Indulge your notsalgia for a day when the racing was dramatic, and the crews were sailing for their countries.

Is there any chance the next edition will match this?

Another America's Cup summer looms on the horizon, raising again that perennial insuperable question that so tortures racing sailors: how the heck do we get laypeople interested in our sport? These days the default answer is super-fast boats and TV-friendly race formats, which certainly are attractive to sailors, even slowpoke cruisers like myself. But this sort of excitement, I fear, flies over the heads of most people who are not inherently interested in sailing. A much more successful formula is to focus instead on personalities. Look back at those moments in America's Cup history that have truly bubbled up into the mass consciousness, and you'll note they have all revolved around interesting people--Dennis Conner fighting to redeem himself after losing the Cup in 1983; Ted Turner talking trash back in the 1970s; Sir Thomas Lipton playing the lovable loser throughout the early 20th century.

Does God think that because it rains in torrents I am not to go to Peru
And destroy the world?

Doesn’t relate, quite, but it’s a gangbusters line and I’ve always wanted to use it. From the wonderful, fierce poet, Ai. And it did rain in torrents, straight down, with no wind on Monday in Bridgetown, Barbados and destroyed plans to sail race five of the 2013 SAP 5O5 World Championship

God’s judgement on the meanderings of The Container?

Come my children who love the sea, and all who sail upon her,
A tale I would tell of a wayward thing, a truly vexing bother,
Lost, not quite, nor forgot, not at all, for I speak of the one, The Container.
‘Tis known she rests on a shipping dock. Good news? You could sight her,
But this dock, this day, was meant I must say for shipping some other
Danged container to some place other than the frikking 505 Worlds.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to rhyme “Worlds?” Below we see Paul Von Grey pondering problems that have no poetry to them at all.

The magic word is “Friday.”

Unless you go to someone else and ask when the wayward West Coast container will arrive at or near the site of the SAP 505 Worlds, and that person tells you “Saturday.”

It's been a long and twisting road from the 12-Meters to the AC72s. And this edition of AC Discovered does a beautiful job of taking us down it. Fantastic footage, along with some sweet interviews.

Photo KL

Psst, if you stumble across a wayward container full of boats, marked 505 Worlds, please, please send it fastest way to Bridgetown, Barbados.

The, uh, California container is awol.

It could arrive on the 25th . . .

It could arrive on the 26th . . .

Let’s go ask that guy over there, the one with the fishing pole. His guess is as good as any.

Irish Radial sailor Annalise Murphy takes you inside the commitment, discipline and hard work required to claw your way toward the top of an Olympic dinghy class:

Annalise Murphy - The Journey from Atomic on Vimeo.

Have you got what it takes? 

(via)

Late last month, at the start of a race in Banderas Bay, Mexico, there was a collision between two boats Blue and Camelot (see above), with a pretty horrific outcome. Latitude 38 had the details:

Banderas Bay sailmaker Mike Danielson suffered two broken legs in an incident during the Class A start of race two yesterday in the Banderas Bay Regatta. Craig Shaw, driving his father Howard Shaw's Portland-based Hunter 54 Camelotwas literally in the middle of it, and gives this report:

"We — my mom, dad, sister Trudy, girlfriend Jane, and crew Jim and Laura Campbell — had a perfect start today. The Variana 44 Olas Lindas, with former J-World instructor Eugenie Russell at the helm, forced us up near the starting line about 10 seconds before the start. She had every right to do this, as she was the leeward boat. We were hard on the wind, maybe 30 or 40 feet from the Race Committee boat, when the J/160 Bluecame barging in — which is illegal — between us and the RC boat at about 10 knots. I yelled 'No room!' My crew tells me that I hollered it three times. Those on the RC boat said they heard me. Blue finally responded by heading up, going over the line early. But their transom came into our boat at about the shrouds. We didn't feel or hear any contact, but saw someone on Blue rush to the closest point of contact to help someone. We later learned that Mike Danielson had fallen while trying to cross the stern of Blue to fend off, fell overboard between the boats, and had both legs broken. Naturally, we all felt horrible about it."

The collision went to a protest committee, and Blue was found to be at fault.

Now, a video from Blue has been published, and Danielson, to his credit, has weighed in with his perspective.

First, the video:

And now, Danielson's comments, which were posted on Sailing Anarchy:

One interesting wrinkle for the 2014-2105 VOR is that there will be an all-woman team (the 5th in the race's history), Team SCA. 

SCA has already selected the first five crewmembers. And it is smartly tracking the whole campaign in a series of webisodes (full playlist here). 

It's going to be interesting to follow.

Here are episodes 1 and 2.

Click "Read On" for Episode 2.....