Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Laser Sailor Wins America's Cup

Wow. What an amazing race to close out the 32nd America's Cup. Who said the America's Cup is boring?

No point in rehashing the details of the race. You either saw it on Versus or have read about it on any number of blogs written by authors much closer to the action than I am. I'm just pleased for Ed Baird, 1980 Laser World Champion and now 2007 winning America's Cup helmsman. Ed has been one of my sailing heroes ever since I started sailing and racing Lasers in the early 80's. I still have my well-thumbed copy of Ed's 1982 book Laser Racing which I studied intensely when I was learning to race Lasers back in the day.

There's a closer connection between the Tillerman family and Mr Baird. Son #1 a.k.a. Litoralis was lucky enough to spend one summer while in college working on the design team for Baird's Young America AC syndicate. He even went sailing with Ed on one of the syndicate's IACC boats. AC aficionados may recall that during the second Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup in November 1999, Young America's USA-53 reared up in a set of waves whilst tacking, the hull cracked in two, and the boat nearly sank. Litoralis tells me that he was working on sail design and analysis, not the hull, but I'm not so sure.

Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes.

Congratulations to Ed Baird. An American wins the America's Cup just in time for July 4th. More importantly a Laser sailor wins the America's Cup. Just as I expected.

4 comments:

JP said...

Apart from pointing out it was a European victory not American ;) I agree - much of the series was boring but the final race an absolute cracker.

Tillerman said...

Let's say multinational team shall we... American helmsman, New Zealand tactician etc. etc.

Anonymous said...

What's The America's Cup? What's a Laser? Is it a wannabe Force 5? ; )

Kudos to a...(groan)nother Laser sailor.

Tillerman said...

We're everywhere joe. Friends don't let friends sail Force 5's.

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