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:

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.

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.

Emirates Team New Zealand has been ahead of the pack with foiling, training, and overall preparation. So it's almost unfair that they have found yet another level of performance following a wildly creative design breakthrough.

I'd say all the other teams are toast and Larry could save a lot of money by simply shipping the Cup to Auckland right now:

ETNZ's Rod Davis tells it like it is when it comes to the game of spying and misinformation. Or does he? 

Either way, it's fun to read:

Last year when we were finalizing our foiling on our scaled down 72 boats Oracle was sniffing around and being a general pain in the backside.

We definitely did not want them to know that we had figured out how to “fly” at that point, but we needed to test so we had to sail.

The boat with the flying (foiling) package appeared to break down, slowly being towed home. The other boat, with lots of interest from the shadowing chase boat, started sailing in the other direction, to draw the Oracle flies away.

Once separated, the boat with the foils could do their thing, without the spies knowing. The mistake Oracle made was not checking who was going with which boat … had they done that they might have seen through the smoke screen.

There's more, about secret masts, superlight booms, and reading other teams' notice boards. And there is no question that teams are still at it.

Well, of course they are not. But it is unusual to see them screwing up. Here's the New Zealand Herald:

Team New Zealand have damaged their wingsail - a hi-tech and expensive piece of machinery - in a dramatic launch incident in the Viaduct this afternoon.

The incident occurred as the team were preparing to fit their wingsail to the platform of AC72 catamaran in gusty conditions. The 40m wing-sail needs to lifted into place by a crane - an extremely delicate process at the best of times.

A Team New Zealand spokesperson said as they were hoisting the sail, a big gust of wind blew across the the Viaduct, picking up the sail. The leading edge of the hard sail is understood to have clipped the side of the main building of Emirates Team New Zealand's base, ripping the skin and causing some rig damage.

Repeairs should take just a few days, and Oracle remains the champion when it comes to trashing a wing sail. But still. I definitely would not want to have been the guy explaining what happened to Grant Dalton.

Bonus link: ETNZ's Glenn Ashby talking about what it is like to trim the wing sail.

Update: ETNZ's wing is back in action, and a chastened shore team says "lesson learned." (video after the jump).

They seem to be getting the hang of it, but I doubt very much they are anywhere near as smooth as Emirates Team New Zealand. 

Still, nice to kow there might be a real race.

It's a taste of things to come. At least, what you can see of it in this video of Emirates Team New Zealand lining up against Luna Rossa. 

Nice gallery here.

And ETNZ tactician Ray Davies talking about it, and saying little, here (though the footage is excellent):

The America's Cup teams have been in the desisgn phase, and will no doubt stay that way through September. But eventually they will have to race against other boats, which is why you see the teams going head-to-head

Scuttlebutt has published more from the surprisingly informative interview with Artemis honcho Paul Cayard (scroll down to find Part 2 if you have already read Part 1), and he digs even deeper into foiling, and the tradeoffs between losing displacemnt downwind and adding drag to your boards upwind.

This is the classic sort of America's Cup discussion, which could easily involve more than a few head fakes, so it's hard to know whether to take it all as gospel. But it's still pretty interesting, in a Kremlin-ology sort of way.

Here's a taste (but read the whole thing): 

With the focus on full foiling, it is important to recognize there are wind crossovers that impact the equation. If the winds are too light to fully foil, then the excessive drag caused by the foiling blades will be a big problem. While July and August are windy months on the Bay, September can offer a wider range of wind strength. The foiling package that works in the Louis Vuitton Cup (July 7 - Aug 31) may not work in the America's Cup (Sept 7-23).

So far no team has been able to fully foil upwind. We see it when reaching and running, but not closed hauled, and I don't think we will see it in this America's Cup. But remember, even if the boats are not fully foiling upwind, they are still foiling to a less degree. A good estimation is that about half of the boat's displacement is getting lifted when sailing upwind.

Meanwhile, here's Team New Zealand showing what it all means out on the water, and showing how the whole foiling thing is done, in a video shot by some non-spies (i.e, a couple of guys out for a fun day on the water). Note: the breeze was 12 knots.