The first race of the America's Cup was raced this morning off Valencia, Spain.
For those who are wondering what this topic is doing in an Alizée forum, keep in mind how much their family is into sailing. You can bet that they were all glued to their TVs this morning - if one or more did not actually journey to Valencia to watch it in person. So, if you are a true Alizée fan, you probably should have at least a vague sense of what the America's Cup is about - hence this thread.
The America's Cup is probably the oldest trophy in sports. The original race was in 1851 when an American, using a yacht called the America (hence the name of the Cup) decided to enter an English race, and proceeded to beat them all by a wide margin.
in 1887, the Cup was donated to the NY Yacht Club "upon the conditions that it shall be preserved as a perpetual Challenge Cup for friendly competition between foreign countries."
The link to the offiicial site is:
http://www.americascup.com/en/index.html
From this site:
Deed of Gift
The Deed of Gift is the original document that created the America's Cup. In the years after America won the 100 Guinea Cup in 1851, the ownership syndicate donated the trophy to the New York Yacht Club under a Deed of Gift, which stated that the Cup was to be "a perpetual challenge cup for friendly competition between nations."
"Thus was born the America's Cup, named after the winning yacht America. The Deed of Gift, with a few subsequent amendments, is the basic document governing the event to this day."
The Cup has been offered up ever few years since then. The races were at Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Until 1983, it was always won by the Americans. In 1983, the Australians won for the first time, and the home base for the cup went there. Since then, the Cup has been won by several countries, and the competition has hopped around the world.
Now it is being raced off Valencia. The defenders are the Swiss (Alinghi) and the Challengers are the Americans (BMW Oracle Racing). This has turned into a war on the water, as the two sides could not agree on anything, and so the default rules specified in the Deed of Gift kicked in. The race is a best of 3 series, raced today, on Sunday, and (if needded) on Tuesday.
The boats are incredibly high tech, with each team probably spending well over 100 million dollars on development.
If you get a chance, go to the above web site and have a look. You will get a sense of how big the boats are when you see the size of the people standing on the hull.
May the best sailors win. 