America's Cup 33- February 2010

America's Cup 33- Valencia, Spain

February 8-14, 2010

Going to the America's Cup. This has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid watching the movie "Wind" with my cousins Danny and Eddy. In fact, that movie and that dream can be credited for eventually leading me to Annapolis and falling in love with Rani (my Jennifer Grey). From falling for sailing and buying my first boat at age 13, to chasing this crazy career of mine from Maine to Maryland, to racing and sailing all over the world, the America's Cup started it all.

I will try not to bore you, but I figured a bit of background would help appreciate this historic racing event (feel free to skip down to the pictures if you don't care about the history). After years of debate between the British and Americans on which country designed and built the fastest sailboats, the race was first held in 1851 in England. The Americans and their yacht America, won the race by a large margin, causing the regatta to be named America's cup. The Americans held the trophy for over 130 years until they lost it for the first time to Australia in 1983. They later won it back (the storyline of Wind), but the cup has been held by New Zealand and Switzerland, since then.

For the past 40 years, the race has consisted of the Defender and the Challenger. The Defender is always from the country that won the cup last and the Challenger is decided by a regatta against all countries interested in challenging for the cup. Both the America's Cup and the Challenger regatta is organized by both the Defender and the Challenger of record (the first team to challenge after the Defender wins the previous Cup).

To make a very long story short, the Defender, Alinghi from Switzerland, and the Challenger, BMW Oracle, from the States could not agree on anything concerning the next America's Cup. After many court battles, the next America's cup was declared to be a one on one, best of three match race. For the race, each team was to build any sailboat they wanted that fit in a 90 ft by 90 ft box. So the Americans built a 90ft long and 90 ft wide trimaran (three hulls) and the Swiss built a 90 ft long catamaran (two hulls).

If you want to learn more about America's Cup 33, click here.

Yacht USA "flying its hulls" off the coast of Valencia. The Americans decided to build a hard wing sail instead of the traditional cloth sail. It is the largest wing ever built, larger than the largest airplane wing. (picture from BMW/Oracle.com)

Note how small the crew members look on this gigantic boat. (picture from BMW/Oracle.com)

The Swiss boat, Alingi, practicing before the race. (picture from Alingi.com)

(picture from Alinghi.com)

The America's Cup was scheduled for Monday, February 8, through Friday, February 12.

We headed down to Valencia on Monday morning.

The BMW/Oracle racing base.

Many international sailing teams have bases in Valencia from the last America's Cup. Shosholoza is the South African team.

Just to show the difference between this Cup and the last Cup regatta. The Italian boat Luna Rossi was used in the last America's cup Challenger series.

Looking out over Port America's Cup with all the international bases.

Noah and I in front of the Vel y Vente and the America's Cup park.

It is truly amazing the infrastructure that was developed for the 32nd and 33rd America's cups.

Some American food. Hot Dogs, Hamburguesas, and Patatas!

Although, the Swiss fondue was more appealing on this chilly day.

Noah rooting for his team

Alinghi at the Swiss base

You could see her mast from most places in Valencia

Unfortunately, USA could not be docked at the American base because of it's hard wing sail. This is as close as we got to her!

Unfortunately, the first race was cancelled because of a lack of wind. So we found some cool places to play!

On Wednesday, we had the same result. We started getting nervous we travelled so far and might miss the racing.

On Friday, Noah brought out his good luck glasses. The weather was looking good for a race.

The Swiss Alinghi preparing to go out for the race

The crowd was growing in anticipation for race 1 of the 2010 America's cup 33!


An Alinghi sighting before the start of the race.

The two enormous boats battling for position at the start of race 1. Alinghi got a great start on USA and quickly opened a very large lead. (photo from BMW/Oracle.com)

After USA got into a groove, it was apparent that she might outperform Alinghi. Here we watched on the jumbo screen as she is passing Alinghi after overcoming a mile separation. It was very exciting. Although, I think Noah and I were the only people screaming and jumping up and down.

The Vel y vente at night, while waiting for Alinghi to come back after the race.

Unfortunately, we had to leave on Saturday to head home, but we did get to watch USA go on and beat Alinghi in race 2 on tv. So, the America's Cup is on it's way back to America!

January and February- the missing months

The month of January was pretty uneventful. We have been training a babysitter, so haven't done much on the weekends. We keep making plans to go snowshoeing or snowboarding but it just doesn't seem to work out. Anyway, we did take a few fun videos.

Right outside our village, we found this great indoor playground. We visited it once before but forgot the camera. This time we had a real surprise when Noah wanted to go down the slide by himself.

He kept trying to get to the trampolines, so when it was empty I finally let him in there. He badly wants to be like the older kids!

Our first bike "ride" on the Wanderweg. Actually, I pushed and steered while he sat there looking cool!

For the longest time, Noah would get very upset when you turned on the vacuum. We either had to give him a bottle and plant him on the chair or carry him around as we did our chores. It seems he hasn't quite gotten over it, but atleast he's having fun.

Christmas 2009

December 24- January 1, 2010

With limited vacation time and in the hopes of using what's left of it when people come to visit this year, we decided to only travel home for one week around Christmas. Luckily, we recovered from our flus just in time to fly on the morning of Christmas eve. The trip started great, packed the night before, had breakfast and was in the car on the way to the airport before our planned time (which is an extreme rarity for us).

Everything is great, until an hour into our flight, when they announce we have to land in London because of a malfunction in the plane. After an hour or so waiting at Heathrow, they load us onto a new plane. Studying our watches, figuring time changes, and how much time we lost, we figure we could still make our connection to Cleveland in New York.

Very excited, we land in New York a half hour before our boarding time to Cleveland. Everybody on the plane rushes to get through customs. Out of breath, we reach baggage claim to find that the luggage hasn't come out yet. We wait... and wait... and wait.

It turns out that the airport employees had left to go celebrate Christmas Eve with their families and nobody bothered to unload our plane! Of course, we missed our connection and the next available flight to Cleveland was Christmas Day at 3 pm! That would have meant we would be staying in a hotel in New Jersey and waiting around for our flight in the airport.

Rani turns to me and calmly says, "We will drive."

Huh? "Are you crazy? It's 1 am our time already! And you want me to drive 8 hrs to Cleveland?"

"Yes", she replies calmly, again.

"Yes, my love", I mutter as I take off at a sprint to the car rental area.

Luckily, the last car rental agency I checked with had a car to rent. We loaded up, set the gps, hit the road and after 7 hrs of singing the top 100 Christmas Carols (twice), we reached Cleveland at 3 am (9am our time).

It was definately worth it, waking up Christmas morning to a house full of family and opening presents

First stop - Cleveland, Ohio.

Opening presents!

Cousin Kennedy with her new puppy dog.

Kurt's new bike for riding along the Swiss wanderwegs.

Noah & Cousin Kennedy visited the Rain Forest at the Cleveland Zoo over the holiday.

Noah's new monkey friends.

It seems Amanda is more interested in the chimps than the kids!

Rarrrhhhhhh! That's what Noah says the Lion says. (In fact, when he just saw this picture he rarrhhhed!)

The Zoo Gang trudging up the hill to the Ape House.

On Tuesday, we had a much less eventful flight from Cleveland to Baltimore

Annapolis Christmas

More presents. Noah was begining to get the hang of opening presents. Although, he still liked to steal all the bows off of everyone else's gifts.

Aunt Nicole in her new shades. Very cool!

Noah needed a feeding break between the gift opening so Grandmom Price gives him a bottle full of energy.

Something Noah said must have set Grandmom Price off.....

Is that a fancy Snuggie?

What is that we see? The Prices European Vacation 2010?? Yikes......sounds like great future blog material.

Here we are with Noah's buddy Jacob and Jeanni.

Julia shares some food with Noah.

Pre-Christmas in Switzerland 09

December 19-21, 2009

We planned to have our pre-Christmas with Noah in Switzerland before we went home. Kurt & I decided that we would do this the Sunday before Christmas. So Saturday night we were up really late putting together Noah's present (not really). Then around 3 a.m. Kurt woke me up asking for the bucket to relieve himself of his dinner and on my way back upstairs with the bucket I realized that I also needed to get rid of my dinner too. Kurt and I continued throwing up through the night into the morning so unfortunately our plans did not work out exactly as planned for Sunday. Noah had come home sick the Thursday before this but by Saturday he was running around as usual. It wasn't until too late that we realized we had caught his flu so we delayed Christmas until Monday morning.

Noah and Kurt getting excited for Christmas coming!




Our pre-Christmas eve......instructions in German of course but at least there were pictures.

The final product with Curious George along for the ride.

Noah discovering his nicely wrapped present. Unfortunately we ran out of paper - this was 2 rolls. I have to remember this for future Christmases.

Noah needed a little help getting started.

Am I cool or what? Check out my new bike everybody!