GC32 Austria Cup, Day 2: ‘The Next Level’, Images by Sander van der Borch

All Images Sander van der Borch / The Great Cup. More images below, Full Gallery Here.-
This might be the best collection of images from a Day of Catracing ever. Having 4 GC32 going airborne while competing brings even more action to the already dynamic world of Multihull sailing.

I’ve been pointing out that this class will replace the X40s for a while now. The X40s have fulfilled their service big time and in a great way. I remember the first images of the Xtreme series, with boats pitching in 20-30knots of wind, and the super entertaining regattas previous AC34, that provided the show needed to close the discussion on Multis or Monos, if the goal was to make the Cup more popular and entertaining.

But now and thanks to people like designer Martin Fischer: Mayfly A-Cat, Flying Phantom &GC32,  their respective boat builders: Jakub Kopylowicz, Alex Udin & Laurent Lenne / Andrew Macpherson, plus later the Dna gang with PJ Dwarshuis, Arno Terra and Mischa Heemskerk  we are seeing a new Era in sailing, as they pushed for innovation to achieve faster racing boats even before the flying AC72s.

All these projects were featured here in Catsailingews since their render days. This was not foiling per se, something achieved many years ago,  but applying airborne foils to racing, a big difference we always put emphasis to remark.
As builder myself I fully understood and supported their efforts, beyond people laughing
and denying the idea will ever work. 
Even major media did not appreciated what we were seeing at San Francisco and talked about too much multihull exposure…

These flying projects weren´t successful at the beginning but they set the basis for what we are seeing now, and of course thanks to the developments of past Cup this new mode has become a new standard altogether. The Cup budgets on R&D later provided feedback to these first attempts for them to achieve the next level.

Innovation always comes from people with dreams and the guts to attempt to make them a reality. Then you have the ones that only criticize and stay comfortably at home waiting for others to do the hard work.
We’ve been talking about this new Era for some time now (Late 2010), we fully supported the past Americas Cup and we envisioned what was coming way before it became mainstream with the boats mentioned above.

The GC32 team bet big time in this project, and they finally managed to fit the GC32 right between the big Cup Cats and the flying beachcats, providing all the right ingredients to elevate and maintain Multihull racing as the pinnacle of the sport of Sailing. Extreme Sailing in 10knots.