http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/10-may/o30racing.html

First time ever there was an article in this magazine I finished. They are usually an exercise in bringing new buzz words to the lexicon.

Some pretty impressive stuff to say the least. I think the unrestricted format was a breath of fresh air.

"An hour of sailing generates 90 million data points."

"Each crewmember is equipped with a PDA on his wrist that has customized data for his job: what the load balance is on a particular rope, for example, or the current aerodynamic performance of the wing sail. The helmsman's sunglasses display graphical and numeric data to help him fine-tune the boat's direction while he keeps two hands on the wheel and visually scans the sea, the boat, the crew, the sails, and the wing."

"The USA generates almost 4,000 variables 10 times a second," says Burns. "Sometimes the analysis requires a very complicated combination of 10, 20, or 30 variables fitted through a time-based algorithm to give us predictions on what will happen in the next few seconds, or minutes, or even hours in terms of weather analysis."

I also thought 30 knots out of 10 was damn impressive at first, but that is 10 knots at sea level and the sail is 20 stories high. Can that really count as 3x?

reading this bit of the article was an eye opener. dont agree on the rules so you can go back to the default rules. now it makes sense
"The America’s Cup is a challenge-based competition in which the winning yacht club hosts the next event and, within certain guidelines, makes the rules. For the 33rd America’s Cup, the competing teams could not agree on a set of rules, so the event defaulted to an unrestricted format for boat design and cost.

“All we knew were the length of the boat and the course configuration,” says Burns. The boats were allowed a maximum length of 90 feet, and the course would be 20 miles out windward and 20 miles back"