The holiday break is over and the team is back hard at work. Some never really stopped, notably our boat building team in Seattle. Likewise the ongoing work at our new Base.

As you will know from previous posts, logistics manager Grant "Guthrie" Davidson had our new Base far enough along that we actually moved in before Christmas, consolidating the staff and activities there that for the past couple years had been carried out at our temporary base at the RCNV (local yacht club) and at a nearby (to the new Base) office building where our design, marketing and admin teams had been working. But it was Monday this week that things were, for the first time, in full swing at the new Base as by then most everyone was back at their desks after the well-deserved break.


Looking south from across the street at our new Base,
Wednesday morning. Only half the Base is pictured, the other
half is to the left.


Carla Roldan is the first point of contact as she meets and greets
guests in the ground floor reception, seen here Wednesday in her new
surroundings getting guidance from the telephone technician.


Construction continues, especially on the third floor, where the team hospitality center is rapidly taking shape, and on the myriad of other finishing details all over our new 5600 sq. m. "home."

Coincidentally, our friends from BMW Motorsport were in town on Monday and Tuesday, along with some 500 media and other VIPs, for the launch of the new BMW Sauber F1 Team and the presentation of the team's F1 car for 2006, which ran for a few laps at the Valencia circuit.

Many of the BMW Motorsport and Sports Marketing folks are involved with, or at least keenly interested in, BMW ORACLE Racing. While in VLC they took the opportunity for a first-hand look around our team and new Base. I think Mirko Groeschner, our marketing director, said he conducted ten different base tours, including one with BMW's F1 team head Dr Mario Thiessen. There is proving to be a nice synergy between BMW F1 and AC activities at all levels -- technical, of course, as well as commercial, and now sporting.

Preparations are well underway for the return of our sailing team, who will soon be back in VLC and on the water testing and training in preparation for Acts 10-11 (May) and 12 (June). This year, the Acts are all in Valencia.

Some of the sailing team are in action next week, racing in the Auckland Match Racing Cup. Dicko leads one team into battle and Bert Pace will steer another. We are the only AC team to have two entries in this prestigious new event, which will include most of the big names in AC and match racing in the world today.

As we type, the Blogster is en route to Auckland where, among other things, we will snap a few pics of the action and otherwise bring you a bit of the flavor and inside scoop from what should be a very interesting and exciting event. Keep an eye, too, on our team website as Ivor Wilkins and Jane Eagleson will post daily race reports there.

This will be our first post to the BOB from 35,000 feet as we have a live internet connection on this Lufthansa flight from Munich to Bangkok. Indeed, time, and technology, marches on....

There are a couple recent posts on the Challenger Commission Blog, one about news in the Port of Valencia ("Blockade Over"), and one about Summertime and Wintertime or, as it is called in the USA, Daylight Saving Time ("Fall Back"), that our team members and friends may find interesting if not useful.

Also, a reminder that Bridget Baker's excellent "Valenica Cronica" -- news and information primarily for the benefit of AC families living in Valencia -- is being posted each week on the CC Blog.

Link me all over.

BMW ORACLE Racing was the first team in the current Cup to have a show boat, thanks to BMW putting a nicely buffed out USA-61 on display around Europe for the past 18 months. 61 is currently on display at Munich Airport.

Now USA-49 joins 61 as a show boat for the USA market, to my knowledge the first time any AC team has had two showboats. This week 49 made its debut as a much-publicized centerpiece in San Francisco's Moscone Center during Oracle Corp's annual "Oracle OpenWorld" conference.

A positive development for the sport, fully six ACC show boats are now being displayed around the world. There is strong public interest, witness this recent post on the Challenger Commission blog that generated many more "hits" and "referrals" than usual, thanks in part to being picked up by Scuttelbutt yesterday.

Strategic decisions and those involving use of significant team resources are carefully reviewed by our team's Executive Committee led by CEO Chris Dickson (NZL). We had a hard think about whether to keep 49 sailing for training purposes, sell it, scrap it for parts, or create a second show boat. Given the low conversion and opportunity costs, and the publicity USA-49 has already generated this week, including this article in ZD Net's widely read tech/business blog Between the Lines, it seems the right call was made.

Once green-lighted, Mark "Tugboat" Turner (NZL) oversaw the conversion. In the corporate world Tugsy would be called director of manufacturing, but he prefers to be called, simply and modestly, "boatbuilder." Our San Francisco-based colleagues, Bill and Melinda Erkelens (USA), are looking after 49's logistik.

Anyone in North America interested in displaying USA-49 at a significant public or private event please contact Mirko via email: mgroeschner [at] bmworacleracing [dot] com.



USA-49 helping to create AC and team "awareness" at Oracle Open
World in San Francisco this week.



Carbonologist Mark "Tugboat" Turner, boatbuilder
extraordinaire.

In Malmö BMW ORACLE Racing entertained some 1,000 VIP guests over the nine days of racing, an average of more than 100 per day split between our two VIP Spectator Boats. There were also a surprising number of spectator boats on the race course each day, well over 100 on the weekends, making for a lively scene afloat.

Alinghi and their sponsors also took good advantage of the excellent VIP hospitality opportunity the AC now affords, entertaining a similar number of guests in Malmö. The other teams and their sponsors are beginning to do the same.

Will be interesting to see how Trapani works out in terms of spectators, both afloat and ashore. While more remote than Malmö, which was only a 20-minute train ride from Copenhagen's international airport, Trapani is arguably a more interesting and beautiful destination. Our marketing jefe, Mirko "Uncle" Groeschner says we will have a smaller though nonetheless substantial group of VIP guests -- something north of 600. I would expect fewer spectator boats as well, as we are not in or near a major boating center.

However, the word from Grant "Guthrie" Dadvidson and the rest of our advance party now in Trapani is that the locals seem quite a bit more aware of and keyed up for this event. Apparently there are posters in many of the storefronts, and they can feel a buzz around town. So shoreside interest and activity could be exceptionally good, as it was when the Cup was in the smaller towns of Newport and Fremantle. Will be interesting to compare Trapani with the "feel" of the Cup in major metropolitan areas like San Diego, Auckland and Valencia.


One Malmö spectator we don't expect
in Trapani, the Swedish sub that was
"escorted" one day during Act 6 by
ACM Race Ops manager Niccolo Porzio.

Last month we posted a story on the early-August visit by sailors from Malaysia who received a fully sponsored trip to Valencia, courtesy of BMW Malaysia, for winning the 2005 BMW Royal Langkawi International Regatta.

Now one of the participants, Lesley Chapman, has posted a story about the YO! team's Valencia adventure.

Thanks, Lesley, for the nice ink. We very much enjoyed having you here.


The YO! team at the BMW ORACLE Base in Valencia
in August.

In Formula One the teams and sponsors have "showcars" -- gleaming replicas of the fully-branded F1 cars -- for display at autoshows, malls, corporate exhibitions, and so on.

BMW has brought the concept to the AC. USA-61, one of our trial horses from the last campaign, has already appeared at the BMW-sponsored Kieler Woche, the huge Paris Boat Show and a number of other high-traffic venues. It is great promotion for the Cup, the team and our team partners.

Now BMW and the beautiful Munich airport have teamed up for a three-month promotion -- with 61 towering over MUC's central plaza. We checked it out last evening while passing through en route from CPH back to VLC. Very cool.


With the keel off, an ACC yacht with mast just barely
fits in MUC's central plaza.


Nice-looking display was getting a lot of traffic when we visited
it last evening. MUC and BMW have teamed up to promote the AC,
offering a few lucky drawing-winners free trips to Valencia for
the Acts there next year.


Good information including an audio loop of on-board
sounds while racing. I wondered if they could put sails
up (there may be too much wind through the covered
but open-air courtyard), or maybe 18 mannikins to
show the normal crew positions.


Sailor (tactician) Bertrand Pace (FRA), marketing director Mirko
Groeschner (GER) and appendage designer Michel Kermarec (FRA)
passing thru MUC Sunday evening heading "home" to Valencia.

Monday night now, and am just back home in Valencia where it is as warm and humid as it was when we went north to Malmoe over two and a half weeks ago.

Contrary to what I thought (and blogged) Sunday afternoon there was no official party Sunday evening. But sailors are a self-sufficient lot, and Sunday evening Shosholoza did the neighborly thing and quietly invited us all for a what in college we called a "kegger." A beer bar appeared out of one of their containers, and soon the kegs of that old East German "Rostocker" beer were hooked up to the spigots and flowing freely. Several hundred tired, thirsty but generally happy AC team members gathered 'round.

It was a relaxed, fun end to two weeks of comraderie that one has rarely seen in the Cup since it left Newport and teams began hiding behind high fences and skirts. Repeating the theme of one or two previous posts, the atmospehere in the paddock in Malmoe was great. I could not find anyone who disagreed that the "paddock" set-up there and in Marseille last year is the way the Cup should be organized and run in the future. At least we will have the same set-up for Acts 7 and 8 in Trapani in three weeks' time.


Final beer and farewell in the paddock. Foreground center are our
yard boss Scotty Sandford (NZL) and sailing team coordinator Aimee
Hess (USA), just two of many BMWOR colleagues who did the neighborly
thing and accepted Shosholoza's invitation. Of course the free beer
had nothing to do with it. ;)


Doing his first Cup, Daniel Nollert (GER), sponsor rep for T-Systems
(Shosho's title sponsor). Dan agrees: "The AC is much more
difficult than you think it will be, but more interesting and fun, too."


East meets west -- China Team's mainsheet grinders "Fly" (CHN, left)
and "Louis" (CHN, right), with Mascalzone Latino's General Manager,
Tom Weaver (USA, center). Red has never been an auspicious color in
the AC (e.g., Liberty and Mariner). Will it be in 2007?


Kiwis everywhere you turn -- ETNZ marketing maven Tony Thomas
(NZL) and Alinghi's general counsel Hamish Ross (NZL). These two AC
vets were among many who thought the paddock atmosphere was
great.

Following on from Formula One's "Paddock Club" and the "Base Club" during the last Cup in Auckland, ACM erects a "Foredeck Club" for team and VIP hospitality at each Act venue. The one here at Malmoe, up on stilts like the Base Club was in Auckland, is particularly nice and has a terrific view of the paddock.

Managed by the effervescent and efficient Louise "No I'm not Dyer" Dier, the Foredeck has very kindly extended an invitation to team members to come by for a complimentary drink or two each evening on the way home. And since you bike or walk past the Foredeck Club on the way out of the paddock, it is a tempting and increasingly accepted invitation. And with today being a day off, last evening was the largest teams' Happy Hour yet.

The relaxed, friendly inter-team atmosphere is great, even better than it was in Marseille for Act 1 last year -- witness the snaps below, taken last evening while enjoying a vino or two with a number of old Cup friends....


Desafio Espanol designer Jim Pugh (USA) with Peter "de rigeur" Harken
(USA and the World).


BMWOR Exec Director, and former Olympic umpire, Russell Green
(NZL) with home-grown (NZL) AC32 umpires Shane Borrell and Wayne
Boberg.


ETNZ design chief Clay Oliver (USA) with former teammate Tom "Schnacks"
Schnackenberg (NZL) now with Luna Rossa.


Another cross-team Kiwi contingent -- old friends catching up: our Tim
Hacket, Alinghi's Tim "HQ" Gurr, ETNZ's esteemed ops/sailing manager Kevin
"Shoe" Shoebridge, and our David "Duffy" Duff.


Luna Rossa's irrepressible tactician and double-Olympic medalist, Charlie
McKee (USA) with Norwegian umpire Marianne Middelthon.


BMWOR's Mark "Squark" Bradford (AUS), sizing up his interview on
the AC TV coverage that plays at least throughout the Foredeck Club.


Victory Challenge team member and Dicko -- comparing notes on the
often tricky current the teams found this week on the Øresund Sound?


Oracle Corp Sr VP Judy Sim (USA), with Jane "Bubbles" Eagleson (USA)
and Laurent "Father" Esquier (FRA and the World). Always looking after
our team's partners and suppliers, they checked to be sure the Moet
was being served at the right temperature.


Our mastman David "Brookie" Brooke (NZL, right) introducing his
niece to Dicko. Brookie's niece is also a volunteer on the race
committee.


Hollywood comes to the America's Cup. LA film producer Gary Goldstein
(USA), well-connected promoter Kimberly Jones (USA), and noted Imax
director Stephen Low (CAN).


BMWOR grinder and crew boss, Craig Monk (NZL), with +39 grinder
and two-time Finn Class Olympian and VOR vet Anthony "Knocker"
Nossiter (AUS). Knocker was one of the two +39 crew who went for a
swim in the race against us when they were swept overboard during
an errant spinnaker take-down.


Our mast designer Steve "Stevo" Wilson (NZL) with one of the senior AC
32 umpires, John Standley (AUS).


On the right, Star Class 2000 Olympic gold medalist Iain "Hollywood"
Percy (GBR), helmsman of the rapidly rising +39 challenge, with ETNZ
trimmer Andy Hemmings (GBR).


Antipodean members of the International Jury, Graham McKenzie (NZL)
and David Tillett (AUS).


Empressario Louise Dier (center) with two of her Foredeck Club
colleagues.

Shosholoza skipper Geoff Meek (RSA) being congratulated by Peter
Harken (USA) for their first-ever AC win yesterday. "It's a huge learning
curve," Geoff said, "but we are slowly learning how to climb
it."


Shosho team members, favorites everywhere they go, helping
to put a friendly new face on the modern America's Cup. Members
of each of the twelve teams stopped by tonight for our barbecue --
over 500 people.


Sailing team member Sean Clarkson (NZL) with ACM's "challenger-
friendly" teams-liaison, Tamara Martyn (SUI). Who's that looking
over Sean's shoulder (LOL, it's only a mural).


ACC Measurement Committee member Guy Roland (SUI).


High-flying San Franciscan Jeff Glass (Larry's chief pilot) with
marketing team member, and Madrid native, Alejandra Mato (ESP).
Alex doubles as our morning show co-host in Valencia when we
have many Spanish-language guests.

There are thousands of bikes in this town. It's completely flat, making a bike the preferred mode of transport for our 45 or so team members here, not only back and forth to our team hotel but in and around the expansive venue.

Bikes are cheap to buy, and cost next to nothing to rent. More than one hotel makes them available at no cost to guests, like you might be loaned an umbrella on a rainy day at a flash hotel in London.


Dicko and Jane "Red Bull" Eagleson (USA), our intrepid media manager, biking back from the skippers' press conference this morning.