Anyone else watching the America's Cup?

It's not exactly Test Match Special, but entertaining enough, and it's on Eurosport

SC

that was a tournament to equal the Ashes, if you ask me.

Oracle USA win 8 successive races to clinch the Americas Cup 9 - 8 over Team New Zealand, with the help of British Olympian and master tactician Sir Ben Ainslie.

There was some cracking sailing, Team New Zealand were within a couple of legs of sealing victory when poor wind resulted in cancellation of the race... Action, Drama, Controversy - what more could you ask for in a sporting event?

SC

Smokiewizaskin' fir a decent pie at Pittodrie, mind...

cracks me up how Ainslie is being singled out as the reason they won. I think the Telegraph called it "Ainslie's Team Oracle" <deleted>.

Oracle didn't win through tactics alone, they won because they figured out how to sail their boat faster. That comes about from the entire team, but certainly I think that John Kostecki would have done just as well (the original tactician) if the boat had been sailing like a rocket as they were doing near the end.

The crew on the boat are supported by 180+ people onshore, if any one person takes the full brunt, it has to be the helm.

They also got very lucky - ETNZ had 2 races cancelled from strong winds when they were in front, and ran out of time for 1 race when the wind was not strong enough (this race they had horizoned Oracle), plus 1 race where in front their wing failed, and they nearly capsized on top of Oracle. Any of these, and it would have been locked up.

Once it got to 8-5, it was almost a done deal, Team Oracle were hugely quick upwind and their tactic was just to basically split, sail around ETNZ and win. Pretty simple stuff. They won their share of starts, thanks to an outstanding helmsman, Jimmy Spithall. However, without the raw boatspeed, the cup would have been lost.