Thirty Knots, With the Wind at Your Wings

From the New York Times...

"USA-17, the challenger for the America’s Cup, and Alinghi 5, the defender, may be stripped-down, lean racing machines, built purely for speed. But both are fully loaded. Loaded, that is, with compressive and tensile stresses in an exquisitely choreographed dance of struts, spars and cables. Made almost entirely of carbon fiber, the enormous multihulls — USA-17 has three hulls, Alinghi 5 two — are about as delicate as a house of cards. If a big enough element were to break, the whole thing could fall apart."

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