Chris and Sid, our dear friends from Heath, Texas, just happened to end their cruise in Barcelona, Spain, while we were there. We got together Saturday, September 14th, to check out the beginning of America’s Cup elimination racing at Port Vell.
Port Vell was home to the 1992 Summer Olympics and has a huge complex for retail outlets and Restaurants. We walked around the Americas’s Cup exhibits, attempted to take clandestine pictures of racing boats and their crews through gaps in the screens at their docks, and settled into a waterside restaurant to watch the racers and viewing boats motor out to the course.
Racing boats and tenders were nestled to the docks behind large buildings that housed their crews, swag, workout facilities, repair shops, food service, and schmoozing areas for planning, entertaining donors, and hosting parties. Fencing with black privacy screens kept gawkers out of their open areas.
Rib tenders with four or five outboards hip towed the hydrofoil racing boats out of the harbor. Throngs of spectator and press boats accompanied them with plenty of shouting and horn blowing.
We had dockside seats for the constant parade of competitors and fans heading to the near-shore course laid out along the beaches.
Barcelona had no natural beaches before building a string of them for the 1992 Olympics.
After lunch, we made the long trek to the beach and found a spot at mid-course to watch the racing action.
Battery-operated hydraulic power raises and lowers the side foils on the 75-foot long and 16-foot wide monohulls. The double-skin mainsails form a soft wing and can be made from any carbon fiber, Dacron, kevlar, Dyneema, and radion cloth mixture hoisted on a 115-foot carbon fiber mast.
Typical speeds while racing are 34 to 46 mph. Aerospace designing for AC75s allows the 6.5-ton boats to exceed 55 mph. Costs to campaign an America’s Cup boat range from $100 to $300 million US dollars.
As of October 16, 2024, Emirates Team New Zealand holds a commanding 4-0 lead over Ineos Britannia in the 37th Amerida’s Cup Match Standings and needs three more victories to retain the trophy.
New Zealand’s party yacht stands ready behind their Barcelona compound to celebrate their fifth victory in the America’s Cup. US teams defended the America’s Cup for 132 years when Dennis Connor lost for the first time in 1983 to Austrailia.
We walked 5.9 miles pursuing America’s Cup action before bidding Chris and Syd adios on the beach to meet with our Rick Steve’s tour guide and group. Our next 14 days in Spain will be action-packed and filled with many more wondrous sights.