America’s Cup XXXIII 2010
By Roger Vaughan
Photographs by Gilles Martin-Raget, Introduction by Gary Jobson
Published by Choptank Word Bank 175 pages $29.99
The start of the 36th regatta for the America’s Cup was just six weeks away as this 201st edition of WindCheck went to press. As we look forward to victory in Auckland for New York Yacht Club American Magic, author (and WindCheck contributor) Roger Vaughan takes us back eleven years to the first time that two multihulls (one a catamaran and the other a trimaran) locked horns in an America’s Cup match.
Representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco, Larry Ellison’s BMW ORACLE Racing syndicate took on Ernesto Bertarelli’s Alinghi, representing the Societe Nautique de Geneve in Switzerland with the most advanced multihull ever built. With three hulls, an LOA of 115 feet and a wingsail taller than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, USA 17 (known to her crew as “The Beast” and dubbed “Dog-Zilla” by the media in a play on the acronym for “Deed of Gift”) ranks among the most extreme boats ever to race for the Cup.
Recounting a fascinating chapter in America’s Cup history with quotes from designers, builders and sailors, and spectacular photographs by one of the best shooters on the water, Learning to Fly is highly recommended. It’s available at Amazon.
A freelance writer and founding editor of The Yacht Magazine, Roger Vaughan covered the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race from aboard Fazisi. He is the writer and director of the film Of Rails and Sails: The Life of Arthur Curtiss James, and his other books include Ted Turner: The Man Behind the Mouth and The Strenuous Life of Harry Anderson. He and his wife, Kip Requardt, live in Oxford, MD, where he sails in the local RC Laser fleet. ■
