Mine’s Bigger

Both BMW/Oracle and Alinghi are putting the finishing touches on their boats in preparation for training in San Diego and Lake Geneva over the coming weeks, and everyone is waiting anxiously to see what they come up with.  One clue for the American team was the recent arrival of what may just be the largest one-piece racing mast ever made.  At nearly 200′ long and 6′ from leading to trailing edge, the #1 DoGzilla mast is tapered at both ends as a good canting/rotating mast should be, and is simply monstrous.  We do not know what the BMW boat will look like to be able to support a mast twice the length of the boat, but they are bound to be significant.  The existence of three distinct masts of different sizes lends significant support to the idea that the BMW boat will run on soft-sail, rather than hardsail, power, with the possibility of three distinct rigs depending on microforecasts for each day’s weather.  This kind of multiple mast development works on unrestricted sail area classes like the 12 foot skiffs, so why not on the DoGs?