How to see the Louis Vuitton Trophy semi-finalists sail for glory

(All rights reserved - Bob Grieser / Outside Images / Louis Vuitton Trophy)

With the very last stages in this year's season of Louis Vuitton Trophy scheduled for Dubai's semi finals and finals on Friday 26 and Saturday 27, there are a number of ways to stay abreast of the action come race day.

While Dubai TV holds the local live broadcasting rights and Eurosport and BSkyB will have highlights packages for their viewers, Sail.tv has also been offering live video feeds as well as archives of each waterborne contest so far.

The Louis Vuitton Trophy website itself also hosts a live text commentary, with accompanying photo updates, and video from the Virtual Eye sailing system which uses precise GPS data to construct accurate CGI representations of each race as it happens.

Each day's racing is expected to commence at 1pm local time, Gulf Standard Time, or 9am GMT, 10am in central Europe, and 4am Eastern Standard Time - as long as weather conditions in the gulf permit a prompt start, of course.

The four finalists include BMW Oracle Racing of the USA, who earlier this year won the right for the Golden Gate Yacht Club to defend the 2013 America's Cup, and Mascalzone Latino Audi of Italy, whose Club Nautico di Roma are to be the Cup's Challengers of Record.

Also contesting the semi-finals are the French-German team All4One, and series big dogs Team New Zealand, who won both of 2010's previous Louis Vuitton Trophy legs at Auckland and La Maddalena, and were runners up at the inaugural meeting on the Cöte d'Azur in November 2009.

http://www.louisvuittontrophy.com/gallery/virtualeye
http://www.sail.tv