Archive for February, 2010

BMW Oracle Racing wins 33rd America’s Cup!!!

Wow. The 33rd America’s Cup is over! BMW ORACLE WON 2-0, and the America’s Cup is coming back to America!!!  For the first time since 1995!

As for the write-up of today:  First, I’ll have to say the SA team has just made it home safely from the massive celebration at the BMW ORACLE base.  Since Mer and Clean left for their hotel, Petey went straight to bed (as he didn’t sleep last night because he was working), Aaron passed out on the couch, it leaves JC and I to heat up the frozen pizza for our dinner (which is also simultaneously today’s lunch…?).  Regardless, we had an awesome day today, and nice work to all involved for making it all possible.  Some other interesting things happened tonight, including me asking a question of each team in each of their press conferences, but more on that and video at the end of this article.

RACE 2 RECAP: (link to our live video below)
Alinghi Pre-start Error:
Today we saw Ernesto and Alinghi’s team inside the H at the 5 minute gun in the pre-start, thus they were penalized.  I called it an unforced error, but in the press conference afterwards Brad blamed it on the big rush to start the race (at 4:20 PM before the 4:30 PM cutoff race time), hence Alinghi was still pinging the ends of the line and were still inside the box at the 5 minute entry time.  I think Butterworth’s exact quote was “we got a nice penalty for free so we were two for two” (as in pre-start penalties-g). “We like to be even numbers, so that is good”.  We thus saw BMW Oracle enter from port and cross to leeward easily, while Alinghi was late to enter from the starboard side.
Approaching the Start Line:
After a little while Alinghi gybed back for the start line and BMW Oracle followed.  As the behind boat, they had the open choice if they wanted the right just to overlap to windward of Alinghi and tack for the committee boat, or if they wanted the left to overlap to leeward of Alinghi and force them to tack off, thus winning the pin.  We saw the latter develop, with BMW Oracle hooking to leeward of Alinghi, forcing Alinghi to tack away and therefore have a slow start, almost stalled, tacking away to the boat end.  I believe BMW ORACLE crossed the start line 25 seconds ahead, heading left, while Alinghi crossed later heading to the right.
Upwind:
Although BMW Oracle initially lead the race, placing a consolidating tack onto port to cover Alinghi off the start, Alinghi got a nice right hand shift with pressure and was able to tack over onto Starboard ahead of BMW Oracle.  My question then was whether BMW Oracle would try to cross over to the right to protect starboard advantage, thinking that safer since Alinghi had a penalty, or whether they would be concerned that Alinghi might then force an upwind dial-up and try to offset their penalty from the prestart.  The other factor to consider was that BMW Oracle has the Racer’s Edge Wind Sensor on board; and since we had already seen them go for the left at the pre start/start, they might want to protect left again if they saw better pressure/shift that way.  As it turned out, BMW Oracle tacked to leeward and protected left with a relatively big separation, although Alinghi initially continued gaining on the LONG starboard upwind, to a max lead of 600 meters.

After some speculation on our end about whether BMW Oracle should initiate a tacking duel, whether Alinghi would be able to gain enough distance to spin their penalty at the finish, or whether their might be an upwind dial-up; we actually then just saw BMW Oracle tack directly on layline in a big left shift, making up a lot of their distance and forcing Alinghi to cross them and then tack instead of tacking directly in front.  Props to John Kostecki the tactician and/or the navigator Matteo Plazzi for that layline call, because that was the race winner.  Alinghi crossed over BMW Oracle, then tacked, with little enough distance that they fell behind through the maneuver, and BMW Oracle rounded the weather mark 28 seconds ahead and extended their lead on the two reaches, for another runaway victory, while Alinghi approached the finish line in race two again with a penalty.
Go the wing?
For BMW ORACLE supporters, the biggest surprise might have been the fact that Alinghi was able to catch up and pass on the upwind, and even extend to a lead of over 600 meters in the right shift.  It was looking sketchy, and there were doubts as to whether Dogzilla and the wing were really faster at all, or whether it had just been teamwork/trimming/engine/helmsman error for Alinghi on day one.  Let’s assume that BMW Oracle didn’t keep the racing close just for show, in which case Alinghi really did give them a run for their money in terms of speed on the upwind today, and if only they had had a lot of factors going better for them (like more time in the boat together, no pre-start penalty, and less of a disadvantage off the start line caused by perhaps a higher speed tack) then maybe they would have had a really good race on their hands.  As it was all of those things plus the layline situation lead to Alinghi being behind at the weather mark, and with BMW Oracle’s speed on the reaches it was a game over from there.

Redress Flag
I don’t even want to discuss the redress flag that was pulled out by Alinghi on the upwind leg, but as it was a cause of such debate and stress on our program and for many of our viewers, I’ll at least address it.  Alinghi pulled out their redress flag halfway up the upwind leg, presumably for their penalty in the prestart.  Thankfully Brad Butterworth said in the press conference that the match wasn’t won or lost because of it, and BMW Oracle was just so much faster, that they decided not to go through with the redress.  Good on them, for really going through with what Ernesto said a couple months ago about winning this cup on the water.  I was deathly afraid of seeing this Cup horribly scarred by yet another litigating situation!

Press Conferences
Since I’m typically a racer myself and on the other side of the media/PR, I learned a lot this week about what happens on the other end of the camera and the backside of journalism.  I also learned tonight what it’s like to be in a big press conference, and that if you have a good question you want to ask it doesn’t matter that you’re not a known journalist just go ahead and ask it.  I was able to ask Ernesto and Brad what in their opinion Golden Gate YC and BMW Oracle Racing Team could do for them to want to be involved with the next edition of the America’s Cup.  After Brad muttered “stop suing us”, Ernesto answered basically that the type of boats will matter for him, and that after these great multihulls something like the version 5s will be a big step back.  When I then asked what boats the BMW Oracle Racing team thought they would use and if they’d like to see Alinghi as a challenger, Russelll answered, of course they’d like to race Alinghi again, and that the boats would be chosen by mutual consent.

Challenger of Record
Speaking of mutual consent, the word on SA for the past week and here for the past day or two has been that Mascalzone Latino will be the Challenger of Record.  While Larry wouldn’t explicitly say that in the press conference, he did state that Vincenzo was a good friend who never lies.  From the interview that we got with Vincenzo last night and the number of Latin Rascals we saw around the BMW Oracle base today, we weren’t surprised one bit.  Should be a great pair and let’s only hope they can put together a fabulous 34th edition of the AC.

While we may never see such wonderful feats of design, technology, and sailing in the America’s Cup again (or at least soon), we have to be happy that the legal wrangling days are behind us and we can get on the races.  With multi-challengers, mutual consent, an impartial jury and race committee, and all those other things that we typically take for granted in sailboat racing.  Thank you Deed of Gift Match—for providing such a spectacle this week!  Now I can only hope to see the next match in my current home waters of San Francisco…

Well sailed to both teams, and happy days for the future of  the BMW Oracle Racing Team, and the many Americans who can’t wait to see the America’s Cup back on US soil.

-Genny

Live video from our Race 2 Coverage:

Watch live video from onthewateranarchy on Justin.tv
Press Conference following the Final Race of the 33rd America’s Cup:

Watch live streaming video from bmworacleracing at livestream.com

33rd America’s Cup Race 1 Recap

(SA live race coverage below and video archives here):
Today we saw many things we expected, and perhaps many more we did not.  We saw Jimmy Spithill draw a penalty in the pre-start like we knew he was capable of, proving his nickname of ‘Pitbull’—a name which he garnered actually racing against BMW Oracle in the last Cup when he drew two penalties in one prestart against Chris Dickson (ultimately leading to Dickson being fired and replaced by RC as CEO and Jimmy as helm…).  So today’s dial-up and ensuing penalty was somewhat to be expected, or at least wasn’t too surprising.  The interesting and completely unexpected part of the pre-start was that we actually saw Alinghi come out of the start ahead (albeit with a penalty), by more than a minute and a half, because BMW Oracle was still stuck in irons when the gun went off.  After entering and drawing the penalty BMW Oracle was in a semi-comfortable controlling position slightly to windward and behind, but had a tough time holding that spot for 3 minutes and carried a little too much speed initially, ultimately overlapping Alinghi.  As the windward boat BMW Oracle tried to tack away, with their bowman Brad Webb backing the jib hard to port; but with less than a minute to go they ended up head to wind.  Alinghi was able to bear off, circle the pin and start on port, while BMW Oracle was STILL stuck in irons, over the line, only able to get going and clear themselves a minute plus later.  That was a big surprise.  The word at the press release tonight says that they had a winch malfunction.  Who knows, but that’s apparently the official line of reasoning for why the more maneuverable boat/wing was outmaneuvered (so badly!) by the soft sail.

We also saw the coming to fruition of the general opinion that this is truly just a design race, and that one boat would have a massive design advantage over the other.  What we didn’t necessarily expect, at least in the rumor mill here, was that BMW Oracle would be the ones with that design advantage in under 8 knots.  We’d heard good things about the wing, etc., but we had also heard that the crossover was 8 knots and anything under that would show the BMW Oracle trimaran lacking for power while the lake-designed, RAK optimized Alighi catamaran would dominate.  All wrong.  BMW Oracle was consistently higher and faster, and after having started behind and to leeward (by about 1 min 20 secs and more than 600 meters), they climbed up to windward and over the top of Alinghi in almost no time at all.  What is 10 minutes in a 3 hour race course anyway?  By the top mark BMWOracle was 3:21 ahead, only to extend that 1300 meter lead to more than 3000 meters very quickly, and keep that delta to the finish, which should have seen Alinghi about 9 minutes behind.  (Except for the fact that they still had a penalty to do, which they did so poorly that they didn’t actually finish, so had to sail back up and finish again 6 minutes later with their jib already down).

TakeAways:
What does this all mean?  Unfortunately for Alinghi, it means that pigs gotta somehow learn to fly between now and Sunday.  Seriously.  We were not expecting Alinghi to look like such a pig of a boat in light air against BMW Oracle, yet at almost no time today did BMW Oracle struggle to fly both of their windward hulls while multiple times Alinghi couldn’t keep their one windward one out of the water.  I know I’m from San Francisco and also that SA is banned from all things Alinghi, but today I didn’t even want to take that biased viewpiont.  I really wanted Alinghi to be faster, to make it interesting in some way, to see if we could get some sort of tactical situation in which they would possibly be able to offset their penalty and give us a match.  I kept thinking that maybe the perspectives were off, and BMW Oracle really hadn’t pulled that far ahead so quickly on the upwind, and that maybe Alinghi (to leeward and ahead for a short time) could actually talk over to starboard and cause an upwind dial-up offsetting penalty situation.  Not the case.  BMW Oracle won this one, running, no, galloping away.  To the point where it seemed like they got a comfortable enough lead and then throttled back, just to stay somewhat in touch with the competition.

I can’t decide if I want to see another run away race on Sunday, or if I actually want to see a close match race.  Maybe Alinghi deserves the worst, and Oracle should rip the America’s Cup right out of the hostile base that currently holds it but has exiled so many people from viewing it (me included!).  Maybe their uncomfortable delayed finish today was enough humiliation.  Awful for them to not actually complete their penalty turn on the course side, then to have to sail back upwind after dropping their jib and refinish again, almost 6 minutes after they first crossed the line—for an ultimate delta of over 15 minutes.  Regardless, everyone’s got to keep their heads about them—Sunday is another day, albeit a ‘do or die’ race for Alinghi, but another race just the same.  If you can call anything about these massive multihulls just another race.

ITBA-In The Bar Anarchy
Sorry that we weren’t out on the water to provide coverage, but our last minute bar setup seems to have proven possibly to be a much better alternative. We were able to actually watch the racing (as opposed to being too far away to see anything but even ‘the boats as ants on the screen’—our camerman Petey); we were able to stream live (which would be impossible for us 20 miles out, even though our web streaming guy Aaron tries his best it’s just way too far out of tower reach); we had flowing drinks (which Clean always needs), we got some great photo ops of the audience for Mer, and JC and I and Clean got to entertain a crowd (of mostly Spaniards) in a bar that had to start turning away people because it was too full, along with the online audience of fans.  More on all this later, and let’s hope it works again on Sunday.  We hear the best way to view the racing is with the video feed running in one window, and our feed as running as the audio in another, because no matter what happens we’re trying to keep it entertaining.  Our coverage of the racing is embedded below, and here is a link to our archive of videos from the week.

So happy there was racing today, and that we’re now one step closer to the next iteration of the America’s Cup.  I’m not saying it’s over, I’m just saying…
-Genny

SA Live Coverage of Race 1

Watch live video from onthewateranarchy on Justin.tv

Valencia: Postponed again

Here we go again…

Tomorrow’s start has been postponed until at least noon Valencia time.  The forecast for tomorrow is calling for big wind AND waves (not just waves as we had on Wednesday), and with the 30 knots we’re seeing around the harbor today, the general feeling is that we won’t see a race until Sunday.  Rumor has it that BMW Oracle will go out tomorrow regardless, presumably to prove that they could race in that, as well as to pump up the PR/media/fans whose hopes/opinions/thoughts on this Cup are dwindling into frustration, annoyance, and incredulity.  Like I said on Wednesday, no sailor scheduled this match for February in Valencia, but rather a judge and long line of suits and countersuits.  If only we could get some sort of agreement between the teams to get rid of the lay days after non-racing days, but then again we haven’t seen mutual consent once so why expect it now.

On that note, I had the privilege of interviewing Golden Gate Yacht Club commodore Marcus Young yesterday afternoon, and we talked about a great range of topics, including how he feels about the mutual consent debacle, why this race couldn’t come to some sort of settlement before the Deed of Gift match, what it’s like having to sign every single one of those litigious pieces of paper, what the weather conditions truly were like on the water on Wednesday, what the future of the Cup should be like, and much more.  Check it out here (Part 1, Part 2) if you’ve got 20 mins of time, cuz it’s worth it.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but regardless of the racing we’ll be out on the water, either showing you BMW ORACLE practicing/proving their point, or filming our friends and supporters Mascalzone Latino, who arrived in port yesterday and are starting training tomorrow for the Louis Vuitton Cup.  After this week’s weather dramas, its sounding more and more like a monohull and traditional style America’s Cup should be the way of the future.  Because as much as it’s going to be cool to see these great multihulls race around; we’d rather see ANYONE race than no one.

Aside from the non-racing, we’ve still had plenty of good media happening on land.  All of our videos from our stuff this week can be found at either of these links:
http://www.sailinganarchy.com/otwa/2010/33ac_otw_archives.php
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=103803
And remember, whenever we’re live you can find it here:
http://www.sailinganarchy.com/otwa/33rd_americascup.php
And the promo that introduces our team is here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/headinjurymedia#p/a/u/0/FFqV0o3ARJs

Get Ready for Match One of the 33rd America’s Cup!

Quick update as I know many of you are enjoying your American Sunday of Superbowl watching and guacamole eating (at least I hope that part is involved), and as I’m deadly tired and it’s 2:00 here and I have to be up in 5 hours.  I just finished my first full day in Valencia, and it started off very well for us.  We got a great 30 min interview with the PRO Harold Bennett which covered lots of interesting points: including the fairness of the event, the weather forecast, the size and spectacle of these multihulls, the unpredictability of tomorrow’s racing, and also the reason why there are so many Kiwis dominating our sport right now.

We followed that with our first live cocktail hour, where we hosted four of the most esteemed Cup journalists in the media room of the BMW Oracle tent.  That discussion was also very entertaining, involving differing versions of what the racing tomorrow is going to be like, who’s fault it is that this Cup came about the way it did through lawsuits rather than settling for a multi-team challenge, how this multihull match may change the game of future America’s Cups (or not), and many other intriguing topics with some top guys who really know what they’re talking about.

Tomorrow at 10 am our time is when the meat of it starts—the first warning gun of the first race of the 33rd America’s Cup (at least if weather allows).  And the forecast is currently looking really good-PRO Harold said 7-9 kts possibly gusting to 14—perfect  conditions for both of these boats to really get rumbling.  Very much looking forward to finally seeing these boats in action against each other.  Have no idea what’s in store-what the pre-start will be like, who’s gonna be faster, etc (although many guesses were made in the cocktail hour tonight)–so tomorrow is pretty much incredibly exciting uncharted territory!  We’ll be on the water at 8 AM, giving you pre-racing footage of the sailing from the only live streaming site aside from the official feed, so until we get too far offshore we should be bringing you some incredible action.  Post-racing we’ll be lining up another live cocktail hour, this time with some leading designers, which should again be held around 7 PM Valencia time.

Coverage Schedule:     pre-race footage 9 AM Valencia time—Midnight PST

33rd America’s Cup-Valencia

I’m excited to announce that I’m headed to Valencia on Friday to check out the 33rd Edition of the America’s Cup!  I’ve been asked by Sailing Anarchy to help them commentate for their On the Water Anarchy Coverage and to be involved in post-race interviewing, and I can’t wait to get over there and get to see the action!  Race days are meant to be February 8th, 10th and 12th, but if we’ve learned anything in the last two years it’s that there’s at least as much interesting ‘pre-race maneuvering’ happening on land as there is on the water!

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