They did some more racing today apparently. After a false start due to a spectator (read: rich asshole) floating absentmindedly onto the course, teams Luna Rossa and Emirates the NZers (or something) got to it and zoomed around the harbour for a bit. They won a race each, and so kept the score level. Two wins each as it stands, which suggests that the competition will likely do down to the wire. What awful news.
Anyway, those are the facts. That’s my job as Yammer’s … sigh … official sailing correspondent done for the day.
This is where the fun begins.
Firstly, the racing itself. It seems as though whoever gets off to the best start will win the race barring some sort of cataclysmic error. This is because the teams seem to be penalised for trying to pass each other. Or so I recall hearing them say on the news a few week ago. Hard to say really, seeing as I resent hearing about yachting in the first place.
Whatever the reason, whoever wins the start wins the race. In light of this I propose that we make the whole event a damned sight more efficient by shortening the course, say to about fifty metres. The same result will be obtained, but without the (totally redundant) rest of the race having to take place.
This will not only shorten each race, but the tournament to boot. So quick will the matches be to conclude that we can hold them all on one day, and everyone can head off home for four years.
But today’s racing was almost called off. Why? Apparently, it wasn’t windy enough this morning.
That is, in my view, a pathetic reason not to race. After all, the solution to a calm day has been around since man first crawled onto a piece of driftwood and noticed that he could float about on it. PADDLING!!!
Now I’m not suggesting that these so-called boats – which are likely rather larger than the aforementioned piece of driftwood – should be paddled around the Auckland Harbour by hand. That would be ridiculous.
Instead I point the America’s Cup sailors to another ancient invention: Oars.
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