Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, whose team won the America's Cup sailing competition in 2010, has had a string of bad luck in the sailing competition.
Yesterday, another one of his $8 million catamarans capsized and was badly damaged, the San Francisco Chronicle reports
The sailing race had just wrapped up its World Series qualifying event, but teams are actively training for the main event in San Francisco next year.
Yesterday, Team Oracle was practicing on the 72-foot-long, carbon-fiber craft when it overturned.
The team had gone through a dramatic capsizing during the World Series, but this one turned out far worse.
A strong current sucked the boat out of the bay, past the Golden Gate and about four miles into the open sea.
The Oracle team sent nine boats to retrieve the craft, known as an AC72, and they did get it back. But the wing, the tall, mast-like part, is toast.
Fortunately, none of the 11 crew on the boat at the time were injured.
The AC72 is a brand-new racing design built by Ellison. It can travel as fast as 40 knots or 46 miles per hour. The speeds at which these boats will be racing, plus the close quarters in the San Francisco Bay, will make for one of the fastest, most exciting and most dangerous America's Cup races ever, Ellison has warned.
Teams need to raise $50 million just to enter the race.
While $8 million is relative peanuts for Ellison, one of the richest men in the world (and getting richer all the time), it's costing him and his team time: He can't race until the boat is fixed.
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