Given that the Golden Gate Yacht Club — home club of Larry Ellison and his team BMW Oracle Racing — couldn’t confidently start on America’s Cup 34 until they won the much-litigated AC33 in February, 2010, it’s pretty amazing that they got the new World Series program running last August. Besides the raft of new behind-the-scenes technology discussed here recently, the organizers put together a large fleet of support vessels and a core shore infrastructure that could all travel around the world packed into a cargo ship. And the AC34 folks do not seem to do anything halfway. For instance, click on the photo and see how the ACRM (Race Management) containers were stacked and accessorized on the San Diego Navy Pier to make a two-story Base with decks and awnings (and even wheelchair access). Consider too the sleek camera-toting power catamaran Cambria…

Stan Honey has not always been grinning during the San Diego session of the AC World Series, but it’s staggering what he and the many tech teams behind the scenes have already accomplished. As I had hoped. In fact, while I came mostly to see the technology, I’ve become enthralled by the racing itself, which — almost ironically, and a far cry from previous AC’s — is all about sailing skills rather than competing design and gear technologies. The fleet of AC45 catamarans is nearly pure one design (they have some latitude over the “soft” sail designs) and I understand that the only racing electronics the crews are using are GPS speedos. What all the gadgetry and software supports are remarkably agile race management, fast and fair umpiring, and phenomenal audio video broadcast coverage…