Team Oracle USA Kicks Off America’s Cup World Series

Although the official America’s Cup is nearly a year away, 8 teams from different parts of the world sailed into the waters off San Fransisco to compete against one another in a 6-day long event known as America’s Cup World Series. As you may already know, Oracle Team USA are the defending America’s Cup Champions and were ready to compete in full force. To learn more about this exciting yachting event, keep reading.

Who Competed in The America’s Cup World Series?

Along with Larry Ellison’s Team USA, some of the other countries which participated in the race included Emirates Team New Zealand, France’s Energy Team, Great Britain’s J.P. Morgan BAR, Sweden’s Artemis Racing, China Team, Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge 2013, and Team Korea. Each team raced a single catamaran with the exception of Oracle Team USA and Italy’s Luna Rossa Challenge 2013 who has 2 separate boats in the water during the race. Some people feel that using 2 boats isn’t fair given the fact that other teams only used 1, but both Italy and Team USA followed all the necessary rules and regulations regarding the race.

Who Won?

If you didn’t get a chance to watch this spectacular display of boating, you missed out one of thrilling and exciting race. After a close neck-and-neck race, Oracle Team USA’s Russell Coutts was the first to pass through the finish line. Can you guess who the second was? Yep, it was none other than the second Oracle Team USA boat led by Jimmy Spithill. The two raced very close to one another and slowly began to break away from the other opponents. If this is a sign of what’s to come for the 2013 America’s Cup, I think it’s safe to say we’ve got this one in the bag.

For those who didn’t get a chance to see this race, there’s another America’s Cup World Series schedules to take place on October 2nd through the 7th. It will feature the same teams competing against one another in a similar yacht-racing event.

One of the “highlights” of the race was a moment when Olympic medalist Michael Johnson accidentally stepped off his catamaran, while it was going at a fairly fast speed of 20+ knots. I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want to fall off a boar going that fast. Thankfully, the gold medalist sprinter wasn’t injured, but the crew members sure got a good laugh from it. You can find footage of this incident on YouTube and several other video sharing website.