Nice ink for our official clothing partner, Henri Lloyd, playing on websites around the world this week....


Through Henri Lloyd’s ongoing testing and development program with the BMW ORACLE Racing Team has resulted in the need for stretchy, durable and highly breathable clothing. This has led to the introduction of the Octane Range of products, which are now available to buy at retail.

This set of clothing which consists of a jacket, vest and shorts, uses the highly breathable S3 Soft Shell Technology. The Soft Shell material is a soft, high stretch woven fabric which has been combined with a Super DWR coating embedded which results in a highly water resistant product which also cuts out 95% of wind. The double faced Soft Shell fabrics are constructed with nylon on the face to enhance abrasion resistance and with polyester on the back to help wick moisture away from the skin keeping the wearer dryer on the inside.

Additional features include Riri Aqua zips which have been used throughout the products to provide water resistant openings. While the Octane Shorts benefit from the use of breathable Schoeller Keprotec fabric on the seat for extra reinforcement and protection from deck abrasion.

Congrats to Hamish Pepper and crew Carl Williams (NZL, BMWOR sailing team) who won the first race yesterday at the hotly-contested 2006 Star Class World Championship being held this week in San Francisco Bay. We'll keep looking for some decent pictures -- any picture for that matter -- of the Pepper/Williams duo. In the meantime, full results and some images (including the one below) are on the St Francis YC website.

The St Francis website reports that, "The westerly breeze proved very shifty all afternoon, ranging from as much as 13 knots to as little as 5, with the pressure spread out all over the course. Racing began in an ebb, turning to a flood late afternoon. Hamish Pepper and crew Carl "Tiny" Williams (New Zealand) took the first win of the 6-day series with seeming ease...."

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.

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.

Having spent the weekend in and around San Francisco as a guest of the St. Francis Yacht Club, there was much interest in and many questions about the upcoming Allianz Cup. So here is a quick Q&A:

WHO: One hears (so far) AC skippers Ed Baird (USA, Alinghi), Jesper Bank (DEN, UITG), Dean Barker (NZL, ETNZ), Sebastian Col (FRA, Areva), Chris Dickson (NZL, BMWOR), Peter Holmberg (USA, Alinghi), plus other top match racing skippers such as defending WMRT champion Peter Gilmour (AUS).

WHAT: Stage 5 of the World Match Racing Tour for the "Allianz Cup." Racing in one-design J-105's.

WHERE: San Francisco Bay, just off the Golden Gate and St Francis Yacht Clubs.

WHEN: 24-29 October, 2006.

WHY: According to Jan Carendi, board member for Allianz Group: "After the success of the Rockefeller Center sailing exhibit in New York this summer, it is good to highlight and support another sailing event in the U.S. With all the America’s Cup racing in 2007 taking place in Europe, it’s great to be able to bring some of the thrill and excitement of this race to America, and encourage local support for the U.S. team during their quest to bring the Cup home. 'The Allianz Cup in San Francisco, a city known for its sailing heritage, will be a really exciting event for the city and great way of conveying the excitement that is synonymous with the America’s Cup whilst providing a great opportunity for Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, Allianz Global Corporate and Specialties and Allianz Life, three of our North American operations."

HOW: Organized by the World Match Racing Tour, hosted by the St Francis Yacht Club with support from GGYC, and sanctioned by the International Sailing Federation.

HOW MUCH: $100,000 prize purse. The champion earns $25,000.

HOW NOW: Spectators will be able to watch the racing up close and personal from the Allianz Cup "village" on the spit of land between the two clubs that has a commanding view of the race course, Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. Live, supposedly expert commentary will be provided to the spectator fleet, village, and VIP facilities in both clubhouses, linked together by radio.

WHY NOT plan to join us in San Francisco for what should be one of the best professional sailing events in the world this year. "I left my heart...."

From a story by Greg Levine on the Forbes website entitled, "Ellison's Oracle Beats Expectations":

It takes money to make money. And Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ) has done just that, posting first-quarter results Tuesday that outpaced Wall Street's expectations. The information technology company posted a fiscal first-quarter net income that rose to $670 million, or 13 cents per share, as compared to $519 million, or 10 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Full story

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.

There is a post today over on the Challenger Commission blog with the happy news that Shosholoza's Charles Nankin, injured during the German Sailing Grand Prix, is making a steady recovery.

Check under "Links" in the right margin of this Blog and you will see "Family Program Key Dates" at the bottom of the list. Click on that to see the latest calendar as updated by the BMWOR Family Committee. As always the Calendar is intended for team members and their families/partners only, and is, therefore, password-protected. To obtain the user ID and password please check with Sofia Barraclough or Kristen Sneyd at the Team Base.

Confirming what had been widely rumoured around VLC these past weeks, and as we noted here on the BOB in late August, today Reuters is carrying an interview with Alinghi managing director Grant Simmer saying they will test and train in Dubai this (northern hemisphere) winter.