Just to be completely remote form sportscars for a sec....
The Phillips boat you mention would be Team Phillips. It was a boat construced for The Race, but unfortuantly lost during a massive storm. . It was also the one that publicly snapped its bow on a sea trial, this was due to a manufacturing fault caused by the extrme nature of the design, however the reason the boat was lost is not the same (another story, not really the place to go into it here, unless one of the mods ok's it)
However this is not the same as an Americas Cup class (IACC) boat. The AC boats are awesome beasts weighing in at about 25 tons, 20 odd tons of that hanging off the bottom of a boat in the keel...
There was a very good article comparing a IACC with an F1 car in a recent issue (april 2004 iirc) of Top Gear Mag, made for some interesting reading, as I can happily relate to both. I think some guys figured out that the sails produce the equivilent of about 300bhp upwind, and near 500bhp donwind.
GBR Challenge was set-up by a guy called Peter Harrison of Chernikeff fame, for the last cup. They have their base in Cowes.
GBR Challenge Website
I recomend having a look at some of the pics, and take not there are no guard rails or anything like that, if you fall over the side (which does happen), you get left behind
. I remember seeing some funny footage of that happening, thankfully the guy managed to hold on to a line and hauled himself back on board.
you see you got me started now....
Ed