America's Cup 2013

The America's Cup is being held in SF this year and it's something I really wanted to go be a part of. It's a once every four year event and is happening in the USA for the first time in 17 years I think...might want to check Wikipedia to double check....and to get all the other great historic information about the race, like it's the oldest international sporting event in the world!  Anyway, it seems significate to me and I wanted to be in the middle of it all.

We met our friends, the Hirzel's down at the America's Cup Village and readied ourselves for a full day of race activities and race watching.  The Village was great.  Several venues to learn about the art and science of sailing and the history of the America's Cup.

As we were arriving we were able to see the Americans out on the Oracle boat sailing around, showing off the very impressive boats.  The race that day was between New Zealand and the Italians.  We got to see the sailors of both teams walking around and preparing but I didn't want to talk to them to distract anyone.  We snapped a shot of the Italians on stage getting a send off before the race started.

While waiting for the race to start we toured the village, watching a short movie on the boats and learning the science of sailing...it's all about the wind!

There was a Kids Zone as well, so much fun!  Kids got to build boats and try to sail them, trying to raise the sail on the ship...it was harder than it looks, color, view ships up close, and bounce on the "waves".

IMG 3712 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

It was finally race time and we headed over to the water to watch.  The beginning of the race was out of our eye sight so we had to wait about 20mins until the boats came into view to finish.  Even with the huge crowd, we had a great few of the finish as the NZ team won. We had to give the kids a little boost so they could see over the crowed.

The NZ team came back by to give us all a wave....Yay, the kids were so excited.

There were big screen TV all around the village so we decided the best way to see the next race was via TV so we could see the whole race.  We found an empty spot on the "lawn", found a bean bag and relaxed over snacks till the next race.  Unfortunately the second race was postponed due to high winds.  Apparently too much wind is dangerous thing.  Given that, we were especially happy we waited out the crowd to see the first race in person.

After relaxing and snacking we set off to tour the rest of the village.  The children agreed to conserve more water and recycle their sippy cups in order to color in the community wall.  They got a nice lesson in ocean conservation from the volunteers.

While the kids were coloring, Jen and I set off to do some shopping!  We were temped by the $525 flip flops in the Louis Vuitton store but passed them up for a good ol' fashion America's Cup cap in the Puma Store.  The Oracle store had this fun photo op...Jen and I sailing on the bay!

It had been such a full day, we decided to call it quits around 4pm, after starting at 10am.  We really wanted to stick around for the meet and greet of the sailors at 5pm but the kids were all very close to expiring.  It had been a long day of sun, wind and walking.  Good news is this was just the Louis Vuitton cup...the winner, New Zealand, will be facing the Americans in the final America's Cup in two weeks.  I have a hunch we'll be down there for that final race!