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This time
around BMW Oracle Racing is the Lone
American Challenger
BY JOSH ADAMS |
Critics smash the
Acts- a series of regattas held in
various countries-as a marketing
gag. Proponents call it a high-level
racing that counts. The truth is
somewhere in between: the racing
counts ( but not much) toward
challenging seeding, the sponsors
are kept happy, and pecking order is
being established on the water.What
I liked about the racing last
September in Trapani, Sicily, was
that the sailors came to win. Both
events- Act 8 was match racing, Act
9 fleet racing-were decided on
tie-breakers. The tie-breaker in Act
8 landed BMW Oracle in fourth.
BMW Oracle's
second-place finish in the fleet
racing was a solid showing for a
team that, in the end, expects to
challenge Al-inghi. The results look
even better when you consider that
Dickson was breaking in a newly
formed afterguard that feature
French match-racing expert Bertrand
Pace[ /], along with Doyle and Isler.
Meanwhile another
race was on, as BMW Oracle started
construction on its ACC Version 5.0
design, the first of two new
carbon-fiber hulls being built at
the Teams Yard in Anacortes,
Washington. Dickson gave " next
spring" as the launch date. That's
when the pecking order should
change, and BMW Or-acle hopes people
will start taking notice. *
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>> IMAGINE THAT
YOU'RE THE ONLY U.S. challenger in
the America's Cup - as well the
Challenger of Record - and hardly
anyone in America cares. Al-though
dyed-in-the-wool Cup fans in the
U.S. are following the exploits of
BMW Or-acle Racing, it's difficult
for the syndicate to generate
interest on a grand scale at home
when they're playing an
international game in the European
market. The new format for the 32nd
America's Cup offers better rac-ing
in Europe to a broad fan base and
corporate market. But one of the
effects of this format and the
lineup of foreign chal-lengers is
that the Cup fans in the U.S. - "
the spiritual home of the America's
Cup," as BMW Oracle/skipper Chris
Dickson called it during the team's
October tour of U.S. yacht clubs -
are missing out.
Larry Ellison's
syndicate is a player in Cup 2007,
and there's a reason it's message,
im-age, and performance should
resonate back home. It's the only
hope of returning the Cup to U.S
waters.
Ye on any given
day BMW Oracle Rac-ing hits
the water with a race crew that is
light on U.S. sailors; navigator
Peter Isler, strategist Eric Doyle,
and Larry Ellison are the only
regulars.
The most talented
Amer-ican on the team, John Kostecki,
has been benched, as was Paul Cayard
in the last Cup. Cup veteran J.B.
Braun, of Marblehead, Massachusetts,
is the aerodynamic coordi-nator, and
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Annapolis-based
Kiwi Bruce Farr is the chief yacht
designer.
But the rest of
this team, representing 16 different
countries, is closer to the Cup
norm; there are many French on team
China, many Americans in the
afterguards of Team New Zealand and
Luna Rosa, and many non-Swiss on
Alinghi. "We're not Dennis Conner -
red, white, and blue, and all that,
" said Doyle.
" Make no mistake
about it, " said Isler, a veteran of
several Conner campaigns. " We
represent the good old U.S. of A.
That's one of the reasons I'm on the
team. If we win, the Cup goes home
to San Francisco, " Let that sink in
for a moment. Imagine the racing
scene: ACC boats du-eling up the
cityfront; spectators following from
the shoreline. Forget the issues:
ship-ping lanes, land space for
compounds, and strong currents that
render a race-course one-sided. The
prospect of bring-ing the Cup to one
of this country's favorite sailing
venues is downright exciting.
Dream on.
Much has to happen before the
130-person, mega-million syn-dicate
can host the Cup and then make plans
to host the next matches. Even
Norbert Ba- jurin, Golden Gates
Yacht Club's former commodore,
controls his enthusiasm over the
thought of Cup racing on San
Francisco Bay. " I'm a businessman,
" he said. " And business decisions
are made when deciding where to
hold the America's Cup." |
