Okay, so we couldn't manage to take a full week off without a post....

As previously reported on our main team site and here on the BOB, USA 61 will be on display at the Collins Stewart London Boat Show 5-14 January. This is the first time an America’s Cup yacht has exhibited at the London Boat Show.

The BMW ORACLE Racing stand promises to be one of the leading attractions at this year’s show. The 24m hull will take pride of place in the North Hall on exhibition stand N425 which will also feature two virtual simulators, offering visitors a taste of what it is like to helm these incredible yachts.

The Collins Stewart London Boat Show is anticipating over 140,000 visitors through the doors of ExCeL Centre during the 10-day show. Over 700 exhibitors will showcase more than 1,000 of the world’s leading boats.

VLC 2240 Sunday

With this post we will take a few days break, and return early in the New Year refreshed and ready for the final AC 32 push. In the meantime, wherever in the world you are on this Christmas Eve or Day, from all of us connected with BMW ORACLE Racing our very best wishes to you and your loved ones for the holidays, and for a Happy, Healthy and Successful New Year. And thanks for your continuing interest and support. --TFE

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 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

The guys began sailing in AKL this week, witness the nice story on our main team website today about USA 71 sailing off the Auckland cityfront yesterday in beautiful, breezy conditions.

By contrast, the sailing conditions in VLC are again this week, and typical for the winter months, very light....


Meanwhile in Malaysia, it is typically hot and humid on the opening day of the Monsoon Cup, the sixth stop on the World Match Racing Tour of which BMW is the official car (both the Monsoon Cup and the Tour). BMW ORACLE Racing is not was able to have a team in Malaysia this week given that both Dicko and Gavin had teams racing in the NZ Match Racing Championships in Auckland last week, the start-up of training with 71 in AKL this week, and the team Sten Mohr is taking to Brazil for the WMRT event there next week. Some photos and commentary on the Monsoon Cup will appear from time to time over on the Challenger Commission Blog and on the Monsoon Cup website.

Congrats to ETNZ's Dean Barker on retaining his title. Dean has won it three of the last four years, so you know he likes this event. Likewise to Gavin and Dicko for both finishing "on the podium" as Jane said in her story on the main team website, in what otherwise has been a bit of a busy and productive period for both of them and their crews.

More great shots from Ivor Wilkins from today (Sunday), the final day of the NZMRC in Auckland....

Gavin Brady & Co had an epic battle with Dean Barker's team today in the finals of the NZ National Match Racing Championship that went to the fifth and final match. Barker won the series 3-2. Meanwhile Dicko's guys won the petit-final against Adam Minoprio. Check our main team website for the details.

Almost an all BMWOR final, but in the end ETNZ's Dean Barker topped Dicko's team 2-1 in their extraordinarily hard-fought semifinal at the NZNMRC in Auckland today (Saturday).

Meanwhile Gavin & Co swept Adam Minoprio in the other semifinal, and will face Barker in the first-to-win-three final on Sunday. Dicko's team and Mr Minoprio will race in the petit-final (first to win two). Racing begins Sunday at 0930 NZT off the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron at the foot of the Harbour Bridge in Westhaven.

Hopefully, later this morning our main team website will have the details of Saturday's action in RR2 and the Semis.

Gavin and his crew of Sean Clarkson (NZL), Jon Ziskind (USA), Rod Dawson (NZL) and Ed Smyth (NZL) have led the regatta through the Rounds Robin. No doubt they will be up for a battle with Mr Barker's experienced team, the defending champs of this event, tomorrow. Should be a good final, and go get 'em guys!

To get your Saturday morning -- at least in Europe and the States -- off to a smooth, jazzy start, take five with this video slide show (music, too) of yesterday's semifinal action in Auckland....

Congrats to the AREVA Challenge on the christening last evening of their new ACC yacht FRA-93. BMWOR was represented at the tidy ceremony and celebration by a number of our French team members who were kindly invited by AREVA, along with our Marketing and External Affairs directors.