For Matt Cassidy, June's America's Cup World Series in Chicago will be a homecoming of sorts.
A member of ORACLE Team USA, Cassidy lived in the Windy City for six years and is looking to help his team get closer to America's Cup when the event comes to Chicago June 10-12 at Navy Pier.
The countries represented will be the United States, New Zealand, Great Britain, Sweden, Japan, and France. ORACLE Team USA won the America's Cup in San Francisco in 2013 and will defend its crown in 2017 in Bermuda.
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Cassidy spoke with CSN Chicago about why fans will want to come out and see this unique event in action.
"Some people think of sailing as boring and slow, and that has completely changed in the last few years. So these boats are sailing close to shore, really short race course. So the race is only 15 minutes compared to over an hour last time," he said. "The boats are very fast, they're foiling catamarans which means they're up out of the water. The hulls aren't even in the water if there's enough wind to get them up out on the foils, and they're doing speed 2-3 times the wind speed. So the boats could be doing 40-50 mph and that's something most people have never seen before."
Tickets are now available at ACWSChicago.com.