Huge Expectations for Massive Crowds

The second America’s Cup World Series San Francisco begins Wednesday with qualifying racing for the match racing championship. A day later, the first two of seven scheduled fleet races kick off the event championship, which concludes Sunday, Oct. 7.

The America’s Cup World Series San Francisco is part of what is being billed as the busiest week of events in the city’s history. As many as one million people are expected for events such Oracle OpenWorld (the largest technology conference in the world), the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, home games for the San Francisco Giants and San Francisco 49ers, and San Francisco’s annual Fleet Week.

Due to the AC World Series regatta coinciding with Fleet Week, racing this week will start later than at previous events.

“We have a challenging program this week,” said regatta director Iain Murray. “We’re working with Fleet Week, so most of our racing will be later in the day. On Super Sunday we’ll be participating in the air show with Fleet Week. The air show will start and then stop, we’ll sail our Super Sunday fleet race (scheduled to start at 1:55 pm PDT), and then the air show will resume.

“We have huge expectations for massive crowds that have never really been seen before in sailing to be here on Marina Green watching our event,”
Murray said.

All 11 teams that raced the first AC World Series San Francisco in August return, including (in order of standing): ORACLE TEAM USA SPITHILL (Jimmy Spithill), Luna Rossa Piranha (Chris Draper), Team Korea (Peter Burling), Energy Team (Loick Peyron), Luna Rossa Swordfish (Iker Martinez), Artemis Racing – White (Terry Hutchinson), Emirates Team New Zealand (Dean Barker),
ORACLE TEAM USA COUTTS (Russell Coutts), Artemis Racing – Red (Nathan Outteridge), J.P. Morgan BAR (Ben Ainslie) and China Team (Phil Robertson).

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BROADCAST: Here’s some information on how to follow the AC World Series in San Francisco (Oct. 3-7)…

• For live spectating, the broadcast commentary (Oct. 4-7) can be heard on marine VHF channel 20.
• All the racing this week (October 2-7) can be followed using the free CupExperience app which brings the LiveLine data to your smartphone. For both Android and iPhones, search for the ‘AC Race Tracker’ app by CupExperience.
• The racing on Wednesday will be available at VirtualEye, with the racing Thursday through Sunday picked up by 35 networks throughout the world. In the U.S., commentators Gary Jobson and Todd Harris will host the YouTube broadcast Thursday through Saturday, and then will move over to NBC to host the ‘Super Sunday’ final races. Get the Details …