approached the windward mark we had to wonder, "are they really out of it yet?" For a brief few minutes, in a very temporary wind state, Alinghi started gaining upwind. And then there was the downwind leg to the finish. Could the lighter boat with the traditional sail catch the leader? Would they have time to burn the penalty? It would be an amazing feat, but surely not impossible.

It was. BMW/Oracle turned down, trimmed a few hydraulic winches, and took off. The whole way down the trimaran barely touched its windward or center hulls to the water. The beast gracefully weaved up in the lulls and down in the puffs. When Alinghi rounded about 3 minutes later the contrast was stark. The catamaran struggled to keep her windward hull up. Her boat speed and VMG were dwarfed by the challenger. After leading off the start by an impressive 600m, she quickly fell back to trail by more than 3,000m.

As BMW/Oracle crossed the finish line you had to ask yourself, "Can they be beaten?" Alinghi's strength is supposedly in the light stuff, but with the race committee refusing to start in under 4 knots and Race 1 never seeing more than 8, what is it going to take for the defender to be competitive? The 2nd and possibly final race is scheduled for Sunday morning at 4am EST. Discounting the devastating possibility of a boat breaking, it seems highly unlikely that Alinghi will be able to accomplish any more than they did today. Without the drama of a prestart foul or major tactical error, the race is likely to be uneventful march around the course, one boat constantly legging out the other. But who cares? Watching the race today was like seeing the future of sailing. These magnificent machines are like nothing the port has seen before. I might just go set my alarm now.

-Chris Love
Sailgroove.org