By Alden Bentley – Yahoo! Australia
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Software titan Larry Ellison’s decision to race the 34th America’s Cup on high-speed 72-foot catamarans, which are harder to build and sail than keelboats, has been criticized for pushing the competition too far beyond traditional sailing and pricing out non-billionaires.
But this is the America’s Cup, Silicon Valley’s style – it’s all about technology, ideas and information – and advances made in preparation for the races are already being felt in television, aerospace and sporting gear.
“The America’s Cup has a long history of innovation on all kinds of levels,” said Gary Jobson, the tactician on Ted Turner’s 12-meter yacht Courageous when it won the Cup in 1977. “The boats have always had the leading edge of technology, whatever the technology has been.”
