America's Cup World Series Practice 8/21/12

On 8/21/12 a Meetup group, Bay Area Photography Events, assembled at the entrance to America's Cup Village on Marina Green in San Francisco, CA to watch the 11 teams prepare for America's Cup World Series racing the next day. Richard Eggers and I were there to take pictures and video of the competitors and the setting. We watch the introductory TV briefing in the morning, the races during the day, and the TV summing-up session at the end of the day (where all the helmsmen of the boats were interviewed).

Photos (C) George Hamma 2012

As we arrived in the area on Lombard street, we could see this marker for the event over half a mile away. I don't think I'd want to spend the windy afternoon up there!
The Palace of Fine Arts looked like it was just down the street as we walked to the Marina Green.
Street parking in the Marina district of SF was going to be hard to come by!
It wasn't hard to spot Ed and the Meetup group at America's Cup Village on Marina Green.
This AC45 was moored at Marina Green, giving us a taste of what we were looking for.
As we learned through the day, there were an incredible variety of support boats deployed for the event. Team chaseboats, signal boats at the start, medical, rescue, umpire, and so on.
This example of AC45 boat parts was on display on Marina Green.
Bob Redell of NBC Bay Area news was starting to record in introduction to the event.
The layout of America's Cup Village
Sir Russell Coutts of the Oracle team was standing by to be interviewed.
Bob and Russell have a chat.
The Vice Commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club opened the morning video program with a live introduction to the America's Cup and the World Series.
The one-and-only America's Cup
The original cup and several added layers are all held together with a single bolt.
As more challenges took place, each race has outcome been recorded on the Cup.
Additional races, more sections have been added.
The race course for the AC72s.
The World Series and America's Cup race courses are scaled to match the size of the AC45 and AC72 boats, respectively..
We were introduced to the announcer for the coming races.
Lots of boats started arriving to view the event.
The official mark boats began to position themselves.
Each boat has a signal beacon to display status, and two remotely controlled video cameras - one forward and this one at the rear.
The official start boat.
Crews started being shuttled to their boats.
One crew member carefully washed a mark off the side of Piranha
Marks at the west and east ends of the course use two boats.