Slow and Fast on a Wednesday

The slow part of this day was on ILENE, a boring two knots or less due to very light wind, for two hours on Eastchester Bay, with Bennett as my companion. I could have cleaned the boat instead!  

(Then an interesting lecture on his new book, Fear Itself, about the New Deal, by  Prof. Katznelson of Columbia University. It was racist southern democrats which put through FDR's program, making sure that black people could not benefit. An example of this was that there were two exclusions from Social Security: domestic workers and farm workers. Why? 80 percent of the employed blacks in the south were domestics or farm workers.)

In the evening, reclining comfortably on a padded sofa, I watched the 17th, final and deciding race of the 2013 America's Cup, which Lene had recorded for me. No two knots for these high tech 72 footers. They peaked at about 40 knots of boat speed in 20 knots of wind, slowing during the tacks. They did this upwind and down. Eleven men per boat, each with an assigned specific well practiced task. Hmmm. Two knots or forty? The AC boats are hardly boats; they rise up out of the water on hydrofoils. It takes a multibillionaire to finance one. All professional athletes, mostly not from the nation under whose flag they compete.  This concept of lifting the entire boat out of the slowing friction caused by the water is so new that the crews, supported by teams of more than 100 on shore, were still learning how to sail the boats to maximum advantage during the regatta. The US team learned how to modify their approach after or during their losses and came out faster in the later races.

Oh yes, the US boat, with its Owner, Larry Ellison, in attendance nearby, won in perhaps the most dramatic comeback in sports history. Having been penalized two races for a rules infraction in the qualifying heats months ago, the first two US victories went to eliminate that deficit. After that the US wins counted. But about a week ago the US boat trailed eight races to one. Team New Zealand, sponsored by Arab Emirates Airlines, needed to win only one more race!  By winning the next eight in a row, including yesterday's race, Team Oracle/Ellison won the Cup, nine to eight.

The camera work made the show exciting, a lot more exciting than two knots on Eastchester Bay. But I will stick with ILENE, a monohull, whose graceful look contrasts with the muscularity of the competitive Star Wars monsters.
In the post race euphoria the team members were heard to say "Thank you boat!"
I should thank ILENE more often. She gets us through thick and thin.