Many on our team will have known Cy Gillette (Honolulu, Hawaii USA), who passed away last night at age 92. There is a post about Cy's many contributions to the America's Cup and our sport over on the Challenger Commission Blog.

Alinghi's chief Mr Ernesto Bertarelli (who, congrats due, finished sixth in the super-competive 38-boat fleet at last week's Farr 40 Worlds in Newport) has given an interview to the Associated Press which ran in yesterday's International Herald Tribune, among many other papers around the world. Ernesto commented on several of the challengers, including BMWOR....

Bertarelli cited BMW Oracle, Luna Rosa and Emirates Team New Zealand as the best of the challengers.

BMW Oracle "are working with the ambition of winning the America's Cup," he said. "They are a well-financed, well-managed team. I think they are going to be tough."

He said Luna Rosa "have a much better boat than last time" and he warned that New Zealand "continues to be a nation of sailors which is very innovative. They are going to be strong as well."

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(Photo: Daniel Forster/Rolex.)

Congrats to the team from the London law firm Allen & Overy LLP (Canary Wharf office) for winning the BMW City Challenge. The Yachting World website has the full story.

On 12 September 1886 the NYYC successfully defended the America's Cup for the sixth time ("AC 6") when their yacht Mayflower defeated Britain’s Galatea in the second match of their first-to-win-two series. Mayflower's first win had come five days earlier on 7 September.

Mayflower was 100' and had a broad beam and shallow draft that was referred to as a "skimming dish."

Mayflower was designed by Edward Burgess who had also designed Puritan which had successfully defended the Cup the previous year against Britain's Genesta, 2-0. A Burgess yacht also won again in 1887 when his Volunteer defeated the Scottish entry Thistle 2-0.

According to historian A.J. Peluso, "In September 1886 newspapers ran breathless accounts of the latest America's Cup challenge. Like all others, before and after, they were high-stakes yacht races: America against the Empire. The challenge and the positive patriotic results became validating symbols of national pride, pride in which all could partake, whatever one's 'station'.... Galatea's loser-owner Lieutenant William Henn (Royal Navy, retired) and his wife were unbowed. They stayed in America for a year, entertained by the gracious winners."

N.B. Running the America's Cup in successive years is not without precedent.

Newport, RI 0700 Monday -- Overnight the remnants of hurricane Ernesto passed through the area giving way to a beautiful "Labor Day" morning. A record number of Farr 40s -- 38 -- have gathered here for their 2006 World Championship. Designed by Bruce Farr (NZL/USA, BMWOR design team), the F40 is widely regarded as the most competitve offshore one-design class in the world today.

Competing this week are many of our sport's top pros, including BMWOR's Morgan Trubovich (NZL, sailing team). Trubo has been a regular on former world champ Jim Richardson's Barking Mad. The local favorites, they won the pre-worlds which took place over the weekend.

Our search engines are returning this nice AP wire story running today in many USA newspapers (including the San Jose Mercury News) as well as abroad:

SAN FRANCISCO - Several America's Cup skippers are scheduled to sail in the Allianz Cup on San Francisco Bay from Oct. 24-29, the only U.S. stop on the World Match Racing Tour.

Heading the lineup is New Zealander Chris Dickson, skipper and CEO of San Francisco-based BMW Oracle Racing, the only American team entered in the 2007 America's Cup. Dickson is ranked third in the match-racing standings after winning the season-opening Portugal Match Cup in July.

Other confirmed entrants include Ed Baird and Peter Holmberg, two of the helmsmen for Alinghi of Switzerland, which won the America's Cup in 2003. Baird, an American, is tied for fifth in the standings and Holmberg, from the U.S. Virgin Islands, is a past tour champion.

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Check out the announcement of this cool new match racing event made this afternoon by the World Match Racing Tour and our main sponsor Allianz. Congrats to WMRT president Scott MacLeod, Allianz's Bjoern Widemann and our marketing director Mirko Groeschner for putting this together. Note the list of top players already committed, including Dicko.

...at the Trieste Challenge for Dicko & Co. yesterday over on Italy's Adriatic coast (map). Results so far in Round Robin 1 among the five AC teams entered:

BMW Oracle Racing - 2 points
Mascalzone Latino Capitalia Team - 2 points
Luna Rossa - 1 point
Areva Challenge - 0 points
China Team - 0 points

Full marks, too, to Jes Gram Hansen and his Mascalzone Latino Capitalia Team who are also sailing well. Our guys race them in the last match of both round robins. The RR pairing list and scoreboard (regularly updated) is here.

Details on our main team website. As usual, you can click on the photos below to enlarge. Photo copyrights: Massimo Silvano / Trieste Challenge.

Nice ink for BMW in today's New York Times:

BMW's Custom-Made University

CLEMSON, S.C. — When Clemson University received $10 million from the German automaker BMW in 2002, the money helped jump-start a $1.5 billion automotive research and educational center. It also led to a partnership that both the automaker and the university acknowledge has grown extraordinarily close.

In return for the largest cash donation ever received by the school, Clemson gave the company some unusual privileges, including a hand in developing a course of study. Clemson’s president drives a silver BMW X5 sport utility vehicle, compliments of BMW, whose only North American plant is 50 miles away.

At Clemson’s urging, BMW in large part created the curriculum for an automotive graduate engineering school. The company also drew up profiles of its ideal students; it gave Clemson, a state-supported university, a list of professors and specialists to interview, and even had approval rights over the school’s architectural look.

Through its new school and unusual partnership with BMW, Clemson becomes the first university in the nation to offer a doctoral degree in automotive engineering.

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