Anything Can Happen, And It Does

And the last shall be first. Dig this:

China Team relaunches its broken boat on Sunday, dumps an easy two points into the lap of Luna Rossa on a 2:57 loss, and then comes out on Monday and scalps its first earned points off BMW Oracle when the mighty US team blows a tire. Sail. Headfoil. Whatever.

Twice the jib blew out of the headfoil on the first beat. USA 98 sailed to the weather mark bareheaded and rounded behind by 3:24. In case you ever wondered just how important it is or isn't to have two sails on the case. On the second beat the crew got a headsail up, but they seemed to be handling it as gently as China Team was handling its every maneuver. That is, conservatively. Finally given a shot at a win, and still testing the boat in a breeze that touched a frisky 15 knots, Pierre Mas and his boys were anxious to not shoot themselves in the foot. This was in the prestart:


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

Add irony: Chris Dickson was spared the loss. Not disrespecting China Team or anything, BMW Oracle sent out the B team under helmsman Sten Mohr, with Bertrand Pacé in as tactician and Ed Smyth as navigator.

Ian "Fresh" Burns, head of the design team, was assigned to meet the press to explain this incident, which was reminiscent of an incident in the Acts. Here's Fresh:

"It was a failure of the luff groove that holds the headsail. The crew tried a rehoist, but the damage had been done. In the 13-14 knots that we had at that moment, you've got your big headsail on and the rig is fully loaded up, and that's actually the range in which something will probably break if it's going to break. Everything's pretty pared back in the rig—the headfoil is a combination of carbon, Kevlar, and other materials in what is actually a rather complex piece of geometry. We have a whole range of foils, but that one was our frontline foil. Until today. It may have been 'over-optimized.' We'll be looking at that."

Meanwhile, it's been sadly easy of late to talk to the members of China Team, while certain rock stars have been swamped with press attention. Today, things turned around a bit. This was the best picture I could get of skipper Pierre Mas and his guys. That round fellow on the right is Pierre being happy about the day but saying, "Today they had an 'engine problem,' but that's sailing. I will be more proud when we can get a proper win in a race that is really competitive."



And while we're not on the subject, what do you make of this innovation in international yachting?



It's called the Mixed Zone, and once or twice a day it becomes the center of the yachting universe for about 45 minutes. Here we see a moderate day:



Because we have so many races going on here, and sometimes we have boats coming back from racing at staggered hours, the Zona Mixta replaces the traditional America's Cup press conference for the time being. However, I'm not alone in looking forward to the return of the press conference, which in the past has produced some classic moments to rival classic moments on the race course.

Now, while a China Team win is an irresistible topic, that matchup should not have produced the news of the day. That would have been the rematch of Emirates Team New Zealand and Mascalzone Latino, important for both in terms of points on the board but even more important for the Kiwis as a matter of pride. Their loss to the Italians in the opening round of sailing was a stunner—no matter how many times we say that almost any boat here can win on the day—and they had to wipe that out. Which they did.


Dean Barker and company managed the start nicely, getting away clean, with speed, on a timed starboard-tack run, while Flavio Favini got squeezed at the committee boat end and started slightly downspeed. The "Latin Rascals" showed well up the beat, but the Kiwis simply showed better. They put up a classic tacking duel climbing the course, with Barker punching at Favini and punching at Favini and punching at Favini and then—you could see it coming—eventually crossing ahead. Barker never lost control after that, but there was nothing easy in the day.


© Chris Cameron/ETNZ

I agree with Tony Rae, who noted that it might have been a bit harder to stay in front on this one. Compared to the race lost to Mascalzone, "It was dicier today," he said, "and probably harder to defend a lead. It was pretty steady on the day that they got in front and stayed there, but today was a classic example of how one boat could be sailing in six knots while the other is sailing in ten."

The best races of the day, however, were sailed in the B fleet. Areva came alive and took a heart-stopper off Mascalzone Latino, then won a close one against +39. In its own match, Desafío Español came home ahead of +39 by all of one second.

A little less exciting, but real: Luna Rossa ahead of Victory and Shosholoza ahead of Germany.

There's a building close to my apartment in the old city that I've been curious about for a while. Since we've had racing daily without a break, I haven't had time to learn my own neighborhood, but today (on the internet, between races) I was able to identify this as La Lonja, a Gothic 16th century silk market significant enough to have a place as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a museum now, of course. If these sailors ever take a day off, I might even drop in. Looks the way Spain ought to look, eh? And dig that flag of Valencia. I love flags. Gotta have one—Kimball

Keels Are For Hugging

I've encountered several people who have gone the carryon-only route, flying to Valencia, based upon my reports of late-arriving luggage. So there. I've done some good in this world. Had I also been able to whistle up some wind, we could have seen the second-round rematch today of Mascalzone Latino's upset of New Zealand—which provided the first fireworks of the challenger eliminations. Reading that much, you know it didn't happen. Nor did we have the perfunctory matchup of +39 versus Areva.

On the other racecourse, however, we had Luna Rossa over China Team by 2:57, BMW Oracle over Germany by 3:17, and Shosholoza beating themselves to hand spoiler points to Victory Challenge, 0:52 ahead. "Spoiler points" being the point of view of Desafío Español and Mascalzone Latino, and there, that completes the list of three rivals for the fourth spot in the final four.

Shosholoza carried their self-inflicted beating all the way to breaking a spinnaker pole. Since they're further back in the standings, Desafío Español and Mascalzone Latino would have preferred to see Shosholoza win.

Mr. Lucky-On-Sunday was Angus Phillips of the Washington Post, who rode as 18th man on BMW Oracle. The thought bubble in this shot reads, And so I told the President . . .



© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle Racing

Well, I'm not one to be outdone. Here I am on MY ride with the Kiwis during the Acts. Take that, Phillips. And thanks to Daniel Forster for the lenscraft.



© Daniel Forster

Looking at the dance card, and not having an invitation on a raceboat, I saw this as a good day to stay ashore. I had good company here. Have you hugged your keel today?



What could this lineup of people possibly be for?



Oh.



And they're off on their tour of Port America's Cup. That large building behind them is the Media Center, the largest single-purpose structure at Port America's Cup, and it doesn't even house all the media. To think, in Newport they didn't even like the press.




So is it light air everywhere? The NOOD on the Chesapeake has had one day with zero sailing and a second day with "some." And way out west, the Ensenada Race has been a crawl. Here's a press release photo that I imagine was shot by Rich Roberts. The caption reads: Magnitude 80 inches toward the finish line on a glassy Todos Santos Bay.



Course time for Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 was 21:04:23, which is about double the monohull record. Stark Raving Mad, a cant-keel Reichel Pugh, arrived 12 minutes later.

And that's your Ensenada Race report from Valencia—Kimball

Lights. Camera. Action!

It was made for the movies. Desafío Español taking a big one off mighty BMW Oracle to wake up the home audience on a sunny Saturday in the south of Spain, and then without time off to lick its wounds the US team cranking up against rival numero uno, the boat at the top of the leaderboard when round robin racing began, Emirates Team New Zealand. And beating them up bad in the prestart. And then getting greedy and giving it all away and having to hammer their way back to take the race but good.

Hammered: The Kiwis.

Dissatisfied: The Spanish, with Desafío Español taken down by Luna Rossa in their own second flight.

Interesting subtext: My Spanish and Italian colleagues of the press corps speculating that the American team threw the race against Desafío Español, "because they want Spain in the semifinals."

Me, I'm congenitally indisposed toward conspiracy theories, though I reckon that every now and then, one proves true. Here's Desafio steaming out of the weather mark in the lead.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

So we're halfway (at last) to the cut to the final four, and we roll directly into Round Robin 2 with BMW Oracle at 21 points, Luna Rossa (19); Emirates Team New Zealand (18); Desafío Español (17).

Still in the hunt: Mascalzone Latino and Victory Challenge tied at 14.

Fading but not gone: Shosholoza at 12.

The top dogs know that, barring a cataclysm, they're going to the semis. What's in play now is winning for pride, sniffing the opposition, and claiming the right to pick your opponent in the semis by being on top of the leaderboard at the end of the round robins.

As I write this, it's well past 10 pm in Valencia (the restaurants must be roaring about now) and I figure the shore teams are busy in at least some of the compounds. It is legal to re-mode between round-robin rounds, though with RR1 finishing late today and RR2 gearing up tomorrow, there are limits. Luna Rossa's American mainsheet trimmer, Jonathan McKee, said, "There's plenty that you can change overnight, if you think you need to." And will you? "You'll have to wait and see if we have a new certificate tomorrow."

Quote-Unquote Jonathan McKee

On match racing at the America's Cup:
"People have raised the game. It's become more difficult to win the starts, and you see more starts that are even."

On the helmsman's role in winning or losing:
"Tactical style is never just one person. It's important that the whole afterguard come together. Hard races help you do that, and we're getting hard races here."

(Which might be relevant to those who are calling for Dean Barker's head. Here's Dean; it's not easy being Kiwi.)



That Start

You'll wait a long time to see a prettier dialup. Chris Dickson at the helm of BMW Oracle came in from the right end of the line, on starboard, and Dean Barker at the helm of Emirates Team New Zealand took the pairing right up into the wind, keeping the game in the middle of the line, for openers. Dickson and his team set up nicely, slightly behind—where you want to be if you're the boat on the right, because you quickly become a windward boat that must keep clear—but if you blinked you missed the transition with ETNZ the first to start drifting backwards, and then a beam-on drifting match with the booms full out. At a glance it looked dicey for Dickson, being to weather, but it quickly became apparent that there was no way Barker was going to get at him from that position, and BMW Oracle was in control of the situation.

With Dickson hunting down, Barker decided to get out of dodge, but the result was that Dickson was able to herd the Kiwi boat to the left and then above the line, right out of the starting box as time expired. That's where the greed came in. BMW Oracle could at that moment have pushed the game just a bit farther, tacked, and returned to dip across the line—back into the starting box—for a clear ahead entry to the course. New Zealand would have had no choice but to follow. Instead, Dickson went for the kill, not tacking but gybing, opening a trap above him where he intended to nail the Kiwis with a port-starboard foul as they tacked and attempted to return. Not to be. The American boat stalled coming back onto the wind--think, a serious case of the slows--while the Kiwi boat accelerated out of the trap, crossed clean, and started ahead with better speed in a breeze of about 9 knots.



It was a classic case of overachieving. Dickson's post-race take: "New Zealand wiggled out, but we have a lot of strengths in our team. You just have to take a deep breath and get on with it, do what you do well, chip away at them."

Which translates into rounding together at the top mark (New Zealand was credited with a 3-second lead) and sailing over them on the run for a lead at the bottom of 24 seconds, second weather mark of 43 seconds, and finish line delta of 38. This is the second weather mark rounding, with BMW Oracle setting its kite and New Zealand still beating upwind.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

Dickson's reminder: "We're only halfway through the round robins." As for the loss to the Spanish team? "The day was tough, tricky, shifty. It's hard to go out there and win them all."

China Team will be back on the course on Sunday, according to trimmer Wearn Haw Tan. The work team that flew in from France freed the sailing crew on Saturday from further work on the boat, so they'll be reasonably refreshed as they get back to business, looking for their first win. Their boat suffered a keel box failure, but they made it back to the dock with boat and mast mostly intact to relaminate the relevant parts. As Wearn Haw Tan put it, "Better in the shed than in the sea."

Subtext: They're installing the mast at first light and tuning in the morning to race in the afternoon.

Round Robin 2. Once it seemed an impossible dream—Kimball

Thanks for the Energy Dose

"A bit overwhelming" is how Alison Turner describes landing in Valencia on a school project to reconnect with the America's Cup heritage of Deer Isle, Maine. But she seemed pretty upbeat in her role as one of four kids from that lobster-fishing paradise on an island washed on one shore by Penobscot Bay and on the other shore by Blue Hill Bay. Alison's great, great grandfather was a crewman on America's Cup defender, Defender, in 1895 and aboard Valkyrie III in the defense of 1899. All four kids, and one teacher, and a lot of Deer Isle share the heritage. Their hardy, seafaring ancestors were recruited to man some of the largest, scariest racing yachts ever put on the water. Ordinary men couldn't or wouldn't have done it, but they did, and the America's Cup stayed in America on an unbroken streak until 1983.

A metal ring that Alison brought with her was made from the melted-down hull of Defender. Each crewman received a ring as a memory of the experience, but only a few remain and the memories had grown faint, until this history project kicked off. The travelling group includes several additional teachers and Bill Whitman, a New York Yacht Club sailor who traces his own roots back two centuries on the island. Whitman, who stepped in as benefactor when the school's fundraising came up short, brought along a cap—the one that Alison is wearing here—from Defender. Usually, the hat is held by the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society, but it really needed to make this trip.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

I sat down to interview the gang in the more than adequately comfortable, upper-level hospitality level of BMW Oracle Racing. And I wound up getting interviewed myself. I think I was the first animal they had encountered in Valencia who could give them the lay of the land. That's me sitting there being a bit surprised at the role I was playing.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle Racing

Before the day was over, however, the group had met racing crewmen and America's Cup experts aplenty. And tried a few of the interactive features at the BMW Oracle compound, with team photographer Gilles Martin-Raget following them around.


Here is how one of the teachers, Tom Duym, explained the connection between the island and the Cup: Heading the NYYC's 1895 defense was one Oliver Iselin, who apparently summered on Deer Isle and was familiar with the skill and daring of the local lobstermen. When Iselin was urged to crew-up Defender, not with Scandinavian paid hands but with "proper Yankees," he knew where to turn. You can judge the success by the fact that they returned in 1899. Part of the value of today's project, Duym said, is that so little has changed. One of the students. Billy Billings, is a lobsterman, and lobsterboat racing (now with diesels) is still considered good sport.

Me, I got a great dose of up energy off meeting students and teachers. I wish we'd had more time, but thanks.

Regular readers will notice a shift in tone today, away from race observation and analysis. There's a reason.

While I was at the BMW Oracle compound I ran into an old friend, and a great figure of a different era of America's Cup racing, Charles Corbitt. Charles was a backer and confidant in Dennis Conner's campaigns and I couldn't tell you everything else. That small slice would be enough of a resume in any case. And we had to talk, and pretty soon I was going out with him on the Thalia G, one of the team's big boats that follow the races, along with Tom Ehman, who wears so many hats for BMW Oracle that it would take half a dozen people to replace him. And then like magic we were joined by Malin Burnham, Star boat world champion, skipper of Enterprise in the Enterprise-Freedom campaign (for example) and the man who did more than anybody else to make Conner's comeback win in Australia possible.

It was a good day in its own way, but on our racecourse we got skunked for wind. Instead of watching BMW Oracle match up against Desafío Español and then its great rival, Emirates Team New Zealand, we twice chased the race committee to different neighbourhoods, looking for wind, before the whole show was blown off as daylight ran out on a wet, gray day.

I observed that every body just loves to take pictures. Here's one of the Deer Isle kids, early on, shooting down into the docks.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle Racing

And Charles Corbitt doing the same.



When Chris Dickson sailed USA 98 past our transom, that got people excited.



Malin Burnham, wily veteran that he is, set up while the boat was still approaching, to catch a quarter view shot.



Over on the other racecourse they had some excitement, including one collision and a race where the finish delta was recorded as zero. I missed all that. I can tell you that in the first flight, Areva was credited with a win over Germany, +39 was credited with a win over no-show China (still in repairs), and then it was +39 over Germany with Shosholoza over Areva.

I don't much feel like sorting through other people's reports to construct my own version of events I didn't witness, and anyway, none of those boats will be sailing in the America's Cup match, and that's my report. Humid. A bit chilly. Not a proper racing wind and not what we were looking for. And yet, on the way home, what a scene, eh?



Sorry to leave you with bad news, but here is Peter Isler's report on the weather prognosis for Saturday: more low pressure with breeze determined by the positioning of clouds and thunderclouds. Judging by the rain beating on the windows, there's one passing through now—Kimball

Luna Rossa Si! España Si! USA! USA!

It was one of those days when the headline changes by the hour. How could you resist the Swedish come-from-behind with a penalty turn completed in time for a five-second win over Areva?

How could you resist a Luna Rossa win that is sure to go down hard in the New Zealand camp, which would have had the race except for a prestart penalty for tacking too close?

And then, in a race started well into the cocktail hour, there were those all-red Latin Rascals led by Flavio Favini driving Mascalzone Latino, stealing the favored side at the start from BMW Oracle and holding them off in the fiercest, most relentless downspeed tacking duel we've seen here so far. Could the Mascalzone guys repeat the upset they pulled over New Zealand? This was the real thing. Chris Dickson driving for the white team coming at them again and again. Favini playing it close. Gavin Brady waving flags at the umpires, yelling for a foul call. Dickson coming at them again and again. And then the red team cracking. Favini playing it too close. No question. Dickson turning to avoid the collision. And the flag from the umpires and the red-team meltdown, trailing big-time at the first mark with a penalty still to burn off. BMW Oracle looking every ounce the accomplished, well financed, well practiced, confident monster of an opponent.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

We're a long way from the end of the challenger selection, and those who move on to the semis and finals are sure to re-mode at least once. None of the big guys have shown us everything they've got. But the undefeated record of BMW Oracle to this point, and the way they devoured the Italians today, builds a mindset. Pierre Orphanidis, who writes the Valencia Sailing blog, fell into that mindset when I said something about the race and his reply was, "Yes, but can they beat Alinghi?"

That's not really the right question, not yet, but I understand.

The take from BMW Oracle navigator Peter Isler: "Everything changed. All of a sudden instead of a close race we had some breathing room. Now we look to the races on Friday. It will be very important for us to get a feel for how our speed stacks up against Spain and New Zealand. Obviously it's important to get to the semifinals, but there's value to being at the top because you get to pick your opponent—which of course gives you an opportunity to make a regrettable mistake."

The take from Mascalzone mainsail trimmer Marco Constant: "The weather mark was slightly out of position, and with the current we were playing up the middle of the track. It was our mistake. We thought we were pushing them out to the layline, but in the process they were gaining on the tacks." Comparisons? "I think they have an appendage package that's slicker than ours. I think they have a rig package that slicker than ours. They're experienced. The downwind leg was one-sided, but they set themselves up very well against us. That's why they are where they are, and that's why we are where we are."

Spain had a good day too with Desafío Español racking up wins against Germany and Sweden (Victory Challenge was not so lucky against the Spanish).


And there's no escaping the local angle. I watched some television this morning, and America's Cup racing was in the news, and it was all Desafío Español, with reason enough. Their day moved them into fourth and dropped Mascalzone to fifth in the standings after 9 of 20 flights.

I remind you yet again, gentle reader, that amidst the dramas on the racecourse and ashore, all we're doing in the round robins is sorting a final four. Then we wipe the slate clean and go into the semifinal round to eliminate two more boats. A few days ago I thought that perhaps two spots were in play. Now I'm thinking only one, and I figure it's between Desafío Español and Mascalzone Latino to get that seat.

But predictions are dangerous. What am I doing? Making a nomination for least successful move of the day, that's what: The Kiwis closing on the finish in light air, with a come-from-behind lead and a penalty to burn off, putting up a jib and turning up, hoping to force Luna Rossa up with them, away from the finish, hoping to then tack through, completing the penalty turn and zip down to finish in front. Zip being a relative term in a soft breeze. It didn't work for diddly. James Spithill on the helm of Luna Rossa, and Torben Grael on top of the brain trust, didn't buy it for a minute. Instead of putting up a jib in a defensive maneuver, they kept trucking under spinnaker, sailed across the Kiwi bow, and left Dean Barker and company behind to do a forlorn penalty turn all on their lonesome. Delta 00:48.

Team manager Grant Dalton's take: "At the back of our minds right from the start was that we needed a comfort zone of more than 30 sec to complete the penalty. We weren’t going to achieve that by sticking close to Luna Rossa. They’re too good for that. We went for a big separation to the right where there was more pressure on the first beat, that paid a little but we did not get the gain that we needed."


© Chris Cameron/ETNZ

I've posted the points standings at the bottom, but on the way through the day I sat down with an interesting guy. Here's that story.

Making Shosholoza Sing

Whether they make the final-four cut or not—and yesterday's racing makes you think they've already peaked—Team Shosholoza is having a good run. In that, you have to include principal designer Jason Ker, who has taken this a long way, ten years after getting his first private commission to design a raceboat.



RSA 83 was optimized for the now. "We knew the weather could be random in April," Ker said. "The breeze could be light, or it could be strong, and we'd have to be ready for either. Going into May we expect the breeze to be light, but consistently light, and we're designed for that and maybe for early June, but not late June when you expect the seabreeze to be up. Alinghi is clearly designed with the expectation of racing in a stronger seabreeze."

The game with Shosholoza is to see how long they can survive. Unlike the big guys, they're showing everything they've got. The corollary, with the teams who expect to be contending in the finals, is that they will re-mode as they go.


Even with RSA 83 radically redesigned for 2007—it was the first V5 boat built, and the new bow gets rid of a lot of reserve buoyancy to help the boat cut through waves—Ker said that, "The potential hasn't changed massively. A lot of our improvements have been in sails and sailing. For us as a small team, there has been a lot to come to grips with. We get better every time out, but it's harder to find the gains, to find a new finesse, condition to condition. To continue to the next Cup, and to get to the next level, we'll have to have two boats. Then you can have training sessions where you're in control, and you make sure you're learning what you want to learn."

And what's his life these days?

After two years in Spain, his family of a wife and two kids are happily ensconced and multilingual and enjoying Valencia, "Though I haven't seen as much of it as I should."

Well, that's the Cup life. He's a Brit by birth, and there were 14 months in Cape Town before Valencia, and we don't know what comes next, do we?

Quote Unquote: "There are some things you can learn only by being aboard the race boat. There are other things you can learn only by not being aboard. I spend my days in a chase boat behind Shosholoza. I observe heel, the mast, sail set-ups, comparisons, maneuvers in which the guys on the boat are too caught up to see what's going on. And sometimes it's best to wait, to look at the data after the race, rather than make an instant judgement."

April 26: The Goodies

1. BMW Oracle, 19 points
2. Emirates Team New Zealand, 16
3. Luna Rossa, 15
4. Desafío Español , 15
5. Mascalzone Latino Capitalia, 14
6. Victory Challenge, 12
7. Shosholoza, 10
8. Areva, 7
9. United Internet Team Germany, 3
10. +39, 2
11. China Team, 1

Friday forecast: North-east, 12 to 16 knots, cloudy with possible rain, 13ºC to 19ºC and 70% humidity.

Deep, Deep Inside the AC Beltway

One of the truisms expounded by any number of players around here is that nobody wants to win the America's Cup on a fluke. Hogwash. Given the opportunity, I'd be glad to win the America's Cup on a fluke.

Scandals? Rumors? The America's Cup is grand nonsense or it's nothing. When was the Cup ever without fustigation? From Lord Dunraven to the antics of Alan Bond, who had quite a gleeful summer of bickering in Newport in '83, there's always been something. Now in Valencia we've gone from talking about the weather to sailing in what we've got, and there are people who are sure that our lost racing days were all part of a dastardly plot, and Alinghi's overdue weather briefing on Wednesday didn't satisfy everybody, and seven flights in, the big players haven't even pulled out all their ammunition yet and . . .

Remember, all we're doing in the round robins is sorting the cut to the final four. Then seven players go home and the game gets seriously serious for those remaining. Only then is it time to look into the inventory of sails that were set aside (the big teams measured a minimum inventory for the round robins) and perhaps reconfigure the package, based upon your evaluation of opponents, or if your meteorology team sees different winds in the offing. If you haven't already sent those guys out to be hanged. I came here expecting a BMW Oracle-Emirates Team New Zealand finale in the Louis Vuitton challenger series, and there's still room for me to be surprised, but nobody has shown me what they're going to use to surprise me. Here's the US team handling Areva.


© Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

I figure the most interesting discussions behind closed doors right now would be about what to change and how to change it in the short time between round robin racing and the semis. When May 8 and 9 were scheduled as reserve days at the end of RR2, no one really expected them to be used. Now they just might be.

Wanting to expand that window, the challengers recently asked event management to push back the start of the semis. They were told, No.

The challengers also wanted to extend the period for making changes, from 24 hours ahead of the first warning signal to 0800 on the first day of racing. Again, no. Do you think serious changes are contemplated?

BMW Oracle and Emirates Team New Zealand have never doubted that they would make the semis. Luna Rossa, which has generally been placed in the same category, has taken some lumps--losing in one day to Shosholoza and BMW Oracle--but they were a credible threat throughout both races. They were never "put away," so I'm keeping them on my list for the semis. If nothing else they have trimmer Joe Newton, who can come out at the end of a day like that, smile, and say, "We were very pleased with our speed."

If the sailing thing doesn't work out, Joe, there's always the diplomatic corps.

But Patrizio Bertelli's team cannot afford any more slips. Their expected win on Wednesday over Areva was convincing, but it was no runaway, and watching the tacking duel up the first beat of their second race, against hard-luck +39, I'd say that Luna Rossa helmsman James Spithill and tactician Torben Grael were in control of the leg. But +39 was matching them for speed.

Shosholoza? A great story whether they make the cut or not. They came in talking "next time" and when next time comes, expectations will be high. The subtext to their win on Tuesday against Luna Rossa is that they started their training in second-hand Luna Rossa V4's.


© Chris Cameron/ETNZ

Yep, the Shosholoza team is good story. On Wednesday, however, they were put in their place by New Zealand. I won't pretend to know what Grant Dalton may have said to his Kiwis before the race, or left loudly unsaid (I do know they were up at dawn to mark Anzac Day), but New Zealand got Mascalzone'd early on in this round robin, and in their world, that's not allowed. Out of the woodwork came the "Dean ain't got it" chorus. Beating up on Shosholoza was a moral necessity, and they were businesslike and efficient in the way they went about it. It was their race. But the delta, 01:23, had more to do with windshifts and the fortunes of war than with relative speed. What's in it? The South Africa team set up their boat for light winds, the house bet at this time of year, because for them, this is is the America's Cup. For the Kiwis, as with other big teams, peaking now would be too soon.

Against Desafío Español in the second flight of the day, Shosholoza showed well up the first beat and down the first run, but the local team was in control in a localized breeze that touched 16 knots. This pair was great to watch. They really mixed it up, upwind and down, but Luis Doreste and his team had the best of it in a race that neither boat could afford to lose. The result left Desafío Español one point behind fourth-place Mascalzone and Shosholoza four points back.

Compared to lapping the track on Tuesday under Luna Rossa's hot breath, BMW Oracle had a bye and a matchup with Areva. Not scary. Strategist Eric Doyle noted that the first beat went off in 9 knots, "And after that it slowly eased; Areva seemed to fall out of the comfort zone." These guys still have Mascalzone and Desafio to sail before they get to the race everyone is waiting for, against New Zealand.


Full marks to "Robert" and "sturdee" for quickly spotting Peter Isler out of BMW Oracle navigator's uniform in yesterday's lighthearted quiz. I fear I owe someone a photo credit for this and will eagerly add it if you ring my chimes.

Here is Pedro photographed by Gilles Martin-Raget, as we more often see him around here these days.

OKAY I saved the weather for last. I've never been big on conspiracy theories because they tend to attribute too much foresight to the alleged perpetrators. I don't know to what extent the defenders might have imagined causing problems for challengers by scheduling the match in June. They claim the schedule was intended to maximize opportunities for television while avoiding conflicts with other sports. I'm gonna buy it because it's plausible and we'll just never know, and it's quite a stretch to imagine that Ernesto Bertarelli, as defender, wanted things to kick off this way.

So, the briefing in brief: April 2007 is one very unlucky month for sailing in Valencia. Period. Signed, Jack Katzfey and Jon Bilger, Weather Team, Alinghi.

Statistically, they said, Valencia in April-June runs 80-90 percent sailable days. April '07 is running 50 percent so far, according to Bilger: "We had seven consecutive non-sailable days, and we came close to have 11 consecutive. But normally in these months, this is a great place to sail. You can't predict the weather three years out."


Photo by © Ivo Rovira/Alinghi of Jack Katzfey

The problem, Katzfey said, is a high pressure system (a "blocker") centered over France, where temperatures are running about 7 degrees above average (Celsius). That high should be down over Africa, for racing to proceed as planned.

At the moment we have a spot of rain over Portugal, headed this way, but with a sailing breeze in it, according to these chaps. I reckon we'll take it.

Flight 6
Luna Rossa d. Areva -- 00:33
Victory d. +39 -- 00:55
Desafio Español d. China Team -- 02:01
Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia d. United Internet Team Germany -- 00:24
Emirates Team New Zealand d. Team Shosholoza -- 01:23
Bye BMW Oracing

Flight 7
BMW Oracle d. Areva -- 2:54
Luna Rossa d. +39 -- 1:22
Mascalzone Latino Capitalia d. China Team (withdrew)
Emirates Team New Zealand d. United Internet Team Germany – 01:03
Desafío Español d. Shosholoza -- 00:57
Bye Victory Challenge

The Goodies
BMW Oracle, 15
Emirates Team New Zealand, 14
Luna Rossa, 13
Mascalzone Latino Capitalia, 12
Desafío Español , 11
Victory Challenge, 10
Shosholoza, 8
Areva, 5
United Internet Team Germany, 3
+39, 2
China Team, 1

Rebooted and relaunched

Yep, a little wind goes a long way when it comes to sailboat racing. Seven knots building to 10 or better isn't much where I come from--San Francisco Bay--but it changed everything around here.

With 15 of 20 round robin races still to go, the battle for the fourth spot (and maybe the third?) in the semifinals looks pretty open from where I sit, and nobody has a lock on anything.

Meanwhile, the Alinghi guys have finally scheduled a press conference on the subject of weather (0845 Wednesday) which they probably should have done much sooner, considering how many people have cooked up conspiracy theories about the defender's intentions and/or intelligence in the scheduling of this show. But, if the weather holds tomorrow, they're behind the story.

There's more to come, but for now, I'm going to leave you with a little question. Did Bob Dylan come to the America's Cup yacht races, or is there a different explanation for the presence of the famous fellow pictured here? Correct responses will receive a hearty hurrah.

There was no racing today

In one of the great movies of all time, Bambi, one of the great screen characters of all time is reminded by his mother of something that my own mother often called to mind. That would be Thumper, and when he gets a little out of line, his mom asks, What would your father say?

Thumper squinches up and declares, "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."

Proof of Concept

Okay, the heat is seriously on to get in a full eliminations series for the challengers. But there's another story here. Proof of concept of those ill-named Acts. Shosholoza ahead of BMW Oracle for 2+ legs of their race. The South African team was outmatched, but there they were, mixing it up, holding BMW Oracle out of the advantaged right-hand side of the course, giving a heavy-weight team a scare.

Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle


When Shosholoza first came to Valencia, there were times when it hurt to watch them sail, but they had great spirit and a great fight song and people took them to heart. They've said all along this is a learning-curve "next time" effort, while holding onto a dream of making the cut to the semifinals this time. They're no farther from that after today's expected loss that, for them, was a win of sorts. They've come a long way.

But could they have done that if they hadn't been in competition for two years? I don't think so. Aside from offering brand exposure for sponsors, the pre-event racing gave this team, and others, the opportunity to measure themselves, learn, and grow. Take that away, leave them training in isolation or perhaps sparring with one of the other second-tier teams, then toss them into the ring with the likes of BMW Oracle and they would be swallowed in one gulp.

It was enough to make me wonder if Larry Ellison, one of the architects of the pre-event format, might have been having regrets as he looked up the course at the transom of Shosholoza. But I think not. Restructuring the America's Cup is his personal project. It's the opposite of the old days, when a single challenger would show up in Newport to try his luck.

After the race, Shosholoza navigator Mark Lagesse stopped by and said, "The team is upbeat. I'm a bit down because I think we should have won. But everything went well except the left shift. That's where we lost a five-length lead. We didn’t lose it on the gate."



Oh, the gate.

At the end of the first run, Shosholoza went for the port-rounding mark at the gate, gybing to get there. The jib was slow coming across, however, and the spinnaker did not fill quickly on the new side, which makes it harder to set up for the takedown, and the kite went shrimping. In a move unique to the America's Cup, the crew quickly (though not instantly) released the sail to be picked up by their support boat. It's not unheard of around here. In fact it has a name. It's a "tender drop." You can hardly see the tender here -- a rubber boat-- but that's the Shosholoza support team picking up the sail.

Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

"There are quite a few languages on the boat," Largesse said. "Eventually we just said, heck, let it go. We didn't lose much on that."

From what I saw, BMW Oracle had more going for it than just one shift. I'd still put my money on them every time out against Shosholoza, even if they don't have a fight song to match. Gilles got this rather nice shot today.


Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW Oracle

Elsewhere, China Team had episodes of looking not bad, and sailmaker/trimmer Sylvain Barrielle was upbeat. He thinks they're going to have some Shosholoza moments (my words) before this is over. He says, "It will happen."

Am I alone in thinking that China Team has the prettiest boat out there?

Desafio Español meanwhile beat up on Areva pretty badly in the prestart, keeping the French on the defensive and downspeed with the Spanish enjoying full speed and maneuverability. On the course they traded the lead a few times, with the French taking over when the Spanish team broke its spinnaker pole. Olivier Douillard, the guy who handles the traveler and also goes up the mast on Areva, commented on coming from behind: "You keep the pressure on and people make mistakes. We're happy to take it."

And here's an interesting comparison:

BMW Oracle and Shosholoza split at the start, with BMW Oracle going left and Shosholoza going right. But the American team quickly tacked to sail in the same water as their opponents. In an earlier start, Luna Rossa went left while United Internet Team Germany went right. But the Italians waited something like 4 minutes, 20 seconds to tack, and when they did they were behind. Something about the courage of your convictions, I guess, but they're the boat that most people would bet on to win that matchup, so I might have expected to see them attempt to do it mano a mano instead of buying real estate for leverage. Especially when it turned out the leverage was against them. Not that it ultimately mattered. They gained the lead and rounded the first mark ahead by about one second. Finish line delta: 50 seconds.

The background story (step over here, speak quietly) is the faceoff between the challengers and event management, with the challengers wanting to extend their series and event management saying something on the order of, tough luck.

It's festering. Yeah, that's the word. Festering. Not for the first time are big egos and big muscle colliding in the world of the America's Cup. Let's hope it doesn't become the story of the regatta. (See the web story on the home page.)

Now, with this many races on two separate courses, I can't keep up with everything, so I'm going to throw in the towel and paste in the press release of the day. Brace yourself. Here it comes.

Valencia, 22 April, 2007 - The light conditions prevailing at the Louis Vuitton Cup continued on Sunday but the gradient breeze proved just strong and stable enough for fair racing. One flight of racing was completed in front of a large spectator fleet eager to see America's Cup action.

Flight 3 started after a brief postponement in 8 knots of Northeasterly breeze. This flight should have been routine for most of the bigger teams over their smaller rivals, but this was not the case in many of the matches.

Most surprising was China Team which led Magnus Holmberg's powerful Victory Challenge team for two thirds of the first beat. They were then overhauled by the Swedes who proceeded to extend, scoring the highest finish delta (3:50) of the five races.

There was more upset for BMW ORACLE Racing when Team Shosholoza led the American boat off the start, again claiming the favourable right side. Paolo Cian and his young Shosholoza crew did a superb job fending off Chris Dickson's vastly experienced team and led them around the first lap of the race course, despite dropping their spinnaker in the water at the leeward gate. But in the closing stages of the second beat the South Africans were finally overhauled and Dickson then prudently covered Shosholoza to preserve the win.

United Internet Team Germany also looked strong on the right of the first beat against Luna Rossa. Behind the wheel of the Italian boat James Spithill engaged the German team's Jesper Bank in a tacking duel in the latter stages of the first beat to take control. While Luna Rossa led for the rest of the race it was by no means a walk over for the Italian team, who won by just 50 seconds.

On the south course, there was further upset in the match between Areva Challenge and Desafío Español when the French underdogs led off the line. They were eventually overtaken by the Spanish team who led round the top mark. But disaster struck on the Spanish boat when, during their first gybe, the end of their spinnaker pole broke. Although Karol Jablonski and his Spanish team caught up on the second beat, they were crippled by their broken pole on the run to the finish and Sebastien Col and has French team went on to secure an important win.

In the final match on the south course +39 Challenge gained the right at the start, but were unable to match the pace of Emirates Team New Zealand who scored a large win against Iain Percy's team.

With the wind going soft in the late afternoon, Flight 4 was postponed until Monday, when Flights 4 and 5 are now scheduled.

It's the Planet

Being more or less (and mostly less) under way with racing in the challenger eliminations, and groping for yet another angle on no-race days, I checked on my home waters where the Singlehanded Farallones Race is being sailed today. And I saw that the NWS is forecasting winds SSW 8-15 knots as a front moves in from the Gulf of Alaska.

Folks, it's not Valencia, it's the planet that's off-sked. Rain in April is not unheard of on and around San Francisco Bay, but it's not "supposed to" happen.

Before she went on-staff for China Team, German photographer Heike Schwab went to Dubai for the winter training of Alinghi and Victory Challenge, "And it rained in December," she says. "People there were saying that it never happens." You know the rest. No matter where you go in the world . . .

So I hit the Media Center (oops, Centre) in the a.m. and already you could smell the fear. We're all running short of no-race-today angles, and here came The Voice of the America's Cup, Peter Campbell, asking, "What was that Jim Carrey movie where the same thing keeps happening day after day?" I sent him away thinking Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and I'm pretty sure what the audience Down Under will be hearing from Peter Campbell. He's always on, but he's never topped his 1983 line, "Australia, you bloody BEAUTY!" That's Peter Campbell at work on Olympic Finn medalist and BMW Oracle grinder Craig Monk.

There being no pressure, given the prospects for nonracing, I committed my fellow scribes to the racecourse with a hearty vaya con dios. No regrets. Here is the official summation of the day:

Valencia, 21 April, 2007 - On the first scheduled weekend of racing at the Louis Vuitton Cup a large spectator fleet assembled on a sunny and warm Saturday to watch the action, but once again the wind didn't cooperate, and there was no racing. It's the fifth day to have racing postponed due to a lack of wind.

The challengers have agreed to amend the racing schedule to allow for the disruption caused by the postponements. Each of the Round Robin One flights will now be conducted in order and Round Robin One will be completed before Round Robin Two begins.

Fortunately, the forecast for Sunday is more promising. A stronger Easterly gradient wind should allow racing in Flights 3 and 4, on what is forecast to be a mainly clear Sunday.

Instead of going out, I took a look around the south wing of Port America's Cup, where work has been running a bit late. But it seems as if it will be ready for prime time when prime time comes. These huge and rather handsomely-faced structures that once housed the activities of the industrial port have been turned over to entertainment, infotainment, and retail. The public walkway is sandwiched between the big sheds and the moderne camps of Emirates Team New Zealand, Areva, Victory, Desafio Español, Germany, Mascalzone Latino, and China. Hmm. Wonder if Mascalzone team gear got a sales boost this weekend off their big win on Friday?

Looking back the other way, we open toward the main entrance to Port America's Cup. The banner overhead reads, more to do, to see, to eat. Dig the lineup of bikes on the left, one of many bike-parking areas, and the reflective face of the Emirates Team New Zealand compound.


Did I mention, this is not your father's America's Cup.

Back in the Newport Days there was also a VIP entrance of sorts, but it never had a name on it, did it?



Along the northern reach of Port America's Cup (going toward Alinghi, BMW Oracle, Luna Ross, for example) the work on the sheds was pretty well done months ago.



You can see that these sheds front the water, and the displays inside are really rather well done, the models especially, because they're BIG.

Here's the model of America.



Of course, if this was a Bobby Grieser shot the lighting would be perfect, but you get the idea. These people were admiring the model of Alinghi 2003.


The interactive stuff works, too, especially for kids. Want to be the guy who jumps the halyards? Start young, laddies.


But a real champion takes on the job one-handed with ice cream.


And this likely fellow wanted to prove he could hold it for as long as I would keep shooting.


Somewhat less attractive to the younger set, but a nice way of telling the evolution through years, a display of wheels.



And of course, there are seemingly limitless opportunities to shop for your essential America's Cup gear. Most of the teams have shops with cool-looking, logo'd clothing, but if you're smart you'll look for the leading edge, technical stuff made like the real team kit. Beyond the logos, there are reasons why these guys wear what they wear.



This is a straight-up America's Cup shop in the big shed. You won't find any technical stuff here, I believe.

So that was my sabado at Port America's Cup. There's more, but I'd better save it in case of, well, in case of the unspeakable. I'm a pretty mellow guy. I made it through nine days of waiting for my luggage without putting my fist through sheetrock. (After two failed delivery attempts I had them hold it at the airport; made that trip yesterday.) I can wait for wind. But there's no question that this waiting is taking a toll on the event.

Meanwhile, I like Valencia, not that I've seen much of it. But if I am open and friendly in my stumbling Spanish, the people are open and friendly back. There are things to see and things to do. My neighborhood in the old city is attractive and fun, though it's a shame that the neighborhood surrounding Port America's Cup is drab at best. Until now the port was industrial, so there was no reason for the neighborhood to blossom. A lot of my fellow scribes have pitched camp close by, for the convenience, and I understand the thinking. I've had nights when I wondered if the transiting was worth it. But I'm here until July, and I would fear a serious breakdown in attitude if my whole world was anchored inside the America's Cup Beltway, with a horizon line of the drab. As for thievery on the streets of Valencia--that's been in the news in some publications--I'll take that up another time.

Come June there's going to be a match for the America's Cup. We're going to get there, so let's end this on an end wall of the exhibit hall, presenting the question, how many different ways can you say, no hay segundo.
There is no second.—Kimball

Racing at Last

During his coaching stint with Shosholoza, Dee Smith said something that stuck in my head. He said, "Some of these teams would be struggling in any grand prix environment." Turn that around and a crack grand prix team ought to be able to make the grade, which is exactly what was happening for the Latin Rascals, Mascalzone Latino, in Friday's upset win over Emirates Team New Zealand. Vincenzo Onorato and his guys are the reigning Farr 40 world champions. They paid their ACC dues in Auckland, and it would seem that Harry Dunning's design crew has given them a good toy to play with.

Of course it's early. We've seen just one day of racing—in winds a bit lighter than what is promised for summer—but there was no overlooking the confident manner in which Mascalzone Latino met the Kiwis, executed as needed, and won the opening race. And then came back, all business, and did it again against the admittedly weaker Areva.

All that talk about how the pre-event racing closed up the ranks? Maybe there's something to it.

Helmsman Flavio Favini is a rockin' Melges 24 skipper, but Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen drives the starts on Mascalzone Latino. Bossman Onorato has a track record as a sailor, and previously he crewed in support roles here on grinders and runners. For this eliminations series, however, he stepped off the boat. In his words, "Jes turns over the wheel right after the start and jumps to the back of the boat. If I'm there too, that makes two little guys in back, which is one too many."

Bowman Paolo Bottari dropped by after the race to give his version of events. The discussion was conducted in Italian, so you won't learn much from me, but I think he was pretty happy.

Appointed (or condemned) to meet the press after the racing was Emirates Team New Zealand tactician Terry Hutchinson (also a ranking player on the Farr 40 circuit). That's Terry all the way to the left. He was quite a popular guy, as you see.


Genial. Steady. No nonsense. And the delta was a mere 15 seconds. Terry's assessment:

"We set ourselves up to start on the left. Mascalzone had a great time-distance run to the line while we executed our own game plan perfectly, but it was the wrong game plan."

And there they went . . .


Photo ACM 2007/Vicent Bosch

It was a big day also for Desafio Español, coming back from a pretty lame port-tack foul in the prestart to beat +39 by 2:45 after making enough on the first upwind leg to get away with a penalty turn on the layline. Tactician John Cutler said, "We were confident in the side that we chose, and everybody was calm. Karol [Jablonski, helmsman] said a few choice words and then we were right back in it."

Shosholoza won its race against Germany, which occasioned a round of celebrating in Valencia for the popular underdog team from South Africa. Pitman and boat captain Tim Kröger said, "Our victory against the Germans means a lot to me. The conditions
were difficult, with light winds, and Germany is not slow downwind in such light airs."

As for losing to Sweden's Victory Challenge, Kröger said, "Well, we lost a lot already going about, right after the start, and perhaps we even lost the match then. We couldn't manage to edge them to the right; it would have been ideal but we just couldn't make it. So they were always a half a boat's length ahead of us. We are quite disappointed because the Swedes are our direct opponents; we compete eye to eye."

Expect an update on a "reboot" for the racing sked. Challenger reps were meeting Friday night.

Regarding that close Mascalzone-ETNZ finish, I also see some pretty spread-out finish times below—Kimball

ROUND ROBIN 1, First Day of Racing

Mascalzone Latino d. Emirates Team New Zealand: 15 seconds
Areva d. +39: 1:09
BMW Oracle d. United Internet Team Germany: 2:00
Victory d. Shosholoza: 46
Luna Rossa d. China Team: 2:07

Desafio Espanol d. +39: 2:45
Mascalzone Latino d. Areva: 1:41
Shosholoza d. Germany: 1:10
BMW Oracle d. China: 4:36
Luna Rossa d. Victory: 1:07

At Least There's Cake

They shoulda talked to my friend Luis. He drives a cab, he's a rower, and he knows the waterways of Valencia. Luis says, loosely translated, "The winds in April are always !#@&!.

Granting equal time to non-cabbies: Kiwi helmsman Dean Barker says, "Last year it would have been fine. We were sailing in Valencia last April, and we had a good seabreeze."

Johan Barne, navigator for Sweden's Victory Challenge, comments, "I think it's probably harder on the spectators than the sailors."

And to a question asked on behalf of The Curmudgeon, Johan says, "There's no rule that requires the crew to stay on the raceboats while we're waiting for wind, but that's how we do it. We're a team. We can't afford to stop thinking about what we're there for, and everybody wants to be ready to go in minutes if something happens."

Copyright Christ Cameron/Emirates Team New Zealand

So there we were, with a brief flurry of hope at about 1600, enough to stir the postponement flags on the RC boats but not enough to bring them down. If I were covering comparables at an international political summit, I'd be reporting now that the ministers had released a joint declaration stating that, "The talks were frank and constructive." followed by: 1) a rehash of what I wrote the day before about the issues between the parties; 2) a segue into speculation about what comes next.

1) Please refer to yesterday's blog.

2) "Eventually it's going to turn," Dean Barker said. "We hope it's tomorrow, but it's been tomorrow for the last few days."

Barker added that it's not necessarily hard to keep his game on. "With this system [moving missed races to a makeup day and remaining with the calendar sked] you have new opponents to think about every day."

I ran into Paul Cayard who commented, "I could wind up going home without ever seeing a race." He's here for Italian TV, but only through Tuesday. But Paul then went on to say that he doesn't think it's going to be that bad. "The weekend looks better."

As ever, when the news is the lack of news, we former-ink-stained-wretches of the Fourth Estate turn to covering the press. But I think for once I'm legit. Friday is the birthday of one of the legends of sailing journalism—and you can't gain that status unless you're a sailor first—Bob Fisher. The Fish. As I write this in the fading light of Thursday, I happen to know there's a cake waiting for him at a gathering tonight at the BMW Oracle Racing compound. Gary Jobson is presenting a new film (speaking of legends), but at least a few moments of the evening will belong to The Fish. When he's in the room, you know it.


Two days ago I caught this particular fish in the Media Center (Centre?) with another of the all-timers, my SAIL colleague Charles (Chip) Mason. That's Bob doing the heavy reading. When I hang my gallery show, I'm calling this one Fish & Chip—Kimball

THE TOON ZONE

Day 3. No wind. Time to contemplate the wonderfulness of seeing Patricio Bertelli riding around in a Mercedes of the same model chosen for Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada. Ample time to think on whether life would be better with a pair of 140-euro Luna Rossa-branded denim jeans. Even time enough to wonder if the skippers of the powerboats who send the raceboats off every day with big blasts of the horns are planning to cut a CD. They have a thing going: a bit of a rhythm and almost a melody, sometimes.

So what does it take to get a rise out of a jaded press corps? Try announcing, "Today's mixed-zone press conference will be attended by team meteorologists." In our third day with racing calmed out, if not for speculation about deflecting keel struts, we'd have a problem here. The only guy who's in the zone is Mark O'Brien, the cartoonist working for Luna Rossa. This is his moment. Not that there wasn't some hot sailboat racing today in Valencia, it's just that it was kids racing model boats inside the harbor, which reminds me that the strongest reaction I ever had to a story was the one that I wrote on model boats. Go figure.



Over at BOB, Tom Ehman notes, "You gotta laugh. No doubt Alinghi is – just what the Defender had in mind when they scheduled AC 32 to start in April instead of June or even May when the seabreeze is more prevalent." (Tom wears multiple hats, including director of external affairs at BMW Oracle Racing; he was founding Chairman of the Challenger Commission.
BOB is the BMW Oracle Blog.)

Paul Cayard is in town to do broadcasting for Italian TV, but he spent a chunk of Wednesday being interviewed by Spanish reporters and filling them in on Desafio Español and the difficulties (not unique to the Spanish team) of being international. "It's not only the language," he said, "it's the culture. When I was with the team as coach, that was part of my involvement, to keep everybody aware of the need to arrive at a common denominator. It's respect, it's professionalism, it's working out alongside each other in the gym every day. Every team here is going to lose a race they think they should have won. The question is, do they lose their solidarity or do they come out ready as a team to give 110 percent for the next one?"


Paul also did what he could to shape up the media ride for Desafio Español. He told the reporters about a time when he had been outrageously misquoted, by a Spanish reporter, regarding some of the Spanish sailors. He said, "That is very hard on a team, and this is your team. Whether you like Karol Jablonski or not—I know he doesn't speak very good Spanish; he doesn't speak very good English either [laughter from the reporters; Jablonski is Polish: Ed.]—the fact is that Karol is pretty good, and he is the skipper of Desafio Español. All these guys are living here with their families, and they're proud to be sailing for Spain. Think about it."

Here inside the America's Cup Beltway we've had a good buzz going over the notion that Alinghi may (or may not) have developed a way to control the deflection of the bulb strut to gain an extra tweak of stability. Is this The Year of Deflection? Supposedly Alinghi isn't alone in investigating the possibilities. I didn't break that story, and I'm not one to pundify toe to toe with my elders. If you haven't been there already you can get a read of Matthew Sheehan's story at Can we Cant?

One word, however. Let's not overanalyze the keel revealed on SUI 100 on Unveiling Day, April 1. Alinghi is not required to use that keel, and the only reason they would have chosen to show it is if it really is their keel of choice (so far) and they figured the other teams would discount anything they actually showed. Uh oh. We're overanalyzing.

A completely separate "deflection" interpretation, Confidential Interpretation No 10, passed with little notice a year ago, but it's related to the chatter on Unveiling Day about twisting trim tabs for an extra tweak of pointing ability.
On a day when weather is the news, and it's not a storm, we might as well get this out of the way.

From ACC Technical Director Ken MacAlpine, No 10 of 13 Confidential Interpretations issued since 6/8/05:

In response to the following:

a. Rule 17.11 limits the allowable vertical deflection of fixed appendages. So these limits also apply to movable appendages?
b. Is it permitted to control a movable appendage (trim tab) at two points separated in the span-wise direction to either limit rotational deflection between the control points or induce deflection between the two control points?

INTERPRETATION

a. No.
b. Yes, it is permitted to control a movable appendage (trim tab) at two points separated in the span-wise direction to either limit rotational deflection between the control points or induce deflection between the two control points. The rotational axis of each control point must comply with the requirements of Rule 17.10 (b)

In order for a movable appendage to b e considered as a single movable appendage each side of the appendage exposed to water flow must be a single surface and the appendage shall be structurally continuous.

Along about three months from now there will be a match for the America's Cup, and I doubledog betcha that little of this seems important at the time. So I guess that makes us all Zen masters, because we're here now.

Thanks for asking, there's a rumor that my luggage might appear today, only a little more than a week after I checked it in and then faced the cattle stampede inevitable given the brain-dead security layout in the US Airways wing of SFO. As for checking baggage to VLC, those who follow in my footsteps, take heed. Lost luggage is such a common story here that if someone says, "How's it going?" and you hesitate with your answer, they'll immediately say, "Your bags didn't make it, did they?" —Kimball

Staying in the game, changing the game

On the morning of Day Two of La Coupe Louis Vuitton, Dawn Riley called the troops to order in the Areva dining hall and shared a need-to-know. She said: "Your 18th man today is a woman. She won a contest on the Le Figaro dot com, and you'd better expect her to be very excited."

Dawn's next announcement did a lot to lower whatever excitement level might have been flowing through the crew. It was the weather report.

Like everyone else, Areva went out with no expectation of racing, and they were right. High pressure retains its grip. Here's a Franck Socha shot of what Areva's day did not look like.

But Areva, the lone French team here, is interesting on several levels. They're one of those teams that don't pretend they expect to win, and don't even make noise about making the final four (though no doubt they harbor hopes). Meanwhile, the man behind the challenge, Stephan Kandler, wants to stay in the America's Cup game and is very much on the make-it-a-two-year-circuit wavelength. He says, "If we go to two years, I know I will have sponsors. There has to be racing in the USA. It has to go to Asia."

That word, sponsor, pops up again when Kandler talks to the press about the ACC racing that may follow America's Cup 32 later this year: Germany in August and San Francisco in September.

There's been no announcement of a San Francisco event because it's still not set in stone, but it's been talked about so much (and written about a little) that all I'm doing here is letting you join the secrets club with a few thousand of your closest friends. Just don't tell anybody else.

I hope it happens. The Moet Cup a few years ago, with only Oracle and Alinghi, was the first outing for what became the Acts, and if we can repeat that with half a dozen or so boats sailing in the Alcatraz Channel it ought to be dazzling. Unless, of course, one of those autumn high pressure systems comes in to squat on the seabreeze so that everybody walks around saying things like, we might as well have stayed in Valencia.

No matter where you go in the world, "It's never like this."


The other thing about Areva is that Kandler actually has two women on the team, both of them Americans and both of them veterans of round-the-world racing and past America's Cup events. Dawn Riley is general manager, and Katie Pettibone is a trimmer. That's Katie to the right, Dawn below. Riley is sitting these races out, doing shore duty, even though she had the helm in winning the One Ton Cup for Kandler's K-Challenge a few years back. The irony, she says, "is that after the boat leaves the dock there's nothing for me to do but follow the race, but somehow I'm more tired now than I was in other Cup campaigns, when I was sailing."

Areva has only one new boat, a reflection of the budget, "And we built the compound ourselves," she says. "It was fun to come along in the morning, get a workout, and then take a magic marker and say, 'Let's put a wall here.' "

She's a uniquely-accomplished American sailor, but Dawn Riley brought it up herself that she "might be looking for something else to do in three weeks." Not to be ruled out: Getting involved in a political campaign in Michigan.

Dawn, don't leave us—Kimball

Can't we just go to the beach?

Back in the day, in the very first springtime after Valencia was announced as the venue of America's Cup 32—a place with a reliable seabreeze—BMW Oracle dispatched a scouting party. That was April 2004, and it rained. The scouts walked around saying things like, What if we're here in 2007 and it's like this?

Well, it was, and then it turned sunny for Race One of the Louis Vuitton Cup, but not in time to build a seabreeze. Can you say "handwringing?" And, quick, what's the only sport that cancels because the weather is too good?

I think you know the answer.


©ACM 2007/Photo: Vicent Bosch

Says it all, verdad?

So much for the opener of the challenger elimination series. Monday's not-super-sexy dancecard now moves to Friday, a reserve day set aside for just this kind of thing. I figure the Mascalzone Latino vs. Desafio Español to be the most interesting match on Tuesday. They're rivals to make the cut to the final four. But the truth is we still haven't seen the ponies run. There's a lot of punditry regarding who's fast and who's strong, but until we actually see BMW Oracle against Victory Challenge (for example), we're all just blowing gas.


Speaking of sexy, the day had movie stars, soccer stars, and supermodels sitting on the fantails of high tech racing yachts watching the grass wither. Our one American-flagged entry, BMW Oracle, had a certain, striking, German-born resident of Malibu as "18th man." Fashion mavens will recognize the features of Tatiana Patitz, whom we present here for reasons that are purely gratuitous, in a team-supplied shot (thanks, Gilles Martin-Raget) taken outbound in the morning, when there still was hope for a race.

Everybody's hoping for better sailing conditions on Tuesday, but nobody's going to bet the farm on it. The region simply has not made the transition to a stable summer weather pattern. Then again, storm news from New England reminds me that we're not suffering the ultimate woes here in the South of Spain.

If I want the paychecks to keep coming, I guess I'd better not rub it in . . .

LAUNCHED

Even the big ticket, well-practiced teams are feeling the rush of time's winged chariot, but no one feels it like the guys at +39. They called us in over the weekend to announce a new cash sponsor, and in the background, almost taking over a time or two, was the roar of power tools—the afternoon shift of a 24 X 7 shore team working to repair their broken mast. If they made any effort to hide their frustration with the German team for their followup to the collision that broke the mast, or with their fellow challengers for voting to make their lives harder rather than easier, I missed it. So I guess we're launched. Coming out of Auckland 2003, Defender and Challenger of Record did such a good job of cleaning up the embarrassing hijinks and spying that the runup to America's Cup 32 has been eerily unruffled. Was eerily unruffled.

This was the scene on day two of Act 13. Now we're at the opening of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger eliminations, and +39 is not fully recovered.

Carlo Borlenghi/ACM2007

Not that it's a big deal to the big picture. Just enough to build a buzz ahead of the Owners' Press Conference, where most of the questions from the floor were aimed at the "what next" interplay between those who do and those who do not want to put the next challenger trials on a circuit.

Larry Ellison famously does want to create a circuit, leading to a Cup match on a two-year cycle. Luna Rossa's Patrizio Bertelli does not. He argues that what sets the America's Cup apart is the special role of the defender in setting the stage.

I found it interesting that only 3 of the 12 men on stage raised their hands when asked if they favored a circuit on a two-year cycle. Ernesto Bertarelli was not one of them. But his tactician/skipper on Alinghi, Brad Butterworth, told me last year, "We think that making the Acts part of the event and worth more points would make the game better.” And in reading the New York Times online I find Michel Bonnefous, Bertarelli's boyhood friend and now head of America's Cup Management, quoted thus, regarding the Acts: "For the future we have to think of what kind of meaning we give to these pre-competitions. We have connected them to the whole system. Good, but it’s a little bit complicated. You have to do a critique. We didn’t find a solution this time . . . what we have learned is that the Cup could be run in a different kind of mood, with a more temporary and less secretive structure, with the teams traveling together . . . I think this could open up some window, so tomorrow if we want to do a competition over three stages in three different places, it’s possible. "

Being doubtful that Bertarelli and Bonnefous are far apart in their thinking, and having watched the Swiss defender deflect repeated attempts to draw him out on this subject, I interpret his refusal to raise his hand as one more refusal to be drawn.

Here's Bertarelli on the left, Ellison on the right, as captured by Carlo Borlenghi for ACM 2007.

It was Bertarelli, with the 2003 Cup going his way, who invited Ellison to become Challenger of Record, 2007. They cooked up this new-look Cup together, and I figure there's plenty going on behind Bertarelli's genial, just-focusing-on-defending face.

A few other points from the Owners' Press Conference:

Ellison declared his intention to be sailing as part of the crew, "every day until the last day we sail" but not at the helm "unless it's while we're having lunch between races."

Shosholoza and China Team both declared an intent to return.

One after another, different voices agreed that the pre-events had raised the level of sailing for all the teams and helped to tighten the competition by allowing new teams to test themselves against the top players again and again instead of—as in the past—discovering their failings while being eliminated. The same is true at the top, where defender and challengers have the measure of each other in a way that was never true in the past. That's why nobody is expecting a runaway match in June.

Areva's Stephan Kandler weighed in favoring a circuit and a two-year cycle, which is only about choosing a challenger. No matter what, the Deed of Gift states that the America's Cup is a match between a Defender and a Challenger. "The Acts are the best thing that ever happened to the Cup," he said. "They're the only way to attract sponsors because they're the only way to deliver a good return. It doesn't cost more to do that kind of racing because you're seeing other boats and learning from them [instead of doing all development in isolation]. What is special about the Cup is the myth and legend of the match. That won't go away."

Okay, let's go back to +39.

Interesting to visit the camp, which is noticeably downscale from the big-budget teams. Instead of a private club atmosphere on the top floor, they have sofas set up in an honest, open shed with a tin roof and the hospitality area set off by hangings of old sails, still with telltales dangling. A nice touch, actually. They're starting the Louis Vuitton eliminations with a 2003 mast borrowed from Alinghi, a three-spreader job rather than the four-spreader spar under repair, so they have to sew new patches, but otherwise the headsails fit, and so does one of their two mainsails. But fitting the new mast and adapting the rigging was a job in itself.

The mast broke in three places, and all the rod rigging was damaged, so this is a total rebuild along with new running rigging. In the heat of saving the mast tubing, everything else was sacrificed. Technical Coordinator Luca Devoti commented, "The ridiculous decision of the Challenger Commission is proof that somebody thinks we're pretty good."

And in response to the several of you who have asked, the luggage is still out there, somewhere, so I know what shirt I'm wearing to Race One.

With any luck and some more of Sunday's sunshine, the racecourse will be looking a bit like this view, with credit to Nico Martinez/Desafio Español

We're launched.—Kimball

They don't have a WHAT?

Nobody's sailing in Valencia in today's drizzle, but the morning press briefing by AC offialdom had its moments. Regatta Director Dyer Jones inadvertently supplied me with a new definition of a second-tier team when he mentioned that, "some of teams here don't even have a weather boat."

Imagine that. And to think that, before teams were limited to a total of six support boats, no-excuse-to-lose people like Dennis Conner (in the Auckland days) were using that many just for the meteorology squad. The big teams here, you can be sure, have at least one weather boat to augment the info they get from America's Cup Management, which maintains data buoys in two of the three sailing areas.

That is, two areas for the challengers, which for the round robins are split into two groups to speed the eliminations along, plus another area for Alinghi's in-house racing as it prepares the 32nd defense of the America's Cup in June.

A gray, drizzly view of the megayacht dock, soon to be full:


And a few highlights of the briefing:

Peter "Luigi" Reggio on ACC design: "I think if teams had done more sailing in Valencia, they would have moded more toward light air boats."

Dyer Jones again, asked how challengers and defender are getting along at the game of sharing the water, drawing the only real laugh of the day with his answer, "With difficulty."

Chief measurer Ken MacAlpine noting, "It is interesting to see that the bigger teams have been measuring a minimum number of sails and holding others in reserve." Read, they figure they'll make the final four, and then they'll really need an arsenal. Each team is limited to a total of 45 sails measured for racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup (others can be built and measured but not raced).

And a few notes, bordering on the random:

When it comes to meeting required weights, all up and ready to race, or when being checked for compliance after a race, the tolerance is 19 kilos.

An effort has been made, for the round-robin eliminations, to balance left-right start line assignments, a team's number of races on Romeo vs. Juliet courses, and whether they sail the first race of the day versus the last. With 11 challengers, there is inevitably always at least one team drawing a bye.

There will be no ties. But if a race comes to what they're calling "a dead heat" it will be resailed. Any race days lost to weather will be made up on a reserve day, not squeezed into the following day in a way that would disrupt the calendar.

MacAlpine's team first measures boats "on the ground" in construction for ease and accuracy; it gets harder after they're "on the keel" in Valencia. And, "It's become practice for teams to ask us to take the core samples, which are required, as a boat is built. If they have a problem they want to know it at that point."

On the length of the course and judgement calls in starting races, here is Reggio: "It's in the Notice of Race that starting in winds of 7 to 23 knots is our intention. We can go in six if the wind is stable and the sea state is calm, but usually a wind that light is pretty squirrely. In anything above 17 knots, sea state becomes big part of the decision process. Courses are planned and marks are set around time rather than distance because that's what competitors want, about 72 minutes of racing; something good for TV."

In Auckland, remember, each course was set at 18 miles, three laps. More in the traditional manner.

Races in Valencia will be longer after the round robins, when seven boats are eliminated and the format turns to one race per day. Camera coverage will increase then, too. Dyer Jones said, "It is our intention (that's race committee-speak for "we have a plan but we're not stupid enough to make promises on the record") to have a camera on a jury boat at some stage. Right now there's a bandwidth problem because so many boats are racing. When the camera comes aboard, the umpires will explain their calls if they have time for that; if they're busy they'll stay with the action. And there probably will be a camera aboard with the RC when we get down to a single race course."

Okay. The weather. I've seen rain in the Med in April before, so I'm not freaking out, but there's plenty of chatter. The upside: I packed foulies. The downside: they're in my luggage, which is still out there somewhere. The upside: My nifty new backpack/computer case has a pullout raincover. The downside: It will be used.

I've felt pretty pathetic, trying to get along with my thin knowledge of Spanish, confusing verbs and confounding pronouns, but when I saw this sign in the restaurant in the Media Center, I felt somewhat vindicated.




And when I logged onto the blog to post this entry, everything was in Spanish. I'm finally back. From the land of soggy tapas, bye for now—/Kimball

Now They Tell Us

On my second trip to Valencia I was summoned to a 9 a.m. press conference at the BMW Oracle compound whilst still deep in California-Spain jetlag, but I was awake enough to remember Chris Dickson telling the crowd that his team had just launched something radical.

So, right now I'm in pre-jetlag stress from packing to go back to Valencia for the long stand, and I'm not going to search through my notes for an exact quote. But I'm pretty sure that I'm doing Chris no disservice by reporting that he called USA 87, then brand new, "the most radical ACC design ever launched."

In the racing that followed, many people—and especially press people—followed every move of USA 87 looking for signs of "radical." The mast was pretty far forward, one of the features required in a tandem-keel configuration, and that was the buzz.

USA 87 did indeed appear to have sprightly handling (as you would expect of a tandem keel), but it was significant that the people sailing against it discounted the story. "Nothing special" was a typical assessment from the other teams as to what was under the water.

Now we have Michel Kermarec (an appendages specialist who works with "Fresh" Burns on the design team) telling press people things like, "there never was anything but a standard keel and rudder."

As Bill Clinton might say, Define radical.

As any veteran would say, Welcome to the America's Cup.

Photo by BMW Oracle

Also, now, we're beyond unveiling day and all the chatter about what was seen, and too much of that chatter focused on keel struts and bulbs. I suppose that's because it's harder to perceive, much less talk about, volume distribution. But in that critical quality there are significant differences in this box-rule fleet. Keels and bulbs come and go, and what was shown on April 1 is not necessarily what goes into battle. The top-tier teams are assumed to have multiple, measured keel packages, giving them a lot of flexibility in responding to either changing conditions or new discoveries.

Bruce Farr, part of the BMW Oracle design team, comments, “You can tune these boats quite effectively by changing the appendage packages.”

I suppose I should note that USA 87 is now the old-new boat in the stable, the one called out to race in the recent fleet races to keep the new-new boat (USA 98) and its performance private.

Ka-Ching

Tuesday, April 10, and it's airplane day for me, back to Valencia and this time for the long stand. I love flags, and I think you might agree that this, from Valencia, is quite a flag.

Is Alinghi really better than the challenger fleet? What didn't we see in the Funny Regatta just completed, with Alinghi, Emirates Team New Zealand, and BMW Oracle all leaving their new-new boats in the shed?

Monday launches the Louis Vuitton Cup, Round Robin 1, and the serious process of choosing a challenger. Gamesmanship? That will continue. The Kiwis, for example, can reasonably expect that they will make the final four without showing everything they've got, so we won't know what level of gamesmanship is still in play until much farther down the road.

They don't do much English in Valencia, so where did I put my pocket Berlitz ? ? ?

—Kimball

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

No matter where you sail, it's "never like this."

We know that big-time regattas go to light-air venues, and it blows, and vice-versa. Something like that happened last week in Valencia, when late-season rains kicked the fleet around in some of the races, but truth to tell, most everywhere you looked there was a similar story going into Easter weekend 2007.

Down in Mississippi, Jackson Yacht Club's Beer Can Race #3 was sailed in temperatures in the high thirties, with an overnight freeze, while up in Melges country, at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, folks woke up to temperatures of 27 F on Easter morn. That might be a bit colder than average, but in Zenda they don't declare a sailing season before May. Out in California the Doublehanded Farallones Race went out the Golden Gate in the murk and damp of a cold front that spread all the way to rain-starved Los Angeles; sorry, southlanders, the forecast was for clearing in time for the big egg hunt.

It's that kind of "spring." So did we see anything of significance on the Valencia racecourse? Yes, but it will take more distance and more hindsight before we know what it was, with Alinghi, New Zealand, and BMW Oracle all sailing their old-new boats and Luna Rossa and Mascalzone Latino showing well, but not winning, with their new-new boats. Alinghi won and looked good, as we see in this shot by Carlo Borlenghi for ACM 2007. And yet . . .


If nothing else we know that's the end of low-points racing, where you have the second-tier teams tilting for points that might allow them to make the cut to the Final Four, where the odds are they'll get slaughtered while delivering adequate bang for the buck to their sponsors.

Did I say that?

Actually, we know that most of the teams, especially Luna Rossa, Desafio Español, Shosholoza,and Mascalzone Latino have the goods to be a threat on any given day. And with Emirates Team New Zealand remaining on the top of the challenger board going into the Louis Vuitton Cup (launching April 16), there's no question where the center of gravity lies. But life is going to pass very quickly between now and May 14, when the Final Four kick off the semifinal round of challenger eliminations. There is no reason to doubt that New Zealand and BMW Oracle (fifth in Act 13, but so what?) will be part of that. The other two spots will be a real catfight, and at some point, BMW Oracle has to go beyond being a Force to being a Performer.

That said, there is more going on than the obvious. Here is BMW Oracle navigator Peter Isler talking about the final race: "If we had won the race with Luna Rossa second and Alinghi third, Luna Rossa would have ended up ahead of us in the overall challenger rankings. We had to engineer a situation to put Luna Rossa third or worse in the final race. We slowed the action down and let Alinghi go through. As it happened, Mascalzone Latino also got ahead of Luna Rossa, so they ended up in fourth place. When we started the final beat of the final race, we were the third-ranked challenger overall. When we rounded the mark at the end of that windward leg, we were the second ranked challenger.”

As for the points structure that has kept everybody guessing through 13 "Acts," we've finally come to a time where it sorts out almost-explainably. Here is how America's Cup Management explains the points structure going forward:

With four bonus points, Emirates Team New Zealand starts the Louis Vuitton Cup with the equivalent of two wins, the second group of three half a win less and so on down the list. The bonus points are a handy head start, a little insurance and potentially extremely valuable at the end of the Round Robin stage when it comes to determining who advances to the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi Finals.

If you remember your history, you know that Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes did not dominate the early racing at Fremantle in 1986-87. But Conner certainly dominated the finals and the match. Is there a sleeper out there? For now, that's only a question.

The defenders have to be feeling pretty good, having shown that they can still beat a challenger fleet (in their last opportunity to mix, at that), but New Zealand and BMW Oracle deprived them of any data points on their new-new boats. And it's a shame to see underfunded, underpracticed +39 take it in the shorts with a mast broken through somebody else's error, but the hard truth is they had no real shot at longevity, and most of the action in that camp over the winter was about positioning for America's Cup 33.

When the German team—charged with causing the collision that brought down the mast—offered to give Iain Percy's team a replacement, I thought of the redemption scenes in the WIND movie and wondered if we were about to see a case of life imitating art. But the Challenger Commission voted down that exchange, which probably would not have worked out anyhow.

Meanwhile, hope springs eternal. With a new boat to play with, China Team had moments when they were actually part of the racing in Act 13. Navigator Wearn Haw Tan says, "We’ve caught up." I dig the integrated color scheme as seen in this shot by Nico Martinez:



Gotta beat the other guys to the chocolate eggs —Kimball

Real racing in an imaginary fleet

On unveiling day I hated myself for not being on the scene, but following the weather-scrambled opener to Act 13 fleet racing I remember why I decided that I'd be fine getting back to Valencia a week from now, ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Alinghi, Emirates Team New Zealand, and BMW Oracle (today's come from behind winner) all are racing older boats that, presumably, do not represent the pick of the litter. For them, this phase is about gamesmanship, crew training, learning what they can about the opposition, and revealing as little as possible about the capabilities of the boats they put on display last Sunday. Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth says, "At this level, against this calibre of sailors, if you have a slightly faster boat you’re going to beat them. They can win races on any given day, but it’s pretty tough to beat a faster boat. At any Cup I’ve done, the fastest boat has won, and I think this will be like the others.”

Courtesy BMW ORACLE

For the record, BMW Oracle's old-new boat of two new boats allowed, USA 87—the one sailing the fleet races—was reworked so completely (as I understand it) as to qualify as nearly a new boat. And if you look at the short, fat keel affixed to USA 84 vs. the long torpedo affixed to USA 98, you know you're not reading an open book.

Luna Rossa has chosen to put its new ITA 94 on the line, but school is open as to whether or not son-of-Prada remains part of the old Big Four. Everybody's second boat is presumably fast and competitive, so there might be some measure in this week of racing. Emirates and BMW Oracle both feel confident of making the final four, when all the accumulated points are wiped away and a new round of eliminations will begin. They're not sweating the points from this final round of fleet racing. Others are. Luna Rossa probably has a lot to think about, and a bit farther along the row of challenger compounds, Shosholoza skipper Mark Sadler calls Act 13, "Very important. We want to go into the Louis Vuitton Cup with an extra bonus point. We’re in the one-point group and we’d really like to be in the two-point group after this regatta.”

And no, simply no. I'm not explaining the points structure here. I don't have an extra hour and a half, and the only excuse for the complexity of allotting points for Acts 1-13 is that the next few weeks in the LVC are going to go quickly, seven of eleven challengers will be cut, and from the very first short strokes of the semifinals the format becomes crystal-clear.



Desafío Español and Macalzone Latino-Capitalia are sailing their new boats because, for them, making the semifinals IS the America's Cup. If they make it, that's a Cinderella story, glass slipper and all. If they go beyond the semifinals (I'd bet your money, but not mine), we really have a story, folks, and story is what it's all about. In '83, when the Boxing Kangaroos of Australia broke the longest winning streak in sports history, that was story. In '87, when Dennis Conner won the Cup back for the USA, that was story. In '95, when the Kiwis finally broke through and "owned" the whole danged America's Cup season, that was story. Etcetera.

Perhaps there is "story" in Valencia, too. We'll know it when we see it.

Meanwhile, with teams talking about "moding" for different conditions with different keels and sails, we know that even Unveiling Day represented only a partial unveiling.

For the record, here's the fleet:

Alinghi SUI 91
Emirates Team New Zealand NZL 84
+39 Challenge ITA 85
Team Shosholoza RSA 83
BMW Oracle Racing USA 87
Luna Rossa Challenge ITA 94
Areva Challenge FRA 93
Victory Challenge SWE 96
Desafío Español 2007 ESP 97
Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team ITA 99
United Internet Team Germany GER 89
China Team CHN 95

Illegal Cup Boats

Rules jiggered at the last minute!


Folks, this is not an April Fool's joke, it's real.

I know we're all buzzing on Unveiling Day about keels and fins and volume distribution and the very flat bottom of ITA 94, Luna Rossa, and the differing bulbs on the two Kiwi boats and on the BMW Oracles. But one clause of the ACC rule was rewritten last week, and pending confirmation, the change may not yet have the formal approval of the defender, and until it does, all 100 existing ACC boats are illegal under the terms of America's Cup 32. Alinghi. Luna Rossa. New Zealand. The whole shebang.

What in blue blazers is going on?

Well, it's all true, but before we go off the deep end let me confess that (in the spirit of April Fool's Day) I'm being devilish with the spin. There is no crisis and no scandal. But there was (oh my) one teensy-weensy little phrase in the ACC rule, Version 5, buried away in a Defined Terms list that nobody paid much attention to because everybody knew what it meant, and it led to the oh sheesh moment of the week when some hawkeyed legal freak gave V5 a close read and noticed that—no matter that we know what it's supposed to mean—what it really said is that lead ballast is illegal.

Imagine the surprise.

The last time I checked, everybody was using lead ballast.

Thus a proposal and vote at last week's meeting of the Challenger Commission to amend section 2.5(d) to allow defender and challengers at the 32nd defense of the America's Cup to use lead ballast.

The vote was unanimous. The motion, thus approved, was forwarded to the defender.

The crowds turned out for Unveiling Day on Sunday, also opening day for Port America's Cup; this Vicent Bosch photo from ACM 2007 tells the story. It's just as well they didn't know about this strange behind-the-scenes moment. Here is a statement from the AC 32 Challenger Commission:

ACC Rule Amendment

A draft amendment (no. 6) to Version 5 of the ACC Rule was presented by Technical Director Ken McAlpine. In the past week a minor but significant drafting error had been identified by the Measurement Committee in ACC Rule 2.5(d) which defines ballast. The wording error, which no one had noticed in more than three years since Version 5 was issued, effectively outlawed the use of lead in keels and appendages. Of course, every ACC yacht since the class's inception in 1990, including all ACC yachts currently in Valencia, have large amounts of lead in at least their keel bulbs. A small corrective wording change was unanimously approved by the Challengers, including by proxy the two teams not present. Pending approval by the Defender, which the Technical Director assured was forthcoming, Mr McAlpine said he would issue the amendment. Then all in the measurement world will, once again, be on an even keel.

In the ACC Rule, the offending Defined Term (now being redefined) reads as below. Note that in many popular versions of chemistry, the density of lead is given as 11,300 kg/ m³, and this text states that your ballast is to have a density " less than 11,300 kg/ m³."

2.5(d)
"Ballast" means material used to provide stability and/or measurement compliance and has a density greater than 9000 kg/ m³ and less than 11,300 kg/ m³. Ballast may contain naturally occurring trace elements which have a density greater than 11,300 m³, however these trace elements shall not exceed one part per million. Elements with a density greater than 11,300 kg/ m³ shall not be added to the ballast in any quantity.

I checked myself by emailing Tom Ehman, who as director of external affairs for Challenger of Record BMW Oracle was also founding chairman of the Challenger Commission (he wrote the statement copied above). On his dawn-lit way to a double espresso and heavy duties on Unveiling Day, Tom responded:

actually the density of lead is 11.3400, and THAT was the problem. by the way, i think it was true that, under the old rule, the most dense material (and still be legal) a team could have used was silver. 8 million dollar bulb anyone?

Well, if you could melt it down again for the Queen's silver, why not?

At least this mix-up is good for a grin, and easily resolved, unlike the aggravated buzz last week over the failed VPP for upper-limit Transpac entries that had a lot of minimally-informed conspiracy theorists flipping their Budweisers.

Check this Chris Cameron shot of the Emirates Team New Zealand boats, which caused a buzz of their own by doing some tune-up sailing last week against the defender. Hmm.


ETNZ Chris Cameron