Seen from across the West Side Highway, the tower's twinkling facade, with its hundreds of irregularly shaped windows tilted at odd angles to reflect fragments of sky or the surrounding city, offers a striking counterpoint to the soft, sail-like curves of Mr. Gehry's creation.
It gave USA-17 an edge over the soft sails of Alinghi's catamaran.
For decades, Sunday sailors could identify with America's Cup yachts, with their monohull designs, soft sails, narrow decks and relatively benign speeds.
And while Alinghi uses soft sails, BMW Oracle's boat has a segmented vertical wing, with nine flaps that can be individually adjusted for wind conditions.
Luna Rossa, for now, appears committed to competing in the AC72 yachts, the big, fast catamarans with wing sails that represent a new age for the America's Cup, which began in 1851 and has traditionally been contested in much slower monohull yachts with soft sails.
On his first day there he edged up to the plate-glass wall and peered down to see, a couple of floors below, fluffy white clouds that looked like soft icebergs sailing sedately across a submerged city.
A Spanish galleon lies in the jungle, its hull "an armor of petrified barnacles and soft moss," its sails dirty rags, the rigging adorned with orchids.
No. 10 Florida State (10-1) hagainain failed to sail through soft A.C.C. competition unscathed while not beating anyone of particular consequence save Clemson.
That "soft hit" training baseball sailed over my head and practically took out a window 20 feet away.
While some songs -- like "Childs Play" -- sailed, softer songs fell short of resonating in the way they might while listening to them alone with headphones.
