Americas Cup: Sir Russell Coutts Interview

There's a certain point called the death zone

and if you sit there too long without doing anything,

that thing's gonna capsize.

I knew maybe half a second before that

there's no coming back from that.

That's me falling through the wing there.

Just went straight through.

If I had have hit the wing a meter further forward,

it would've hurt a lot more.

Even though it's got a hole in

the wing, we could keep sailing.

I wasn't too badly injured, I had a couple of cuts,

a couple of bruises and that was it, you know.

So I could've got back onboard and

finished the race, you know, in reality.

Obviously wouldn't have been as fast with a hole in

the wing, but you still could've gone around the course.

(intense rock music)

This whole format was meant to test

the best sailors in the world.

Probably a lot of people have got an image of sailing

that you go for a sail out on a Sunday afternoon,

you have a couple of beers on board

and you socialize a bit and that's the day, you know.

This is much more extreme, much more active.

As a racer, I've got to say this format's more exciting.

Well the 72's more highly-loaded.

Four times more load at least and going 30% faster.

That's state of the art race machines.

72's gonna hydrofoil on the water

when they're reaching high speeds.

We're kind of jumping into the unknown.

Discovering new things, new techniques to

sail the boats faster, new tactics on the race course.

These things are gonna fly.

And it's kind of a fun era to be in the sport.

I guess from my perspective I wish

I was 25 years younger, you know.

One of these young guys that's

getting into it now, it's the perfect timing.

All the sailors involved are saying

wow, this is the most fun we've ever had.

Probably the most challenging the boats have ever been.

And it's only going to get better.