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Wednesday, 24 August 2011 03:00

Storyboard: Innovation on the Open Sea

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  • 9:00 pm  | 
  • Wired

Storyboard: Innovation on the Open Sea

The 2010 America’s Cup ushered in a new era of modern engineering in the sport. A team sponsored by the tech giant Oracle sailed a two-hulled catamaran with a wing instead of a sail, a design traditionalists thought was downright offensive. But now it’s the standard for the 2013 event. As Oracle Racing CEO Russell Couts put it, the next America’s Cup will, “meet the expectations of the Facebook generation, not the Flintstone generation.”

The new boats are no longer officially referred to as yachts and they look to bring record-setting speeds to the 2013 competition. Scaled down versions are currently being tested and they glide across the top of the water at 40 mph. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s hope to have a competition where it’s exciting to sail and exciting to watch is becoming a reality (see the video for yourself).

Contributing writer Adam Fisher saw and experienced the newly engineered boats, both their high speed successes and wrecks. He wrote about it for the September issue in the feature, Winging It: America’s Cup Racers Push the Sailboat to Its Limits. Fisher joins Articles Editor Rob Capps and host Adam Rogers to discuss the new America’s Cup and what he witnessed first hand. As a bonus for journalism enthusiasts, there’s even talk of how Adam’s (Fisher again) editor helped during in the writing of this piece.

It’s a fast paced podcast with only a few minor crashes. Life jackets recommended.

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