Oracle Racing Show and Tell

February 21, 2012

Ian "Fresh" Burns opens the door to expose an AC72 hull being built. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Oracle Racing had a show and tell day today and opened up Pier 80 in San Francisco to the media to show off the new build of their AC72. Most of the features of the design are still hidden but it's nice to see the openness compared to earlier campaigns.

The layup tent is a simple affair with half of the hull being built out of aluminum honeycomb and pre-preg carbon fiber that is vacuum bagged. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Once completed, the half hull is baked in a simple oven to set the resin and the two halves are bonded with the support structure to make one complete hull. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Work is still being done on the AC45s at the pier. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Ian Burns shows the press an AC45 wing. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

In its former life it was just a big empty pier. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

One big ass sail loft. All of the inner building structures are temporary and quite
simple. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Although the feeling is that this America's Cup is high-tech compared to previous ones, the building and boat construction are quite old tech. It feels so '90s…