What a shame to see this great event, one of the finest in all sport, raced since 1857, degrade into a marginalized, eccentric sideshow, followed by few and won as much by lawyers interpreting the deed of gift as by the sailors and designers.
Maybe I'm just a crank, but the whole thing went to hell when they dropped the 12 Meter class in favor of, first big exotic monohulls and now whatever goes. The point of match racing is to place two closely matched boats on the same course so that strategy and tactics and boathandling determine the result, rather than raw boat speed. The 12 meters, with their fat displacement hulls, did just that, and the result was superb racing. Should we go back to the 12's?Australia's Gretel II (KA 3), and Intrepid. Intrepid beat Gretel II 3 races to 2 in 1970. In the 3rd race, Intrepid won by half a boatlength after 24 miles of racing.
I'm with you Nico. Going back to 12m class boats would be a big improvement...
ReplyDelete...or maybe J boats d;^)