High Tension

The latest video from the Oracle AC72 is pretty amazing but equally scary: the loads on this thing must be huge - just look at those hulls flexing.

And Ben Ainslie's been out there sailing them and he's reported back, emphasising again the need for a shore crew.

This is just after the row when with under a year to go the organisers turned round and told the competitors they'd have to cough up for shore based facilities. New Zealand's Dean Barker wasn't impressed and blogged about it (gosh, these bloggers eh?).

While I'm quite impressed with the high tech beasts it again highlights one of the worst sides of the AC, namely the extent to which success depends upon funding.

At least they are out there sailing, but no one really knows what's going to happen when they go head to head for real, except breaking things will be bad.

And very, very expensive.