The 32nd America’s Cup is still some months away and yet thought and discussion is already turning towards the 33rd. The Challengers gathered round a table in the autumn to discuss possible scenarios beyond Valencia next summer. While it is hard to get agreement on many issues between the teams, there was almost unanimous support for a regatta to be held hot on the heels of the Cup, sometime early next autumn...
It has been a busy few weeks for Ernesto Bertarelli. At the end of August he flew over to Newport, Rhode Island to compete in the Rolex Farr 40 World Championships, a regatta that he won at his first attempt five years ago in England. This time he no longer had beginner's luck on his side, although 6th out of a hot fleet of 37 boats wasn't bad going for someone who hadn't sailed this demanding boat much in recent years...
It has been a busy few weeks for Ernesto Bertarelli. At the end of August he flew over to Newport, Rhode Island, to compete in the Rolex Farr 40 World Championships, a regatta that he won at his first attempt five years ago in England. This time he no longer had beginner's luck on his side, although 6th out of a hot fleet of 37 boats wasn't bad going for someone who hadn't sailed this demanding boat much in recent years...
One of the immense frustrations for an America's Cup sailor must be the feeling of being a very small cog in a massive machine. With the larger teams such as BMW ORACLE Racing or Alinghi numbering in excess of a hundred people, it's sometimes hard for individual efforts to be recognised. And if you do your job to perfection, that's no guarantee that you're going to win...
Few people can have witnessed the massive changes to the America’s Cup over the past quarter century quite like Grant Simmer. As a 26-year-old, the young Australian was thrust into the limelight as the navigator of Australia II when Alan Bond wrenched the Auld Mug out of the New York Yacht Club’s 132-year grasp. These days Simmer is a backroom boy, but no less important.
Louis Vuitton Act 12 built up over a week and a half's racing from a beginning of utter tedium to a wonderful crescendo of the best match racing ever witnessed in any America's Cup. Act 12 culminated in a semi-final and final series which saw like pitted against like, and races where the two yachts were seemingly yoked together by a short piece of invisible thread...
"Look at my size!" is the favourite phrase of my three-year-old son, who believes that at 3 feet tall and around 15 kilos that he is going up in the world. The same phrase comes to mind when I see the grandiose bases built by the big teams in the America's Cup...
It is very difficult to draw conclusions from anything in America's Cup racing, other than the final nine-race series of the America's Cup itself. Everything up to that point is smoke and mirrors - or is it? It's just so hard to know how much of their hand the teams are showing. You can be pretty sure that the smaller teams are trying their damndest whenever you see them racing in the Louis Vuitton Acts. But as for the ‘Big Four'? We really don't know...
BMW Oracle has put a cat among the pigeons with the launch of its new hull, USA-87. The ‘unveiling’ – although it was more of an enshrouding than an unveiling - of the new yacht posed more questions than it answered. It has certainly got tongues wagging about what lies beneath the hull...
Teams are re-emerging from a quiet but productive winter and beginning to make some noise around Valencia again. To date, nine yachts have been or are in the process of being constructed to the new Version 5 rules...
Sailors are a superstitious bunch. Some cannot bear the sight of anything green on the boat, and will not even allow the use of green electrical tape let alone paint anything green. Bananas, they’re bad luck too. As is changing the name of a boat, or losing a bucket overboard. Sailors are also superstitious about numbers, which perhaps explains why after this year’s final Act, number 12, the organisers had scheduled next year’s one and only Act as number 14...
With five new sail numbers allocated to various America’s Cup teams, design and build teams are working furiously to have these Version 5 boats ready for competition in the 2006 Acts...