Monday, April 23, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

AC World Series - The Best Sailors - The Fastest Boats

Ok sailors, while we're waiting for the ice to melt, you have to check out the AC World Series on YouTube.  You'll see absolutely incredible sailing combined with the latest computer graphics of the course, computerized real time penalty system, GPS course boundaries, onboard cams, etc. The AC World Series - Louis Vuitton Cup - is one design racing on AC 45 cats with wing sails and a very busy 5 person crew.  This all leads up to the challenger selection for the 2013 America Cup in San Francisco. They've also modified the racing rules to maximize spectator immersion and satisfaction - finishes are right by the crowd, reaching starts, short elapsed times, big screens onshore, fleet races, speed runs along the beach and match racing. 

YouTube has a channel devoted to it http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup.  This week racing just wrapped up in Naples, Italy.  Previously they sailed in Portugal and UK.  Next stops include the US venues of Newport and San Francisco.  Just click on a venue to see a list of all the coverage.  You can choose highlights or the whole day's racing.

The US racing will have national TV coverage, but the YouTube coverage is great, especially if you can feed it to your HDTV.  One way is via a PC monitor cable, another is a straight HDMI feed off your laptop.  AppleTV works very well too.