Close to 50 knots

This morning’s Eurobutt ran a story with the title of Close to 50 knots. Am I the only person who thinks racing craft at ‘close to 50 knots’ might be getting dangerous?

OK, so it’s going to be spectacular. But collisions at these speeds are surely going to be a liittle dangerous?

The story goes on to outline all six America’s Cup teams are taking part for the first time on the racecourse that will be used in the 35th America’s Cup.

Emirates Team New Zealand were the last team to arrive in the home of the 35th America’s Cup but quickly had their ACC boat re-commissioned and out on the crystal clear waters of Bermuda.

Their first bout of unofficial practice racing with other America’s Cup teams was on Friday 28th April when they lined up against Artemis Racing and Groupama Team France with the Kiwis winning against the Swedes, albeit with Artemis Racing not engaging in the pre-start, and then failing to finish their first race against the French team but winning their second.

Notably, Artemis Racing continued their strong form, but over the four days of racing all six teams recorded victories.

“It’s too early to predict who’s going to be strong in this America’s Cup but the performance of the boats is incredibly impressive. We’ve certainly seen speeds of 47 knots, some even at 48 knots, so we’re getting close to that 50 knot (93kph) speed barrier,” said Russell Coutts…

Comments are closed.