America’s Cup 2007

Emirates New Zealand under tow

With a spare weekend in front of us we drove up to Valencia to visit the new America’s Cup Marina and experience the atmosphere for ourselves. We could feel the buzz and excitement all around us as we saw the yachts leaving the harbour for the day’s racing. We both agreed that we had to bring Seraph up from Denia to experience the event from the water.

We cleared our diaries for a long weekend and on the 29th June set a course from Denia to the Port America’s Cup Marina.

The racing events over the remaining few days were all match racing, two boats racing against each other. The weather stayed glorious and our general routine was to review the days’ racing schedule over breakfast and decide whether we wanted to be at the start line for the north or south course. With Seraph washed off and ready to go we would follow the race yachts out of the marina where they would test the water and the wind before the start of the racing.

The start lines were fairly busy with spectator boats but getting a good viewing position was easy. The race yachts gave us quite a spectacle both before the race start and after the race end as they paraded through the spectator fleet. VHF radio gave us the countdown to the start and race progress with three pairs of yachts crossing the startline within 30 minutes.

Photo:Tony Abbott

We then moved off to one of the course turning buoys, always exciting to see them drop their spinnakers and jostle for position and then on to the finish line, having lunch on the way.
(Here we see Team Germany just ahead of China Team as they cross the finish.)

With the racing over we spent a couple of hours sailing thoroughly enjoying ourselves and then back into the marina for the evening’s entertainment and maybe a look in the Louis Vuitton shop!

We spent 4 nights in the Port America’s Cup Marina. A picture, photographer unknown, of Seraph in the Port America’s Cup Marina can be seen here Seraph is the white yacht in the picture centre.