I know most of you guys don't care about this, but outside the good ole USofA, this race is a pretty big deal.

Basically it consists of 7 teams, each on 70 foot yachts racing around the world in a series of legs.

The first 48 hours of the race were brutal as the teams started in light air and then got broadsided by a massive low pressure system that caught them while they were still on top of the continental shelf, causing huge waves, and up to 40 knot winds. 3 out of the 7 boats are out of the first leg already, one sufferring a broken bulkhead when it free-fell off the back of a 20' wave and the other had its canting (rotating) keel box flood, which if uncontained would have sunk the yacht. While these things are 70' long, they are NOT a tea-sipping affair. They are part submarine, part sailboat. You can't be a fatass and sail these things.

Just thought some people might be interested in checking it out.

http://www.volvooceanrace.com



Some videos:
mms://wm.volvooceanrace.org/video/leg01/leg01_race_action_high.wmv
http://press.teamabnamro.com/default.asp?page=detail&id=500575§ion=video

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Also theres a transatlantic race going on right now called the TJV. 6 our of the 10 entered 60' ORMA class trimarans have either capsized in the middle of the ocean, or have completely broken apart:

11/17/2005 4:07:50 PM

Sports Talk

11/17/2005 4:32:08 PM

whoa . . . a 60' capsizing? where they sailing at?

ohhhhh . . . were on auto pilot at the time and it malfuncitoned

[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 4:39 PM. Reason : nermind]

11/17/2005 4:33:27 PM

restricted,

if you'd take any time to read any of the links, you'd realize that a sailboat RACE around the GLOBE or even across the ATLANTIC OCEAN is certainly SPORT.

honda: those 60' tris started a day before the Volvo boats. They got stuck in the same low that took out 3 of the monohulls. They are racing in the open ocean.

11/17/2005 4:39:06 PM

That shit's crazy. No fucking way would my ass be out there.

11/17/2005 7:10:53 PM