I have been humming Moby’s Extreme Ways (the theme from the Bourne movies) after a day at Pier 80, the base for the Oracle USA Racing Team and watching the two races today from the Oracle Lounge at Pier 27.
After the sendoff to the 11 person crew (in video below) Julien Di Biase, Logistics Manager of the team (in photo with Susie Penner of Oracle, my host for the day) gave us a nice tour of the AC72 carbon fiber catamaran hulls and hyrdofoils (the reverse of the winglets on a new 737 which make the hulls literally fly out of the water at speeds exceeding 40 knots an hour - 46 mph). Particularly striking was his comment about most sailors going for a cool one after they docked. Not those at America’s Cup. The 131 foot sails and the 72 foot hulls have to be precision lifted by cranes after each practice and race and then rolled into the cavernous Pier 80 – a process which can take as long as an hour and has to watch for gusts which could make the sail fly.
The analytic data generated by the 300 sensors and cameras on the boat is massive -a gigabyte of raw data per boat and about 200 gigabytes of video per day. The chase boat is relayed key metrics from this raw data, and that in turn is relayed to wearable technology (designed with Tag Heuer, the Swiss watchmaker) and to ruggedized tablets on the AC72. Think of the communication challenges at those speeds in an RF hostile carbon fiber environment. Asim Khan, IS Director for the team describes the Exadata machine and other analytic technology they use.
While the races are being broadcast worldwide, there was something awesome about hearing the helicopters hover above the Oracle lounge knowing their video and inertial navigation LiveLine feed provided the visual aids on the many giant TVs in the lounge. Julian Guthrie, author of The Billionaire and the Mechanic, was in house autographing copies of her story of the 2010 America’s Cup. While the crowd in the lounge was a bit subdued by the dominant performance this day (they won both races) of The Emirates New Zealand team, there were countless conversations about the extreme fitness, diets and routines of all the athletes in the competition. The panting TV images of the grinders as they struggled with the winches on the 13,000+ lbs of technology they were managing provided a good reminder of the extreme sport
Moby summarizes it pretty well
…I would stand in line for this
There's always room in life for this….
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