Gold medalist dead, A familiar set of questions is being asked after a 72-foot catamaran belonging to Artemis Racing capsized in the San Francisco Bay, trapping a British sailor underwater for ten minutes on Thursday afternoon. The sailor, British Olympic gold medalist Andrew "Bart" Simpson, was pulled out from under the wrecked boat and taken to the nearby St. Francis Yacht Club, where he was pronounced dead. He was 36 years old.
And so everybody's wondering: Is the San Francisco Bay too dangerous for America's Cup training? Is the race itself too dangerous? It was just six months ago that Larry Ellison's
72-foot America's Cup boat capsized in the San Francisco Bay after
zipping underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. And this was after Ellison
was allowed to dictate the size limitations for boats competing in the
race, opening the door for these giant catamarans. "Has Ellison's plan
to turn the world's most famous yacht race into a high-tech
white-knuckle NASCAR of the sea gone too far for speed?" the San Jose Mercury News wondered at the time.
The new class of America's Cup
contenders is simply a consequence of the race's hypercompetitive
tradition. To keep the race exciting, they say, the sailors have to keep
pushing the limits. The sailors prepare for the worst, many of them
wearing helmets on board and carrying mini oxygen canisters in their
pockets in case they get trapped under water. "If you can only race to
the top of first gear, it's boring," Team Oracle USA leader Jimmy Spithill said in November. "You need to be pushed."
It must be a team philosophy. Oracle's chief engineer Dirk Kramers echoed the sentiment, "If nobody takes risks there will be no progress."
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