on San Francisco Bay.
Summer officially begins next Tuesday. Spiritually, Summer arrived last week when temperatures finally reached the normal range.
The Little Heat Wave brought the usual brisk afternoon winds through the Golden Gate as temps in the Big Valley flirted with the 90's.
There was a spate of never before seen activity on The Bay's waters, America's Cup Racing Catamarans began testing.
It was quite a week!
The new boats on the Bay are AC45's. They are 45 foot long catamarans with a Wing Mainsail, and are the boats that will be raced in The America's Cup World Series, a world tour in 2012 that is to introduce the 34th America's Cup Regatta that will be contested on SF Bay in August 2013.
Towards the end of this Summer, the AC72's will be launched. These are the boats that will compete in the 34th America's Cup Regatta. Depending on conditions, the Wing Mainsail will be between 70 ft and 103ft tall. The Organizers say these boats will make 40 knots in a stiff wind. That's 46 mph landlubbers!
Judging from Monday's drama on the Bay, the Big AC72's racing in the Cup is going to be wild!
What was so wild on Monday? The AC45 dug the bow of one of it's hulls, "Pitch Poled" over and capsized. In the video you can see Oracle Racing's CEO and Helmsman Russell Coutts fall right through the Wing and into the Bay!
Lots of buzz is starting to escape from the local sailing fraternity. Today lots of blogs have landed on Facebook Walls. Here's a firsthand account of a ride on the AC45. The San Francisco Chronicle is on the story as well as all of the Local Television News Outlets.
The Oracle AC45's will be shaking down on the Bay, Monday through Friday afternoons through August.
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