Louis Vuitton Act 13 - Day 1: Preview

Here we are! The 13th and last Louis Vuitton Act starts in a few hours, raising the curtain for this year's America's Cup action. It is also the last opportunity to see all 12 teams racing together and obviously Alinghi, before they go into a two-month hiatus. It will also be an excellent occasion to check upon the latest yachts since with the exception of BMW Oracle's USA-87 and Emirates Team NZ NZL-84, none of the boats has taken part in official racing so far.

Concerning the sports part of the races, our interest will be focused on Emirates Team New Zealand where Ben Ainslie will be helming for the first time in official racing.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast for today is not extremely encouraging. The day will be sunny with cloudy periods during the morning. In the afternoon there will be a few clouds, but storms are possible. At night, cloudy intervals are expected. Temperatures will remain unchanged at around 17 degrees. Most importantly for us, winds are expected to be light westerlies, between 5 to 8 knots. The weather situation in the whole western Mediterranean is shaky due to a front situated north of Valencia, centered on the French-Spanish border.

Here's the forecast by Chris Bedford, BMW Oracle's meteorologist, courtesy of the BMW Oracle blog, not really coinciding with the one we have. As you might have read in our special meteorology section, weather and wind forecast are extremely important but also very difficult to build. Since westerly winds are very tricky and shifty here in Valencia, it will be interesting to see who was right after all.



Real-time automatically updated weather data
This is a brand new feature that will be incorporated into a simple button in order to be easily accessible. The data are almost real-time (15 minutes delayed) and automatically updated. They come from the weather station installed at the rooftop of the Desafío Español base and are provided by the Valencia Tourism Organization.



Crew guide presented by T-Systems
In addition to the real-time data weather in the next couple of days we will roll out another section "Crew guide presented by T-Systems". You will be able to learn and see exactly what every sailors does in a rich-multimedia format with text, photos and video aboard Shosholoza's RSA-83. Here is a video preview of the Headsail Trimmer and the Grinders. Turn up the volume of your speakers to experience the action aboard an America's Cup yacht.