The bleeding edge of sailing technology

I just sat down to peruse the Times and found this very interesting article describing some of the technologies being used in competitive sailing. To be sure, many of these have been around for years, but they’re being advanced every year and pushed to the limit by integration with onboard computers and all that. Hinged sails? Hundreds of embedded stress sensors? We are still talking about boats, right?

I suppose this tournament’s only limitations are “have a hull, a sail, and don’t be longer than x.” There are more “authentic” sailing cups to be won, but I think we have space for both. Even if you or I consider one or the other to be the true sport, I think we can agree that going fast on boats is awesome.