San Diego's Preamble

As San Diego, California finalizes its preparations to host the 3rd round of the America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) and its first stop in the United States, it shares center stage with several high profile sporting events over the weekend.
The NFL is in town with the San Diego Chargers playing the Oakland Raiders, and the initial Carrier Classic college basketball game between the Michigan State Spartans and the North Carolina Tar Heels takes place on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson on Veterans Day with President and Mrs. Obama in attendance.
San Diego is well suited for an ACWS event having hosted 3 defenses of the America’s Cup between 1988 and 1995 off of Point Loma; plus two AC World Championships. In addition, it served as the training base of operations for BMW Oracle a few years back, when they tested their radical tri-maran USA 17 with its monstrous wing-sail for the 33rd America’s Cup in 2010.
The ACWS “festival of speed” encompasses two weekends. Featuring nine AC 45 catamarans, representing eight teams; plus a battle of multiple rock bands; shops, food, with an international flair and an amazing AC Village set onboard another aircraft carrier; the Midway!
The catamaran action will be front and center, providing a vantage point for the tens of thousands who will be in attendance to witness the bump & grind of ‘round the buoy racing within the tight confines of San Diego Bay off Harbor Island. All this as the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) further exercises its classroom experiment in the art of “stadium sailing”.
As the ACWS heads into San Diego after stops in Cascais, Portugal and Plymouth, England, four teams are separated by just 3 points; led by Emirates Team New Zealand on top with 19 points in first place. Closely followed by; and tied for second place is Artemis Racing from Sweden, Team White Tiger from South Korea and Oracle Racing’s Team Four, with skipper Jimmy Spithill.
All the rock stars will be in place. In addition to Spithill, who skippered USA 17 to victory in the America’s Cup last year, American Terry Hutchison is on Artimas, Dean Barker is driving for the Kiwis again and the legendary Russell Coutts, though off the boat for Oracle (by his own volition, he is the CEO, after all) will surely make his presence felt in some respect.
The teams compete in AC 45 catamarans which were all built by Core Builders in Warkworth, New Zealand under a class formula, which allows for minimal modification parameters at this point by the teams in competition. Each boat is fitted with a state of art fixed wing-sail measuring more than 70 feet in height and in combination with the gennaker jib more than 1,500 sq. ft. of sail area!
The boats so far have shown great bursts of speed at more than 40 knots per hour (kph) and a propensity for pitch poling & capsizing! The series in Plymouth featured multiple rollovers in an event that captured the action like a World of Outlaw winged sprint cars race on the dirt bull ring tracks across America. The “capsize club” has captured about every team to date!
What makes the new format for the America’s Cup unique to its rich history is that the format for the event is set up for sailing within the confines of bays and harbors in order to bring the racing home for average spectators who can watch the action from shore.
Fleet racing in San Diego begins this weekend and while the points in these events will not count towards the Louis Vuitton Series for the challengers, the sailing and competition has been intense for all the teams as they get used to this form of racing in preparation for the 2013 America’s Cup in San Francisco, when the stakes will ratchet up when the competitors transcend to the AC 72’s next year!