The America's Cup is the most prestigious award in sailing, and it looked like Team USA was about to lose it. In previous years the cup worked more like a title fight boxing match: there was the champion who held the cup and other yachting clubs could make a challenge for the cup. Typically this meant only 2 boats, the champion and the challenger, facing off against each other. After winning the cup Larry Ellison (of Oracle fame) decided to change the format such that a number of teams could challenge for the cup with the winner of a series of runoff races challenging the reigning champion. The champion also gets to choose the type of boats to be used, and this was changed from traditional monohull sailboats to hydrofoil catamarans with wing sails, a very radical (and fast!) design.

Team New Zealand had won the runoff races and was now challenging for the cup itself in a series of seven races. Ellison's Team USA had made a poor showing so far, losing the first 3 races to Team New Zealand. One more loss and it was all over. It looked like it wouldn't be any different this day either, with Team New Zealand taking an early lead and opening a huge gap over Team USA and easily crossing the finish line first. There was a problem though: it was't a very windy morning and the rules state that there is a time limit on the race. Team New Zealand may have crossed the finish line first but they weren't quick enough to beat the clock so the result didn't count. It was back to the starting line to try again.

This time Team USA found a little extra something and took the lead, finally winning their first race of the series. Still, facing such a steep deficit, this victory seemed more like it was just delaying the inevitable and turning it into a loss rather than total rout. That's not what happened though. Over the next few days of racing Team USA kept finding that little something again and continued pulling off wins through the rest of the series to keep the cup at home. This race ended up being the turning point of the whole competition.

Tags: Sailing, Cities, San Francisco