Re: [Paddlewise] black hulls & Americas Cup

>The first truly funny post in this whole thread.

Thank you for that comment.

>  Why do we call it the America's Cup anymore anyway?

History lad, history. The first yacht to win in in a race around the Isle 
of Wight (England) was a schooner called the "America". It was a 
multi-yacht race and if my memory serves me right the next race in USA was 
the same. It became a yacht versus yacht event and then they came out with 
the J class boats before WWII. After USA won it back from Australia a 
couple of decades ago(?), NZ tried the J class against Dennis Conner and he 
built a catamaram which was a bit of rule stretching by Dennis. However NZ 
beat him in the end.

>  Between the New Zealanders, the Australians, and the Italians, why to we 
> Stateside bother?

Partly probably because USA held the cup for so long and except for Canada, 
no one else other than England had attempted to try for it (Baron Bic of 
ball point pens forFrance barely counts). That mere colonials should be the 
ones to take and hold it could be held to be a snub. Dennnis Connor's quote 
of "..get off the stage looser.." to the NZ challenger's designer after the 
event in California missed the point that most of the yachts sailing for 
the Congressional Cup in San Francisco at the same time were designed by a 
New Zealander. Even better when Dennis went to the same designer for his 
round the world yacht. Shows how Farr he was willing to go.

We have one TV front-man with a daily show after the news (show at 7.00 
p.m. prime time) managed to so rile Dennis that Dennis got up and left in 
the middle of the interview!!

Alex
.
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