Oracle...Team Emirates NZ

I grew up in Long Beach, California, so I am familiar with the concept of turning a ship into a building. They did it with the Queen Mary.

I was driving down the road on the way to a job on Friday and much to my surprise, the boat that appears to have been used by Team Oracle has been turned into a monument of sorts. It is up on its side a bit as though fighting the wind, sitting in a pond in front of an Oracle building.

Talk about out of place. Kind of like taking a Kentucky Derby winner and putting it on display at a petting zoo.

OK, here's the plan.

The racecourse looks like this:

The picture is rather small, but if you look at Google Maps to get a larger image, it looks like the spot I have marked in red is about where the Leeward Gate and finish line are. Meaning that I might get good pictures from Treasure Island. Free parking and lots of really big boulders to sit in quite comfortably. I am not sure about the sun. I know that shooting towards the windward gate or the starting line might be tough even with my polarizing lens, but shooting toward the Leeward gate and the finish line should be fine.

I don't know much about racing but my guess is that turning around slows down the boats a bit and speeds up the people a lot.

If I am wrong there are plenty more races I can shoot on other days.

I am not suggesting that cheaters should prosper. These were just the only guys out sailing during my lunch hour yesterday.

This was taken at the equivalent of 623mm at 1/400th of a second. So, as you might suspect, it was a long way off in the distance.

I wonder if any of those boats will ever get close enough to one another where you hear someone yell, " STARBOARD " to declare right of way ??