These are the incredible boats racing in the America’s Cup this weekend in New York

New York will host two days of racing for the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series this weekend.

Throw away any preconceptions about sailing: the racing on May 7-8 will be fast, intense, and composed of a field of massive, alien-spaceship-like racing yachts each as tall as an eight story building.

Sailing at speeds of up to 42 mph, the boats will have to jockey for position in a tight and windy racecourse very near to the Manhattan shoreline.

Each team will use the same yacht, called an AC-45. It’s a twin-hulled catamaran that uses foils to lift itself out of the water and a rigid sail (bigger than the wing of a Boeing airliner) to move at several times the speed of the actual wind.

Here’s a look at these incredible yachts.

Dragan Radovanovic/Business Insider