The Challenger Commission Blog has a post from yesterday entitled Costa What? that some of you may find interesting.

In response to that post, Valencia Sailing's Pierre Orphanidis emailed this afternoon with an explanation of how Costa del Azahar, the coastal region either side of Valencia, got it's name. Pierre's answer reminded me of our Multi-Culti post at the beginning of Act 6. He writes:

It is the name, in Castellano, of the flower of the orange tree. Its origin is the arab words "al-azahar" meaning “white flower”. In Valenciano it’s called Costa dels Tarongers. It starts north at the border with Catalonia and goes south to Javea. Obviously the region got its name from the abundance of orange trees -- that is before the real estate boom that transformed it into a coastal Hong Kong!!

So there you have it: a race for a British Cup; named after an American yacht; with Swiss organizers and a French title sponsor; based in a Spanish city whose coast has an Arab name and looks more and more like Hong Kong; with first-ever entries from China, Germany and South Africa, and multiple entries from Italy; several teams using the same towing tank in Canada, [23 Sep update] and one team testing in Bulgaria; race committee boats imported from New Zealand (to say nothing of a herd of Kiwi sailors); a Polish skipper for the "local" entry; an Australian gravity-checker; and all involved having fond memories of a recent regatta in Sweden.

Talk about multi-culti. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

I don't know where our old friend and editor of Scuttlebutt, Tom Leweck, gets these closing dittys he run's in each day's issue called, variously, the Curmudgeon's Conundrum or, more often, the Curmudgeon's Observation. Some are pretty lame, some are funny as hell, and every now and then one appears to have been cleverly chosen to add subtle commentary to a particular story or letter in that issue (often the final letter just above the Curmudgeon's Observation).

This morning's, I guess, was just in the funny category and made me LOL -- "laugh out loud" in IM or TXT speak -- sitting here in a quiet, dark house at 06:00 on a very cool (10 deg C / 50 deg F) morn in Valencia while trying to wake up, read my mail and scan the various websites, and, for a change, get warm....

CURMUDGEON'S OBSERVATION
Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call
it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?

LOL, indeed. Seriously, for many in the AC, 'Butt is our Daily Digest of sailing news. Free, you can sign up for an email subscription here.


Join the Club. Not exactly
the Golden Gate, but a
good deal (free).

I like this kid. Always did, at least back in the days when I spent more time at F1 Grands Prix than AC "Acts." He is bright, personable and not infected with some of the "attitude" we have seen (infamously) from another F1 driver with whom BMW ORACLE Racing has had recent, er, experience.

Delighted to read that he has signed with the new BMW F1 team, and look forward to the day that BMW and our marketing department gets Nick on board with us as 18th man.


BMW's new F1 pilot Nick Heidfeld.

You may recall our Cool People post on Bruno Trouble some weeks back when he authored a nice guest editorial in Scuttlebutt called "We Love the Cup." Bruno was responding to contrary-minded articles written by two old friends, Herb McCormick and Angus Phillips, in the USA's venerable Cruising World magazine and the Washington Post newspaper, respectively.

For the sake of blog-linking fairness, their grumpy (Bruno's word) articles can be found here and here.

There is little secret that Dicko and I, among many others, side squarely with Bruno in supporting (and working damn hard to make happen) Ernesto and Larry's vision to modernize the Cup.

So today we were pleased to see some very positive commentary regarding the 32nd AC on the sometimes controversial but often prescient Sailing Anarchy website. Click here and then scroll down a story or two to read SA's pithy post entitled, hilariously, "Crusty Old Barnacles."

While I would not go so far as to call Herb and Angus "crusty old barnacles" -- LOL, crusty maybe -- Sailing Anarchy makes a good point when they say that their downbeat pieces are unwittingly stirring more interest and awareness in the 32nd Cup, and therefore actually helping the Cup. Not that that will give much comfort to Herb and Angus!

You be the judge. Are "Herbacious and Anguish" right on? Or are they "nattering nabobs of negativism" (to steal a famous turn of phrase from a former USA Vice President)? Somewhere in between? If you are so inclined, please post a comment below.

Regardless, let freedom reign, especially freedom of the press.

...to the people, especially our many sailing friends, living on the Gulf Coast in the USA. With everything else going on here in Malmoe, we were also keeping an eye on Hurricane Katrina, on the internet and CNN, and with updates from our team meteorologist Chris Bedford. We breathed a sigh of relief when the forecasters downgraded the severity of Katrina as it approached landfall, New Orleans was spared a direkt hit, and when the early reports of the feared flooding were not so bad.

But then the levees let loose, and Katrina has exacted a heavy toll after all, which today grows worse by the hour.

The video clip in Scuttlebutt last night of the beautiful old Southern Yacht Club being consumed by flames, and the pictures we see on the internet of the tens of thousands of boats up and down the Gulf Coast thrown helter-skelter, hither and yon, are stark reminders of the power of the wind and sea which we humbly attempt to tame while racing for the America's Cup.

SYC is the second oldest yacht club in the USA. It was established in 1849, two years before that famous race around the Isle of Wight which gave us the Cup we are still pursuing with such passion 154 years later. SYC's clubhouse may be destroyed, but no doubt the prestigious and storied Club will survive even this challenge, same as the Cup has all these years.

For some reason, I am reminded of the speech given by President Kennedy, in September, 1962 at Newport, RI on the eve of the 18th America's Cup between the Australian challenger Gretel and the defender Weatherly:

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came...."

And when we do go back to the sea, as we will again Friday here in Malmoe, may it always be with the deepest respect for Mother Nature. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Another piece of "know your partners" good news, even though Valencia is technically not a "partner"....

The following story comes as no real surprise, at least not the figures. Our team partners contributed to this boomlet, as they brought some 1000+ people to VLC for Acts 4 and 5 -- almost certainly the largest number of VIP guests entertained by any team. From today's Valencia Life newsletter (www.valencialife.net):

Although the next stage of the Americas Cup regattas is set to take place in Malmo later this week, the Consellera for Tourism, Milagrosa Martinez, yesterday revealed some figures concerning tourism for the visitors who came to Valencia to see the Americas Cup regattas last June. According to the latest figures over a quarter of the people who came to Valencia for the regattas stayed in luxury hotels and all in all the visitors spent around twenty million Euros. Mrs. Martinez added that these new tourists who visited the City have now opened it up to a market where visitors spend more than the average tourist, and interest has been shown in both the City of Valencia and the Valencian Community as a whole by a new sector of the international tourist market. The study also pointed out that 50% of the visitors for the June regattas were from Spain (18% from Catalunia, 17% from Madrid and 22% from the Valencian Community), whilst some 16,000 foreign visitors were in the City (from Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland and France for the most part). In addition, these visitors stated that they valued the comfort and politeness of the Valencians very highly during their visit, registering a satisfaction ratio of 8.15 (out of 10), whilst 82% visited restaurants that featured Valencian cuisine, and 95% stated that they had no trouble at all finding out about Valencia.

In the same vein as our upbeat "know your partners" piece about BMW a week or so back (about which I took some good-natured ribbing from one or two of my colleagues for appearing obsequious), I now offer one about Oracle corp.

Today's San Jose Mercury News has an article entitled "Pleasant Surprise" by John Boudreau about Oracle's buyout of PeopleSoft. It begins:

They were supposed to be corporate raiders, riding into Pleasanton to pillage PeopleSoft, the much beloved software company Larry Ellison and his Oracle lieutenants had successfully vanquished after an 18-month hostile takeover battle.

Small businesses feared Oracle's $10.6 billion acquisition of the hometown PeopleSoft in January would hurt their customers -- and spending power. City officials worried about losing their largest employer, and a possible strain on social services from fired workers. Many foresaw mom-and-pop operations, already hurt by the earlier tech downturn, on the verge of closing.

But then economic Armageddon didn't happen. Small businesses didn't shutter. And Oracle executives reached out to the community with a philanthropic spirit that has won over city officials.

Turns out there's a smiley face behind the warrior face.

Here is a link to the entire article. The Mercury News site requires registration, but it is free.

Every now and then I send an email around to the executive committe and heads-of-departments in our team called "know the competition" when we learn of an important development or factoid concerning that team.

LIkewise, our CEO Chris Dickson thinks it important that we "know our partners" and has encouraged me to send similar infos around when we come across interesting facts and figures, or developments, concerning our partners.

This very positive piece of news came across the wires this morning, which I will be circulating within the team -- and thought it appropriate to blog as well....


BMW expands global lead
Monday August 8 2005 20:29 IST
Reuters

FRANKFURT: BMW, the world's largest premium carmaker, posted a 13.7 percent increase in group vehicle sales to 110,957 units in July, thanks to an even stronger performance at its flagship BMW brand.

Group deliveries to customers in the first seven months rose 10 percent to 757,498 vehicles.

In July, the BMW brand increased sales by 15 percent to 93,797 units, while deliveries of its Mini brand gained 7.1 percent to 17,115 cars.

The Munich-based carmaker said it sold 94,622 new 3-Series saloons since the model's relaunch in March -- 85 percent more than were sold of the previous-generation model in the same time period after its launch in April 1998.

BMW also kept sales of its high-margin 5-Series largely stable, with deliveries of the line down 0.6 percent to 131,388 units in the first seven months of 2005.

Sales of its super-luxury Rolls-Royce Phantom gained 15 percent to 45 cars, bringing deliveries for the first seven months of the year to 330 units, a drop of 7.8 percent.

"We've expanded our leading position in the premium segment across the world," BMW sales and marketing chief Michael Ganal said in a statement.

"While the entire premium segment worldwide has grown some 2 percent year-to-date, we have been able to clearly surpass this with 10-percent growth," he continued.

During a conference call on Wednesday, Chief Executive Helmut Panke had said preliminary data showed car sales for the month of July rising by more than 10 percent.

On Thursday, archrival Mercedes Car Group, DaimlerChrysler's premium division, reported vehicle sales rose by 2.2 percent to 100,200 units in July.

In the first seven months of the year, divisional sales were down 1.3 percent at 674,200 units.

1. It's spectacular. "A synonym of things brave and big and famous" is what one historian called the America's Cup. For 150+ years teams have been dueling for international supremacy in breathtakingly beautiful boats.

2. It's passionate. Cup-obsessed owners, sailors and engineers push the limits of teamwork and technology, always aware that in these big, fragile boats the chances of mistakes and even disaster are high.

3. It's complex yet simple. Australia's Alan Bond, the former sign painter who took the Cup from the New York YC in 1983, described the aura of the Cup this way: "You get out there and you're as good as the next guy, who might be a Vanderbilt. You get out there and all you've got is a common element -- the wind and the sea -- and everybody's equal."

4. It's thrilling. There's nothing like sailing on the knife edge of control, with stinging salt water flying in your face, and the yacht groaning with strain as you fight for an advantage of a few centimeters.

5. It's the Challengers' race to win. Challengers have won two of the last three AC Matches (Cup finals), and four of the last seven. Of all the Challengers, none has worked harder nor is better prepared than BMW ORACLE, and none can call on so many Cup veterans and so much cutting-edge technology.

(With thanks to John Rousmaniere, Cup historian and yachting author par excellence.)


September, 1983 -- Australia II syndicate
chairman Alan Bond during the prizegiving
at Marble House in Newport, RI the day
after Aus II won the seventh and final
race in the '83 Match, thus ending the
longest winning streak in sports history
(NYYC's 132-year reign as Defender) and
signalling the start of the brave, new
"globalized" world of Cup racing we enjoy
today.

[Revised 11 July 05]

Just before Acts 4 and 5 old friend Rich Roberts wrote a column for the San Diego Log (that is also the lead item in the 28 June Scuttlebutt) about Peter Isler and the scoring system for the 32nd AC.

Nice bit about Peter, but IMHO Rich was off base about the scoring system. Given the support for the scoring system shown at the syndicate heads press conference, the close, exciting racing, and the overall results of the Acts, I wonder if Rich has a different view now?

While it is by no means perfekt, most if not all the Challengers are pleased with the CSS scoring system. Time will tell. In the meantime we hope Rich can get over to Malmoe or Trapani and experience the exciting, new-era Cup first hand. And it would be good to see Rich again on the Cup scene.


Rich Roberts

2005 Louis Vuitton ACC Season Championship Standings after two Acts:

1. Alinghi - 23 points
2. Emirates Team New Zealand - 21
2. Luna Rossa Challenge - 21
4. BMW Oracle Racing - 19
5. Victory Challenge - 15
6. Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team - 13
7. K-Challenge - 12
7. Desafío Español 2007 - 12
9. +39 Challenge - 8
10. United Internet Team Germany - 6
11 China Team - 4
12. Team Shosholoza - 2

*Speaking of, er, longtime friends, Jane "Red Bull" Eagleson is a good influence. We have been editing each other on and off for at least the last 15 years. If you have noticed a re-tooling of this piece, including the title, it is the result of Jane's firm but gentle guidance. When I get a minute, she deserves a "Cool People" posting, and do I ever have some great pictures to choose from. ;)