You know what’s more baffling than a sailboat that goes three times the speed of the wind? A sailboat that does it without actually touching the water.

I don’t even know what to call the extraordinary race boats the America’s Cup is fielding. The Land Rover BAR AC45 I was invited to join is a 45-foot catamaran with a towering carbon-fiber wing for a sail and thin hydrofoils that lift the boat out of the water like a weapons-grade angel. Once aloft, it gives off a godly harmonic and rockets across Bermuda’s Great Sound at 35 knots—in 15 knots of wind.

This is a racing vehicle at its most extreme. Formula 1 still fields the fastest cars on the road, and it bills itself as the “pinnacle of racing.” But Bernie and the billionaires have been tweaking the same fundamental design for many years—the aerodynamics, tires and materials change by increments, and the engines (they’re called power units now) are dull hybrid contraptions that nod disingenuously to environmentalism. But the racing is a staid and mostly processional affair. Mercedes-AMG wins races; Ferrari wins hearts; and a smattering of other guys fill in the back of the field.