This year’s America’s Cup featured 22 of the best sailors in the world on two boats, competing for sailing’s greatest prize. The teams were Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand, though the sailors aboard each boat didn’t have to be natives of the respective countries. The format was as follows: the two boats (if you can call the 2-hulled, 72-foot hydro-foiling rocket ships “boats”) raced head-to-head in a best of 17 race series, thus meaning the first team to win nine, wins the America’s Cup. However, before any racing had taken place a judge penalized team Oracle two races for an illegal modification they had made to their boat over a year earlier in the Louis Vuitton Cup. The penalty was the harshest in America’s Cup history, but nonetheless, stood.
Here’s what these boats look like in action
The racing began on September 7th, and saw the Kiwi team take six of the first seven races, leaving Oracle down 6 to -1 by September 13th. September 14th through the 18th showed the two boats becoming more and more even, each team winning two races. Unfortunately for Oracle, it looked as though it was too little too late, because they found themselves in an 8-1 hole. After race 11, Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill told the media that his team still fully believed that they could win the America’s Cup, and everyone with common sense laughed at him. The beauty of the America’s Cup, however, is that it doesn’t abide by the laws of common sense.
After race 12 went Oracle’s way, Race 13 saw the Kiwi team leading by 1500 meters within view of the finish line, but the race exceeded the 40-minute time limit, and it was waved off. Team Oracle seemingly used that stroke of luck as motivation, and won the second race that afternoon. Oracle down 8-3. What followed race 13 was an unfathomable shift in momentum. The American boat, somehow, some way, just got better. And better. And better.
First it was the starting line. Spithill was a master of the line and decisively won the start in races 13-17. After he gained an advantage at the start, the two teams would sail relatively even races, giving Oracle the win in all of those races. That brought them within 1. 8-7. Then it seemed as though the miraculous comeback had come up short, as Emirates Team New Zealand got the inside position on Oracle at the starting line, forced them off course, and took a 180-meter lead into the 3rd leg of a 5 leg race. To that point in the regatta, neither team had seemed able to gain on the other when the wind was steady, because the boats were so fast and sailed by such good sailors that they would remain even. In the steady breeze of race 18, Oracle looked down and out when behind by almost 200 meters in the 3rd leg. Spithill had other ideas.
Somehow, for reasons still unknown to anyone that wasn’t on the boat, Spithill had Oracle going faster than Emirates upwind, and within 3 minutes of rounding mark 2 they had actually caught the Kiwis. They maintained their speed, gained the lead, and then stretched it. Going into the 4th leg, Oracle had amassed a 200 meter lead of their own, which they would stretch to 365 meters at the finish line. At that point Oracle had miraculously drawn even at 8 points and forced a decisive 19th race to take place the following day.
The American boat completed the comeback, won race 19, and kept the America’s Cup. They again lost the start, this time by a smaller margin, made up ground going upwind, and stretched their lead to beat the Kiwis by nearly a minute. The feat will go down as the greatest comeback in the history of sports. I, as an avid sports fan, don’t take that term lightly, either. But to come back from 8-1 down to win 9-8 is a comeback the likes of which has never been seen before and likely will never be seen again. 8 straight victories while facing elimination in each race. It would be like if the 2004 Red Sox had been down 8 games to 1 to the Yankees instead of 3-0. Or if the 1992 Buffalo Bills were down 56-0 instead of 35-3. The extent of the comeback is simply immeasurable.
The 34th America’s Cup will be remembered for many reasons. It was the fastest in history with the boats reaching speeds exceeding 50 miles per hour. It was the longest Cup spanning 18 days. The images of boats literally flying out of the water on hydrofoils, a remarkable display of physics which I still cannot comprehend, will be hard to forget. But most of all, this Cup will be remembered for a team of the world’s greatest sailors who never lost faith, never gave up, and continued to work their hardest until they reached glory. And sporting glory, they achieved.
Conrad's Corner Sports 