Following the first meeting of the America’s Cup Review Committee on Thursday in San Francisco, teams have been asked to suspend all sailing in AC72 and AC45 catamarans until the middle of next week.

The Review Committee is scheduled to meet with the teams for the first time on Friday morning.

Here is a response submitted to SailingScuttlebutt.com in response to the pickup of The Prototype blog. I would note that it was not “submitted.”

From Dan Meyers – Newport, RI:
As I get older I figure that I have seen all of the foolishness in the world, but this week the nonsense submitted to Scuttlebutt is appalling.

Mr. Clark, I disagree with your assertion (in Scuttlebutt 3838) that Andrew Simpson “died well”. That he was a wonderful guy and a champion professional racer seems incontrovertible. But athletes are not gladiators to be thrown to the lions. They want to compete, enjoy the sport, the people they sail with and against, be fairly compensated, and then at the end of the day go home, hug the wife and kids, have dinner and go on. This is a tragedy, nothing less.

There's no better way to waste a few minutes of your work day.

(via)

Sander van der Borch

The America’s Cup match of 2010 was a rescue. The direction of the Cup under Alinghi post-2007 was so sour as to convince Louis Vuitton to bail out, remember? Only a risk taker with tenacity, resources and experience in hostile takeovers—Larry Ellison—could have undertaken the mission. So I guess we’ve reached that part of the movie where Princess Leah looks to Luke Skywalker and says, “Some rescue!”

© Erik Simonson

From halfway around the world comes the clearest account yet of the Artemis crash.

This story also makes it very clear just how much pain Andrew Simpson’s crewmates are feeling, having had the boat collapse “like a taco shell” and having tried but failed to free their “Bart” who was sandwiched in the wreckage. Alive and struggling when they got to him. But.

Read — Newcastle Herald

I was planning next to bore you with some details of Lunacy's recent passage from Puerto Rico to Bermuda, but the breaking news is far more compelling. And not just to sailors it seems. In my recent post on the America's Cup I noted that the general public only seems to follow the Cup when there are intriguing characters involved, but now, unfortunately, we've found something else guaranteed to pique their interest. No one seemed terribly interested in AC72s when they were just sailing fast, but now that someone's been killed on one, all the major media have perked up their ears.

When it’s my people.

ABClocal/KGO

The local team in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup, American Youth Sailing Force, explored the edge over the weekend, and peeked (and peaked) over—

See capsize and recovery from every point of view

This comes via Scuttlebutt. And, oh man, I would have enjoyed watching it. You gotta love Dalton.

"Mate, what the hell went wrong?"

That was all Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton needed to say kick off a heated debate with Sir Russell Coutts when the two yachting adversaries squared off in a charity dinner last night...

Coutts got off to a rather tame start, opening with a video detailing Oracle's struggles and triumphs over the past 12 months.

Dalton chose another tack with his introductory video, playing an interview with Larry Ellison in 2010, in which the Oracle owner made all sorts of bold promises - most of which have not eventuated. The move hit a raw nerve with Coutts, who later leapt to the defence of his boss, warning "he'll get to hear about this".

In the video Ellison claimed there would be many as 16 challengers, with "more international teams than ever before" and pegged the cost of competing at just $2m-$4m.

He also promised the design rule would be simplified and the boats would be cheap to engineer - they would not be going back to the complex wingsail technology like that which was seen in Oracle's trimaran, which won the deed of gift challenge in 2010 - a point that was met with derisive laughter from the audience.

"Mate, what the hell went wrong?" Dalton asked when the video wrapped up.

C'mon, Team New Zealand! Let's bring a little excitement back to the Cup: post that video to your YouTube channel! Until you do, I guess I have to run with this:

With seven more boats, this picture would have been complete

Hallelujah, the Vega Carina was approaching Barbados from Trinidad as of late Wednesday, presumably with The Container aboard and its contents of seven 5O5s, masts and sails for another dozen or more boats, and international juror Vicki Gilmour’s rule book.