Given the conditions and new boat design this year, organizers for the first time had enacted new safety rules requiring sailors to wear crash helmets during practice and competition.

WSJ: Before America's Cup Capsize, Concerns About Safety

At the heart of the fight are new rules Bertarelli has established for the next Cup, including naming all the officials and requiring competitors to build a 90-foot boat whose design specifications are known only to Team Alinghi.

FORBES: Billionaire Boat Battle

The brief for the Plastiki Expedition was to design a boat made out of plastic bottles that could be sailed across the Pacific Ocean that would draw attention to the problems facing the oceans as well as the kind of solutions that we need to implement.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

David was very complimentary about my talk on biomimicry, which was about looking to nature as a source of inspiration for new technological solutions, so we met up after the conference and started to develop design ideas for his boat.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

But mainly by exploiting the basic rule of yacht design: The longer the boat, the faster it can go.

FORBES: Mine's Lighter

He came complete with a first draft design -- of a boat.

CNN: From a voyage of discovery to a real ocean odyssey

Since then a few more yachts have joined the speed club, mainly by exploiting the basic rule of yacht design: The longer the boat, the faster it can go.

FORBES: Mine's Lighter

This is something you can't achieve with stylish design, it's part of the boat's fabric.

CNN: Sailing the Arctic in fishing boat turned luxury spa