AC 45's - `Stadium Sailing' in San Francisco Bay

"Stadium sailing" is what Paul Cayard - who sailed for the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco - calls it.
After millions spent battling to bring the America's Cup back to America Larry Ellison and San Francisco will save the event.  Racing these super fast machines in the San Francisco Bay, in front of crowds on the embarcadero and on the Golden Gate Bridge.  count me and every other sailor in on this one.

Pierre Cayard - reunited with a boat of his youth

Pierre Cayard and ElToro

Paul Cayard, the world champion sailor, tracked down the El Toro sailing dinghy his father had built sailed to win 50 years ago.  HERE is the link.  I love this story because I have spent most of my life trying to preserve and recapture the boating experiences of my youth: my Snipe class sailboat (15'6"), our 16' Thompson lapstrake outboard runabout,  our 23 foot lapstrake Zobel skiff, the 18' Cape Code center board sloop that was the first boat my father bought, and the rowboat we used to get out to it at Sea Cliff Creek, Hempstead Harbor, NY.  And there was the afternoon sail I never forgot on Lou Perretti's Friendship sloop.  

Gladiator

I've done pretty well in my quest.  At the moment I have 1A - a cedar 11' Monhegan skiff, North River 2 - a 17' mahogany keelboat (Buzards Bay 14), and Grace - an 18' Lyman inboard runabout.  And of course we have a house in Friendship, Maine, across the river from the Zuber family which owns the  century old Friendship sloop Gladiator.  Pictured below in Friendship harbor, Bob Zuber tells the story of his family's boat HERE
h/t Eileen Tulipan for the Pierre Cayard story