DAVID POGUE: Going faster in boats is not just about winning. For almost all of human history, every increase in nautical speed has shrunk the globe and exploded our horizons. Faster boats allowed the Phoenicians to bring the alphabet to the world, Columbus to discover America and Magellan to circle the earth.

Today, it's the speed of information that is rapidly shrinking our world—with ultrafast internet connections—and creating an economy where speed is measured in nanoseconds.

We are hardwired for speed, and whether it's pushing information to travel at the speed of light, or jumping out of a balloon to break the sound barrier, today we are smashing through limits long thought unbreakable.

But with speed comes danger. From high speed computer crashes roiling the financial markets…

NEWSCASTER (FILE FOOTAGE): This market is dropping precipitously.

DAVID POGUE: …to the high seas drama of the America's Cup, the faster we go, the harder we fall.

JIMMY SPITHILL: These boats reward pushing hard; you push too hard though, it can be catastrophic.

DAVID POGUE: There's safety everywhere. We're all harnessed to the boat, like this. We've got oxygen, got a knife, and we have bright orange sleeves, so if we go in the water, we're easy to spot.

The limit to how fast all things can go is determined by two factors. The first is energy, how much you can put into a system. Sailboats, obviously, get their energy from wind. But here, Oracle's engineers were able to smash through what you'd think would be a natural limit, the speed of the wind itself. The Oracle takes 15 miles an hour of wind and turns it into over 40 miles an hour of forward speed. And they do that by re-thinking the most basic element of a sailboat.

It might seem crazy, but this sailboat doesn't have a sail. Instead, it has a wing. This 131-foot-high carbon fiber wing is the boat's engine.

So how does this giant airfoil work?

SCOTT FERGUSON (Oracle Team USA): Hold this piece of paper to your mouth and blow. Blow along the top edge and see what happens to the piece of paper.

DAVID POGUE: Okay, whoa.

The paper is lifting for the same reason Frisbees® float and airplanes fly. In each case, wind traveling under the curved surface has a higher pressure than the wind above, creating lift. The same is true for sailboats, but the sail isn't horizontal, it's vertical. So here, the boat isn't pushed by the wind, it's pulled forward by low pressure.

Wow. In other words, it's sort of sucking you forward?

SCOTT FERGUSON: It's sucking you forward, exactly.

DAVID POGUE: To use the nautical term?

SCOTT FERGUSON: Yes.

DAVID POGUE: Traditional sails work the same way, but because they're flexible, they absorb some of the wind's energy. Boat designers have known for years that a rigid wing would be much more efficient. The problem was they were way too heavy. Carbon fiber changed that.

Bottom line: this boat doesn't sail, it flies.

The second key to speed is reducing resistance. As a boat moves through the water, it's slowed down by drag. So how do you solve that problem?

Their idea was to get this entire six-ton boat to lift out of the water and surf on a foil of carbon fiber.

KURT JORDAN (Oracle Team USA): It's an airfoil, just like a wing on an airplane. I mean, the fluid, whether it's air or water, accelerates over one surface faster than the other.

DAVID POGUE: In theory, it would rise up in the water just like an airplane through the air. But how about real life?

We should pick up speed, and if the boat goes fast enough, those foils in the water will do their thing and lift the boat out of the water.

The speed is intense. The thing lifts up out of the water, suddenly you're looking down 15 feet. It's like flying. It's like nothing you've done before.