America's Cup: Russell Coutts on AC45 Oracle capsizes spectacularly in San Francisco

pitchpole - now its found they had too much weight forward LMAO - fcken cheats!

420 BLAZE IT!

no thats called a pitch pole not a capsize

As a massive F1 fan I must agree. The TV rights in the states and the fact the owners aren't skippers any more makes it too commercial. We should be quiet though - Bernie Ecclestone might jump onto this....

If I recall correctly, the "America" sailed with an American captain in the 1850s but a professional Swedish crew. She crossed the Atlantic on her own bottom to defeat lesser designs. Today's extreme technology has produced fast but unwholesome trends throughout racing, so that even round-the-world single handed monohulls are not self righting. Much like Formula 1 auto racing, development becomes relevant to entertainment value but not to practical application.

Agree, the mono hulls have gone and now the yanks rely on European built cats with foreign skippers. As an Aussie it'd be disgusting if that was our contender let alone the NYYC relying on that.

Crash helmet sailing. Today's sporting businesses pretty much have to be designed for video, but I am sorry to see the America's Cup come to this. It makes it a young athletes' competition, in which technology plays an ever greater role. Gone are the days of mature experienced skippers and tacticians.

They did not learn their lesson. They do it again with AC72

oh. I guess the wing from his head

does anything break when that happens?

AHAHAHAHA take this!

faster!!!! faster your fools!!!

does anyone know the size of the main sail (in square metres)?

The sequence of events is a successful gybe, then a turn downwind which caused a pitchpole, not a capsize. A pitchpole is when a bow, or in this case both bows, go under water and cause the boat to suddenly stop, and the stop is what raised the sterns. After the pitchpole the boat capsized, which is to turn on its side. There error is with the skipper, not the boat.

if your gybing and not racing or not experience pull the main sail in before you gybe

"Oracle Racing accidentally capsized one of their racing boats in San Francisco. Russell Coutts was helming the boat, an CA 45" It's an AC 45 catamaran, designed by Oracle. They're the traing boats for next seasons AC (not 'CA') 72's.

I am no pro either but I ran A classes....If the sea is flat...gybe ho!! Rough you better know your stuff....real easy to bury even a light A

Huuuu

No prob putting a jibe in but can be tricky getting into the downwind safe zone in high winds (you need speed and weight right back.. I mean way back (crew behind helm). Jumping on the end of windward hull works ;o) Re backstay, best to have minimal sail area showing once downwind (so B-2-B), the mainsail 'flip' in high winds can be equally interesting as the momentum swing can round you up into wind - not ideal as boat speed will not be fast enough and your weight not where needed to compensate

I'm sorry if my question sounds weird because I'm not a pro racer, but....is it right try make a jibe on any cat in the world at 25 knots of wind ? I mean I learned to sail on cats and then on monohulls, and one of the things I knew is that cats don't have backstay and because of that is not very safe to jibe in strong winds, am I wrong ?