Oracle Team USA capsized their very expensive, carbon-fiber catamaran near the Golden Gate bridge on Wednesday.
Wired reports that the team had only had the boat in the water for eight days.
These boats are fast and mean, designed to be the most demanding sailboats on the water with the most skilled crews on the planet. They don’t use sails, but wings. They’re made largely of carbon fiber, and they’re huge: 72 feet long, with a beam of 46 feet and a mast 131 feet, 7 inches tall. They can hit 30 knots, and it takes 11 people to sail them.
The boat slammed into the water on its side, destroying the carbon fiber wing sail and scattering very, very expensive bits of carbon fiber over the bay. No one was injured, but the current pulled the boat through the Golden Gate and out to sea even as the team, joined by a crew dispatched from shore, tried to rein in the wreckage.
