From the New Zealand's Sunday Star Times, a nice article by Greg Ford on sailing team manager Craig Monk (NZL)....


Yachting's Monk makes habit of calling Spain home
Kiwi sailor Craig Monk feels like a visitor when he's in his home town, Auckland.

He has been on the road for so long now, chasing his America's Cup dream, when asked where home is he answers "Spain".

"I have been trying to get out of this job ever since I got into in back in 1995," he jokes.

It wasn't always that way.

Monk was part of the victorious New Zealand America's Cup challenge in 1995 and the defence off Auckland in 2000.

He defected to OneWorld in 2003 and jumped ship again when the Larry Ellison-owned Oracle syndicate came calling. More than 50% of Oracle's sailing team, who wear the stars and stripes, are New Zealanders.

It's a staggering stat, which Monk takes some pride in.

He still has the trademark physique - giant shoulders and tree trunk arms - which signpost the fact he's a grinder.

But these days he carries a clipboard and strapped to his belt is a phone.

Yes, he has moved into management and played a part in the strong Kiwi influence in Oracle.

Full story

Nice ink in today's (Sunday) Seattle Times about another aspect of the super technology involved in the building of BMW ORACLE Racing's new boats....


Janicki's innovative molds changes engineering of superyachts, jets
By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

SEDRO-WOOLLEY (Washington, USA) — Quaint storefronts and a red-brick clock tower beckon mountain-bound tourists to stop in this small town. But a humming factory complex on the outskirts is what draws intense attention from manufacturers around the world.

Strange, bulky objects sit in an industrial yard, many shrouded in white plastic wrap. These massive cylinders and half-pipes are monuments to one man's stubborn insistence that he can out-engineer almost anyone.

Peter Janicki, third-generation scion of a pioneer logging family, is founder and chief executive of fast-growing Janicki Industries, which supplies one-of-a-kind manufacturing molds for billionaires' superyachts and fuselages for Boeing's new 787.

In a county where the other big employers are a casino and a chicken processor, 500-employee Janicki Industries is Sedro-Woolley's Boeing and Microsoft rolled into one.

Yet it employs more than top-notch engineers.

Janicki molds shape high-end, high-tech yachts. At the America's Cup races next summer in Spain, Janicki's work will be on display in the sleekly contoured, composite hulls of two Oracle BMW yachts racing for software billionaire Larry Ellison, a repeat customer. The yachts — one completed, the second still under construction — were built in nearby Anacortes, mainly to be close to Janicki Industries.

Full Seattle Times story

Another good article by Julie Ash in yesterday's Auckland Herald, this one on our sailing team captain Craig "Monkey" Monk (NZL)....


Yachting: Still proving the headmaster wrong
Friday December 15, 2006
By Julie Ash

"You won't make a living out of sailing," John Graham, headmaster of Auckland Grammar, told a young Craig Monk.

Monk, then a sixth former, had just informed Graham he was leaving school to become a sailor.

As Monk recalls, the former All Black loose forward, who had mapped out a rugby career for the burly youngster, didn't take the news well.

"He looked blown away," Monk said.

"He said we have you set up to be a prefect, play in the first XV and maybe become an All Black.

"I said 'no, I want to be a sailor'.

"He said 'you won't make a living out of sailing'."

A year later Monk went back to Grammar to talk about his trip to the world youth championships. In 1992 he returned with his Olympic medal and in 1995 with the America's Cup.

Having already proven Graham wrong - and they have since shared a laugh about the comment - Monk hopes to rub it in next year and win the America's Cup for what will effectively be his third time, as a grinder with Chris Dickson's Oracle.

Full NZ Herald article

BMW Oracle Racing is set to launch the New Year in style with a unique visit to the Collins Stewart London Boat Show at ExCeL from 5-14 January.

This is the first time an America's Cup yacht has exhibited at the London Boat Show at ExCeL and visitors will be able to view the full-scale BMW Oracle Racing yacht, USA-61, in close detail and enjoy a truly interactive America's Cup experience.

Full story on the Yachting World website

Story in this morning's NZ Herald (photo: Brett Phibbs/NZ Herald)....

Yachting: Star quality on board
Friday December 8, 2006
By Julie Ash

Thirteen years ago, Carl Williams had Chris Dickson in the hot seat.

As a 12-year-old travelling with his father, television producer Doc Williams, during the 1993/94 round-the-world races, Williams junior earned pocket money by holding the microphone while commentator Gary Jobson fired questions at the skippers.

"I remember standing there while Gary was interviewing Dickson [skipper of Tokio] and listening to all the stories he used to tell, like cutting the handles of toothbrushes to reduce weight.

"But some of my most vivid memories are of [Sir Peter Blake's] Steinlager II down at Princess Wharf [in 1989/90] and climbing all over the spinnakers.

"Thinking back, that is where my passion for sailing really came from."

Now Williams is not only working for Dickson's America's Cup syndicate, Oracle, but he is one half of a successful Star combination with Hamish Pepper.

Williams' choice of sailing as a career is hardly a surprise. His mother is well-known sailing identity Penny Whiting and his grandfather, Darcy Whiting, is famous for his offshore racing exploits.

As a child, Williams spent his summer holidays cruising with his family in the Bay of Islands.

"We'd leave as soon as school finished and come back on Auckland Anniversary Day.

"It was pretty cool."

But while Williams enjoyed sailing, he also showed plenty of talent in other sports.

He swam at the North Shore swim club under Jan Cameron, alongside Steve Ferguson and Scott Talbot-Cameron. However, "much to Jan's dismay", he took up water polo in his early teens.

Although he made the New Zealand under-15 squad, his venture into that sport was also short-lived, and he joined the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's Youth Scheme, which focuses on match racing.

His round-the-world escapades had also established a friendship with Blake, who organised for Williams to train with the Team New Zealand sailors in the gym before school.

"Then he [Blake] wrote a letter to my headmaster saying that I was going to work for Team New Zealand for the 2000 defence. So I left school at 16."

But that was during the time of the well-publicised Blake/Russell Coutts war - "I don't know what happened, to this day" and the arrangement fell through.

Full story

UPDATE (0800 Thu morn 16 Nov) -- Hamish and Carl continue their winning ways, having won both races yesterday on Day One of the Star Class North Americans in Miami. Star Class website has a daily report.

BMWOR's Carl "Tiny" Williams made the December cover of what many consider to be the leading yacht racing magazine in the world, Seahorse, for winning the Star Class Worlds with his skipper and fellow Kiwi, Hamish Pepper. Note also that Dicko has an interview in this issue.

During the Allianz Cup Larry was interviewed by the AP's Bernie WIlson (USA, San DIego), who has covered the Cup for the Associated Press well and for as long as we can remember. Bernie's story is now on the AP wires and running in papers around the world -- including a nice spread in yesterday's International Herald Tribune.

BMW Oracle Racing aims to bring America's Cup within shadow of Golden Gate Bridge
The Associated Press

Less than six months before the America's Cup begins in Spain, the top sailors with the only American-backed syndicate got a breathtaking reminder that victory will mean more than just spraying champagne and hoisting the silver trophy.

If BMW Oracle Racing can return the America's Cup to America for the first time since 1995, the next regatta likely would be sailed with a spectacular backdrop including the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, the Coit Tower and the Transamerica pyramid.

"This is the greatest natural amphitheater for sailing, perhaps in the world," software mogul Larry Ellison said in San Francisco during the recent Allianz Cup, a stop on the World Match Racing Tour.

Ellison and others with BMW Oracle Racing already know what it's like to have 80-foot (24-meter) America's Cup sloops, with mainsails as big as Boeing 747 wings, tacking along the cityfront.

Three years ago, BMW Oracle Racing and America's Cup winner Alinghi of Switzerland sailed an exhibition regatta here, with spectators watching from the shore and nearby buildings. It was mostly smooth sailing, except for when a massive container ship steamed through the course, leaving the rich guys no choice but to yield the right of way.

"A lot of people said, 'Oh, you couldn't race the America's Cup in San Francisco Bay,'" said Gavin Brady, a New Zealander who lives in the U.S. "I think this would be one of the coolest places to run the America's Cup."

When Cup races are held offshore, boats can be separated by hundreds of yards, making it hard to tell who's in the lead.

On San Francisco Bay, "It's like going to a NASCAR race on a small track," Brady said. "There's no big straight. They can't get far enough away from each other, just bumping and crashing. 'Which side of Alcatraz is he going to go? Geez, he went on the other side of Alcatraz!' The whole thing would be an awesome spectacle. It really would change the face of the America's Cup."

Dreams are one thing. Then there's reality.

"First we have to win it," cautions Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp.

To claim the oldest trophy in sports, BMW Oracle Racing will have to top 10 other challengers in the Louis Vuitton Cup beginning on April 16 in the Mediterranean off Valencia, Spain, then knock off Alinghi in the America's Cup matches beginning on June 23.

Ellison and his skipper, New Zealander Chris Dickson, say BMW Oracle Racing is in good shape 3 1/2 years into a four-year campaign. After 12 pre-regattas that have filled the gap since the 2003 America's Cup, the U.S. team is ranked second, right behind Team New Zealand, the hard-luck loser in its home waters three years ago.

Then known as Oracle BMW Racing, the American-sponsored crew made it to the Louis Vuitton Cup finals before losing 5-1 to Alinghi, which went on to sweep Team New Zealand.

That campaign had its share of upheaval. The intense Dickson was banished from the boat for a time due to friction with teammates. When Ellison reinstated him, there were some races when Dickson replaced Ellison in the brain trust at the back of the boat.

"I think that's all behind us," said Ellison, who sometimes steers the America's Cup boat, which has a crew of 17 plus one observer. "Chris is the boss. He's the CEO of the syndicate. As it became very clear in the last campaign, I was on the boat at his pleasure. He's the boss and we all salute."

Full story

Over the weekekend Scott MacLeod, President of the World Match Racing Tour, wrote this brief but thoughtful letter to officials and partners with this year's inaugural Allianz Cup presented by Oracle....


Dear Allianz Cup Sponsor:

This link to a report by Brian Angel (a last minute wildcard) gives you a little insight into what I believe makes the World Match Racing Tour and the Allianz Cup a great series for the sport: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/06/1101/

Thank you for your sponsorship of the Allianz Cup presented by Oracle which allowed us the opportunity to bring the WMRT to the US. Someday we may see Brian Angel at the wheel of an America's Cup yacht and he can thank all of you for his start!

Best regards, Scott


Thanks, Mr President. And congrats to you and your WMRT team for the fine event. Likewise to Sam Usher & Co. of Narrowstep and Sail.tv.

All Allianz Cup stories that we posted here on the BOB, including Mr Angel's laudatory letter which we blogged last week, are available here.

Found this tidbit today on the 2007AC Forums, which was posted on 22 September by "Seafang" a.k.a. George:

Caught a BMW ad on very late night TV last night. It never said didley squat about automobiles; it was all about BMW's efforts in conjunction with Oracle for the America's Cup challenge.

Showed the keel of one of the boats being made out of stainless at some German BMW plant. They showed the yacht hanging up in the air with its regular undercarriage. Man are those appendages long and skinny.

It was a very professional piece of work, as you can imagine from BMW....

Not aware that we have had the pleasure of meeting "Seafang" (though the nick reminds us of a rules advisor or two with other AC teams), but we wanted to thank him for posting that. We'll try to track down the ad and see if we can post the video here on the BOB.

Markarina.com, the Spanish blog on marketing, has a nice post about the BOB. Here is a rough translation -- courtesy of Google Lanuage Tools and your Ed.'s high school Spanish:


Blog of BMW ORACLE Racing

The ship's logs that at the present time have derived in weblogs have their origin in the sea. According to the dictionary of the Real Spanish Academy a ship's log is: a book in which one inscribes the course, speed, maneuvers and other accidents of navigation. The leaders of present navigation are, among others, the teams that will compete in 2007 in Valencia trying to snatch the America´s Cup from Alinghi, defender of the title obtained in the last edition. One team that maintains a binnacle-blog is BMW ORACLE Racing. In this blog it is possible to find articles on the team, members, sponsors, the race, Valencia… with that informal touch that often characterizes blogs. This blog is totally complementary to its main website in which much other information can be found on the team. Here we are seeing a very good initiative, one that surely that will have much more repercussion as we approach year 2007. Visit: BMW ORACLE Racing Blog.