At about 2:30 Sunday morning, 12 hours after the final race of the “Marseilles Louis Vuitton Act 1,” a brief but intense thunderstorm packing 65 knot winds hit Marseilles. The America’s Cup yachts belonging to Alinghi, BMW Oracle and Team New Zealand, sitting on cradles nearly side by side in the boat park, were blown over. All three landed on team porta-coms at about a 45-degree angle. TNZ’s NZL 82 appears to have sustained the worst damage, Alinghi’s SUI 64 probably the second worst, and Oracle’s USA 76 probably the least damage (and Oracle has their back-up boat USA 71 in Valencia ready to go, while apparently neither Alinghi nor TNZ have back-up boats in Valencia).
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