A story our search engines picked up last week about our team owner and afterguard member; it is a nice piece of analysis and, indeed, ink....


Evaluating Larry Ellison
Some hard statistics make a good case for thinking of Oracle's Larry Ellison as the best-performing CEO in the U.S.


by Tamina Vahidy, Line56
Wednesday, January 10, 2007

In recently browsing through Forbes Magazine, we came across a list of "20/20": CEOs who have produced at least 20 percent annualized returns for their companies across a period of at least 20 years. The list was produced partly in order to highlight CEOs who are worth their pay in this unfortunate age of $200 million golden parachutes for executive failures.

As it turns out, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is at the very top of that list, because he has achieved a 31 percent annualized return for Oracle over the past 29 years. No one else in the list, which was restricted to large enterprises, even cracked 30 percent....

Congrats to BMW ORACLE's team doc, Francisco "Kiko" Espi-Escriva (Valencia, ESP) who continues his success on the Spanish A Class Catamaran 2006-07 regatta circuit. According to a press statement on the Federacion Valenciana de Vela site, after three regattas Kiko has taken the lead, albeit tied on 8 points with Sr Gonzalo Infante of the RCR Alicante. So far both have a first, third and fourth. Kiko, who sails for the Real Club Nautico Valencia, leads on the tie-breaker.

Nice albeit brief story today on the ACM website about the international remote control boat regatta going on in the Port America's Cup this weekend. It is said to feature "some of the best sailors in Europe" including our own Nathan Williams (NZL, weather team).

Full story

Congrats to Dr Francisco "Kiko" Espi Escriva (ESP, team physician) who has qualified to represent Spain in hotly-contested A Class Catamaran European Championships in El Car, Spain next June (2007). Kiko placed 6th out of 30 in the recently concluded Spanish national qualifying series.

Updating our previous story on BMWOR's Carl Williams (NZL, sailing team) who, with Hamish Pepper (NZL), are having a terrific freshman year in the Star Class. This news release arrived alst evening after yesterday's conclusion (unfortunantely, no racing the past two days) the Star Europeans in Neustadt, Germany....

The Harken Star Team of Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams have officially finished fourth overall in the 2006 European Star Championships sailed in Lubeck, Germany. The result assures the crew of a place in the YNZ Olympic Squad for 2007.

This is their first year of competition in the highly competitive Star class. In fact they have only been sailing the class for eight months, and in that time have climbed to 13th place in the ISAF Rankings counting just six out of the possible seven best regattas. This result should pull them even higher, possibly into the top ten, which will be an amazing achievement.

Congrats to Hamish and Carl, and we will keep you apprised here of their progress. Meanwhile, Carl, we look forward to seeing you back in Valencia. No doubt Peter and Olaf Harken will be happy as well. Note to Dicko: for all this ink we are giving the Harken Star Team, maybe we can get a discount (or at least not pay such a premium) on our Harken gear?

After a short break for "Pope Weekend," 76 and 87 and the sailing and support teams were back at it today on the Mediterranean waters off Valencia, while many of our shore team and marketing team were hard at work planning and organizing our next gig: the German Sailing Grand Prix, the regatta with Shosholoza and United Internet Team Germany at Kiel (GER) the first weekend of August.

Mark "Squark" Bradford (AUS, sailing team) has been appointed by Dicko as project manager so far as our entry in the event as a team is concerned, and Mirko has Benedikt "Pope" Horber (GER, marketing team) overseeing the day-to-day details of the event which we are, in effect, co-hosting with the other two teams and their sponsors -- with plenty of help from the City of Kiel and the Kieler Yacht Club.

As you can imagine, the design and boat-build teams are beavering away at undisclosed location(s) and at certain stage(s) in the preparations for the launch of our second new ACC yacht later this year or early next year (sorry, exactly when is, as yet, also unable to be disclosed).


Not undisclosed is the work Andy Falakoa (NZL, shore team) and other
members of the shore team are doing this week on USA 71 at our VLC
Base to prepare for the German Sailing Grand Prix next month. 71 will
race GER 72 and RSA 48 in a three-day event of fleet and match racing at
Kiel (GER) 4-6 Aug.

Ian "Fresh" Burns (AUS) is a bit of an all-around jock. He coaches his kids in, last I knew, soccer and rugby, is an avid cyclist (competing in a tour-de-france style race for semi-pros this weekend), and of course is a world-class sailor.

In addition to serving as design coordinator, he often sails on training days as a member of the testing crew, is an articulate and popular spokesman with sponsors and the media, and serves on our team's Executive Committee.

We're still not sure if we believe the story about him getting the nickname "Fresh" from having a milk delivery route as a kid. Maybe more to do with his teen years?

With World Cup final taking place tonight, it seems especially appropriate to feature soccer dad, Ian "Fresh" Burns: another of the cool people who populate our team.


These days Fresh has a lot of balls in the air, following up on the results
of Acts 10-12, analyzing USA 87, and keeping the design team humming
along toward the realization of our second new ACC yacht for AC 32.
Photo courtesy of Shelley Burns.

Congrats to Peter Gilmour's PST, including our own Rod Dawson (NZL, weather/sailing team), for their win at Match Race Germany last weekend. With the win, Gilmour today clinched his third consecutive World Match Racing Tour Championship and fourth ISAF Match Racing World Championship.

Rod has been racing with Gilly's PST for a number of years. "I am the mainsheet trimmer, and from that position I can help Gilly with some of the tactical decisions."

No doubt Rod's keen weather eye is also a big help to PST in consistently getting the first shift off the starting line and picking the correct side of the first weather leg -- same as he does when working alongside BMWOR team meteorologist Chris Bedford on our tender.


Yasuhiro Yaji (JPN, left) and Rod are long-time members of Peter Gilmour’s
PST crew.


Grip and grin at the prizegiving. It was also Gilmour's third consecutive
win of Match Racing Germany.


In winning the world championship Gilmour, the 46-year-old from Perth,
Western Australia, won a BMW X3 3.0i, from Tour partner BMW AG. (World Tour/Richard Walch photos.)

“It has been the most amazing contest with the most amazing team. Juan Kouyoumdjian [the naval architect] has done an amazing job with this boat along with Killian Bushe [the boat builder] and the rest of the team. They gave us exactly what we asked for and it is a very special boat.” --Mike "Moose" Sanderson, in an article by Ed Gorman in The Times (London) about ABN Amro One's winning the VOR.

Hearty congrats to Moose (who was a member of our team in AC 31) and Juan K (design team member of BMW ORACLE Racing), and all others involved, for their impressive performance.


Design team member Juan Kouyoumdjian (ARG), who designed ABN
Amro One (and Two) that has dominated the VOR, at a recent team
function at our Base.