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Off Day Review / Match 5 Preview: Breeze On!

Posted 1 year, 2 months ago

Off Day Review / Match 5 Preview: Breeze On!
Good graphic to sum up both yesterday and today?Good morning from a cool, hazy and humid Valencia. However, in the few minutes your Ed. has been reading through the overnight traffic of email, newspaper articles and webposts from around the world, the haze has been quickly burning off, and the temp. rising. This has all the prospects of a classic summer seabreeze day, Some weather gurus are predicting as much as 20kts, while most are calling for a more modest 12-15. Either way, it should be Alinghi's day. SUI 100 revels in breezier conditions, while ETNZ appears better suited for the softer breeze of earlier this week. No surprise; that is what most keen Cup observers had been saying prior to the start of what has turned out to be the most exciting AC Match in 24 years. Yesterday, of course, was a scheduled Off Day. It was breezy as well, offshore and on. Seemingly to fill the time and keep things interesting, the Jury and rules advisers from ETNZ and Alinghi took the better part of the day to hear the ETNZ protest. The hearing began at 1100, and an oral decision was not rendered until after 1600. The written decision, promised last evening, was not forthcoming, and presumably will now be issued this morning. Come on guys, get the lead out. This is a yacht race not the U.S. Supreme Court. The teams deserved to have the paper work before they went to bed so they could start afresh this morning, especially considering there is every prospect for another measurement check and possible protest today. This is no way to conduct a sport. (Clouds, the previous sentence is dedicated to you, Chris Toddler and Bill the Cook.) Aside from the protest proceedings, Thursday was a glorious day. Warm but not hot, unusually clear and dry, with a refreshing seabreeze. Southern California, or the south of Portugal, at its best. Congrats to Team Origin, the prospective GBR challenger for AC 33, who announced yesterday that they would challenge through the esteemed Royal Thames YC (London). Our old friend and RTYC racing director, Malcolm McKeag, must be happy as a clam, even if not all the Brit-pack media are. RTYC was the first-ever AC challenger (remember the year? 1870). For many years it has been the home away from home for yachtsmen and women visiting London, as "the Thames" is one of the few clubs in the world that enjoys a reciprocal arrangement with NYYC and similar prestigious clubs around the world like Royal Sydney and Royal Bermuda. BMW has a warm relationship with RTYC as sponsor of the club's innovative BMW City Challenge, which we have covered previously on the BOB here and here. Yesterday we were very pleased to receive at our team base a special delegation from Malaysia and the Monsoon Cup, a December stop on the World Match Racing Tour. So the "Off Day" turned out to be full on, even more so. LOL, it's almost a relief to be back on our busier but more routine race-day schedule today. Tied at 2-2, this AC Match, has been anything but routine. The only routine race was Wednesday's win by Alinghi in "their" conditions. All told, it's not yo' daddy's America's Cup. And cheers to that. It makes all the time and effort spent by the Defender and COR at the outset of AC32 seem worthwhile. Vindication for the innovation and the innovators, starting with Ernesto and Larry. Now it's a best of five, first to win three. Will it be over Sunday night with one team having won three straight? Or will they split the next three 2-1, giving us a 4-3 scoreline at the end of Sunday, an Off Day Monday to chew it over and wring our collective hands, and then an epic battle on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday for all the marbles silver? Here's hoping. The surreal scene outside the ACM jury office yesterday at 15:45 as the media hang out waiting for the promised 16:00 protest decision. Brings back memories of 1983 and a wild scene on morning outside the Goat Island offices of USYRU, where protests were heard in those days. AC 32 Umpire David Tallis (AUS), BMWOR's staff lawyer Gilly Wiliams (NZL) and our rules advisor Richard Slater (AUS) were smarter than some of the media -- they came back to the base for a beer to be properly fortified to hear the jury's decision back down at the jury office. All three had sat through the nearly four-hour hearing, and properly predicted the outcome. A relaxed and friendly Monsoon Cup delegation from Malaysia enjoyed a private "Morning Show" and base tour. That's Skip Lissiman (AUS) on the right, port trimmer on John Bertrand's Cup-winning Australia II crew in 1983, and now Monsoon Cup regatta director. When asked what he thought of the AC 32 and the Port America's Cup, Monsoon Cup empresario Patrick Lim (MAL) gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. Next to Patrick is Dato' Seri Idris Jusoh, the Chief Minister (equivalent to a state governor in the USA) of Terengganu, the capital of which, Kuala Terengganu, is the venue for the Monsoon Cup. Patrick, an experienced sailor and longtime friend of Peter Gilmour (AUS, Alinghi coach and Monsoon Cup founder) explained some of the finer points of an ACC yacht to the Chief State Minister. Members of the delegation tried their hands at our grinding machine, scoring an impressive 6.5 seconds while being cheered on by Andrea Tagliamacco (ITA, marketing department). Dato Seri Idris captured the grinding-machine action, and promised to take some of the ideas they saw in the Port America's Cup and at our team base back to Malaysia for the next edition of the Monsoon Cup this December. Full Story »

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