Tag: sailing

America’s Cup Comes to New York

As part of the training, hype and qualifying for the 35th America’s Cup, they’re taking their act on the road and that road leads to New York.

The America’s Cup is considered the oldest sporting event in the world, dating back to the 1850’s.  It’s a match race, meaning that two boats duke it out on a course and have only each other to contend with.  (There will be fleet racing, or rounds of match races, in preliminaries but the finals are one on one.)

City Island, the home of your friendly neighborhood Sailing Center, has a storied history of involvement in the America’s Cup going back to 1870!  Many, if not most, Cup boats were built, serviced and stored, or outfitted with sails here on City Island.  The US won the inaugural event, and held onto the Cup until 1983 when we first lost it – after the previous 5 successful defenders were built on City Island!  While Newport, RI seems to be more commonly associated with it due to notoriety/infamy/etc, City Island was more like the consistent, silent partner over most of the Cup’s history.  Sadly, all that’s left is memorabilia on display at the City Island Nautical Museum.

We won the Cup back, and lost it.  Maybe a few times.  But we surely took it back in style in 2013, when the Oracle team reversed a 8-1 deficit in one of the most spectacular comebacks in the history of sports.

ah cup shot
The Cup (or Auld Mug as it’s known) on temporary display downtown in Manhattan. That’s one of our students standing alongside – Adam Holmes, who learned to sail in Canada but came to us with some of his buddies from up North to do 103 and 104.  Then, they did their own bareboat charter in the Virgin Islands!

This weekend sees racing off lower Manhattan.  For those who can’t get on a boat in the viewing area, or a high enough perch to look down on it, not a drama.  You can watch a lot of it on cable and through the America’s Cup app on mobile.

For more info on City Island’s history with the cup, see the City Island Nautical Museum’s page on it here: http://www.cityislandmuseum.org/VSS-AmCup/AmericasCup.html

ps: the Museum, which is open on weekends, is well worth a visit.

For more info on this weekend’s Cup events and viewing options, go straight to the source.  You can see which networks are carrying it, and how to get the America’s Cup app and watch even more content live with that…
https://www.americascup.com/