Well Done!

From Merikay:

We had a good day as far as repairs go.  We stayed overnight at a small mobile home park Tuesday night. The place we were having our leveling jack replaced at, was quite near. That work was finished in a couple of hours and we went over to the Sacramento Truck Center for the replacement of our bell crank and the front brake drums, plus installation of SuperSteer motion control units which go in front of the air bags.  Big $$$.

STC has a comfortable driver's lounge with a nice TV and we were able to watch the last America's Cup race. Craig writes about that below.

They didn't finish the work on the Alfa this afternoon, so we're staying overnight in their parking lot.  It's OK because we  have an electrical hook up. We will be heading down to Zion as soon as they finish.  A good three day drive.

The rig is starting to smell wonderful because I'm baking a homemade chicken pot pie.   Looking forward to a yummy dinner!

From Craig:
Yes it was possible for a sports team to win a "first to 9" event after being down 8-1, and in fact Oracle Team USA did it! We watched the cup-presentation ceremony and everything, and the Kiwis were as gracious as runners-up as they have been throughout the regatta. Several speakers including the SF mayor murdered Spithill's name. We hope that both New Zealand and Oracle retain their interest in contending for the America's Cup in the future, and that future boats end up more like those used this year than like the smaller, slower, and less expensive AC45's.

We hope that Dean Barker recovers from this experience and continues to play a role in the international sailing community, as many AC guys have done as they've gotten older.

We would have been more neutral between Oracle and ETNZ if not for the sports-court decision to ban Oracle's sail-trimmer and penalize Oracle 2 races.  We heard both sides argued on public transit in our first weekend (SF is great for such things :-), and by our understanding the penalty exceeded the offense.

AC72s (while sailing) are among the most beautiful expressions of mankind's urge to engineer and design things. We sincerely hope that the reactionaries in the US, NZ, and elsewhere who call for "a return to proper single-hulled sailboats" will not prevail. They remind us of the Texas politicians who passed a bill/resolution to ban the teaching of critical thinking in their schools.

When we were young there was a saying that we've not heard much of recently: "American ingenuity". When was the last time you heard this phrase? Oracle's design team, who "worked all night every night" according to James Spithill, seem to embody these obsolete words. We assume the design team included a higher percentage of Americans than the sailing team.

We're drinking Skyy Vodka (one of ETNZ's sponsors) in tribute to both teams.