>> That race has become boring. It's a funding raising/technology competition. It's upper middle class NASCAR.

I get why you'd say that, but the biggest-spending team was Oracle Team USA that spent hundreds of millions- and lost the cup to the smallest team with the smallest budget. That small team definitely would agree with you that fundraising was a huge challenge with no certainty day-to-day that all the bills could get paid. But it's not true that you can win it by throwing $ or technology at it. Oracle's own Aussie skipper had this to say: "You always have to have the best guys involved ... it will then go down to the team that has worked the hardest and wanted it more."

IMHO recent rules have moved focus further away from technology back towards skill and experience. For example, the "one design" hull rule makes it much harder to come up with outlandish high tech solutions, as once occurred when a cat absurdly raced a large mono hull.

Personally I find the foiling/tacking fascinating. Not only does it shorten the races, it emphasizes skill and experience since a skipper or helmsman error can capsize or even sink the boat in a split second at those speeds. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jli_m5zm91g which shows a brief error and its spectacular result.

When you consider that foiling-tacking first was shown by Team Japan at the end of 2016, the dedication and practice of all the other teams who also showed the technique by race time, even managing to keep the boat out of the water for 100% of the race, was remarkable.

Jli_m5zm91g