Yesterday a video post, today our first ever audio slide show -- of photos from Kiel this morning, as USA 71 and RSA 48 were unloaded.



With thanks to Benedict Horber (GER, marketing team) for the
snaps. Audio, too, so turn up your speakers.

This release is hitting the wires around the world today....


Kiel -- The German capital of sailing is hosting an extraordinary guest these days: BMW ORACLE Racing’s America’s Cup Yacht USA 71. The 24-metre, high-tech yacht is due to arrive in Kiel this evening at 7 pm after nine days on a container ship from the Spanish Mediterranean to the German Baltic Sea coast. On Monday morning last week, the boat, attached to its keel, was loaded onto a container ship in the harbour of Valencia. A mast, two containers with equipment, and a chase boat were also shipped.

BMW ORACLE Racing will race USA 71 from 3 to 6 August when the team joins two other America’s Cup teams for the premiere German Sailing Grand Prix. The crew of CEO and skipper Chris Dickson will compete against Team Shosholoza from South Africa and United Internet Team Germany, the German Challenger for the America’s Cup 2007.

The container ship will be unloaded starting at 8am on the morning of Wednesday 26 July. USA 71 will remain on the dock in its cradle in Osthafen until Thursday July 27 when the event pontoons are in place. The mast of USA 71 will be stepped on Wednesday 2 August in time for sailing on Thursday 3 August.

Chris Dickson is pleased that the team has the opportunity to race in Kiel. “BMW ORACLE Racing has many ties to Germany, so this event allows our team a chance to celebrate our German connections by bringing the excitement of America’s Cup Class racing to Germany for the first time. In addition to our partner BMW, our sponsor and supplier family includes many German based companies including Allianz, Geo. Gleistein, Bitburger and Roland Berger.”

A number of Germans are amongst the international team including marketing’s Mirko Groeschner (Magdeburg) and Benedikt Horber (Munich) and two-time America’s Cup winning principal sail designer Mickey Ickert (Berlin). Racing on board in Kiel will be German sailing team member Tony Kolb (Munich). Kolb was part of the winning German around-the-world race team that had a triumphant finish in Kiel in June 2002 experienced by some 250,000 German sailing fans.

An additional strong German component is the partner of the team – BMW. Experienced German engineers of the automotive manufacturer are involved in the development of the new high-tech yachts of the America’s Cup challenger – particularly in the field of intelligent lightweight construction which is successfully applied in BMWs automotive research. And at the beginning of the year, the BMW Plant Eisenach completed the manufacture of the new keel fin, thus producing one of the most important component parts of the current BMW ORACLE Racing America’s Cup yacht.

The sailing team arrives Wednesday 2 August from Valencia in preparation for the first day of sailing on Thursday 3 August.


71's last Act: USA 71 has not raced in a regatta since Act 3, the fleet
racing event here in VLC during October 2004 (photo above). 71
subbed for 76 in Acts 2 and 3 after 76 was damaged during the freak
windstorm that struck the last night of Marseille LV Act 1 (Sep 04).

Bright and early tomorrow (Tuesday) morning our advance party led by Scotty Sandford (NZL, shore team) and including Capt. Craig Christensen (NZL, support boat mgr), Rodney Daniel (AUS, sailing team) and Tony Kolb (GER, sailing team) leave for Kiel. Following later in the week and early next will be other members of the sailing, support and marketing teams, who likewise will fly the by now familiar Spanair leg to Munich. Then, following a brief layover at MUC's comfortable, new airport you take one of the many daily LH flights up to Hamburg and drive the hour or so north on Germany's A7 autobahn to Kiel.

Grass will not be growing on the stones -- or boats -- remaining at our team base in VLC. While some of us are shuttling off to Kiel, the rest are engaged in the two-boating that continues with 76 and 87. Talk about a three-ring circus: it's 71 that has been shipped to Kiel for the upcoming German Sailing Grand Prix.

Speaking of which, the GSGP website is now up for those of you who read German, or (like some of us) aspire to.


As anyone who has raced at Kiel in the summer can tell you,
it can be hot like Valencia (humid or dry), or it can be cold
and rainy, or anywhere in between. So, as always, we defer
to our team met-man, Chris Bedford. CB says the average
max is 21C, min 13 -- a bit cooler than VLC! Click for the
current 10-day forecast for Kiel, courtesy of Weather.com.


Recent GSGP planning meeting at our Base -- from left (all from GER):
UITG's Eva Heil and team CEO Michael Scheeren, Benedict Horber who is
project managing the GSGP for our marketing team, Shosholoza's marketing
mgr Lars Boecking, and BMWOR marketing head Mirko "Herr Direktor"
Groeschner.

A good piece about the upcoming German Sailing Grand Prix by German journalist Andreas Kling is running in the German media and elsewhere around the world this morning....


America's Cup Grand Prix comes to Kiel
1:53 AM Sat 15 Jul 2006

America’s Cup Racing Yachts from BMW ORACLE Racing (USA), Team Shosholoza (South Africa) and United Internet Team Germany prepare to race Grand Prix in August in Kiel.

They are the Formula One crafts in sailing, 24 metres long, 33 metre mast-height and pure high-tech: the America’s Cup Class (ACC) yachts.

Usually they are kept away from close public eyes in the syndicates’ base camps, but in Kiel the three ACC yachts and their professional crews present themselves during the German Sailing Grand Prix from 3rd to 6th August. The syndicates BMW ORACLE Racing (USA), Team Shosholoza (South Africa) and the United Internet Team Germany will sail fleet and match races directly in front of the public. For the first time in the 155-year old history of the oldest sports trophy in the world, three of the current challengers will meet in Germany to compete against each other.

The Louis Vuitton Act 12 finished on July 2 was the last qualification regatta for the 32nd America’s Cup in 2006. But for three of the twelve teams competing the racing season has not yet ended. In Kiel they will sail another showdown. The three top skippers Chris Dickson (USA 71), Mark Sadler (RSA 48) and Jesper Bank (GER 72) are promising thrilling battles in the demanding waters of Kiel.

While the Cup racing is the highlight of the event, an interesting addition will be the public program in the race village at the inner fjord, attracting up to 200.000 sailing enthusiasts to visit KIEL.SAILING CITY.

The event area known as Kiellinie from the Kiel Week starts at the Institute of Marine Sciences, where the Cup boats are moored, on to the Reventlouwiese. Along the way numerous panels will inform about the America’s Cup and the three teams. Grinder contests, match race simulation and merchandising articles from the involved parties will be offered to the public. And in a water basin different America’s Cup models can be sailed via remote control by everyone.

For the big ones it gets serious on Friday. In the beginning of the event, on Thursday (August 3) the teams will sail a warm-up on J/80 boats in the afternoon (13–17 h). Each crew will consist of two America’s Cup sailors supplemented by VIP guests.

The first fleet race starts on Friday at noon directly in front of the Institute of Marine Sciences. Turning marks in the inner fjord of Kiel lead the impressive yachts along the cities’ coastline and then out again to the open Baltic Sea at the bay of Strande or Stollergrund at Kiel Bay, where a round robin with three match races will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Even out at sea the sailing stars will not be out of sight.

The races will be shown live, along with commentary, on a big screen behind the stage in the race village. And everyone who wants to watch the racing more closely, can book a trip to the match race course at the tourist information of KIEL.SAILING CITY (phone: +49/1805/656700). The range of spectator boats starts with the traditional three mast-schooner Thalassa, continue with a big motor vessel Nordstern and culminate in sailing on an authentic America’s Cup yacht.

Kiel would not be the capital of sailing, if the visitors could not test the water sport themselves. The Camp24sieben is a project, organised by Stadtwerke Kiel and KIEL.SAILING CITY on the same ground where the German Sailing Grand Prix action takes place and offers free sailing for children and adults on the weekend of August 5/6. Everyone who has ever made the experience of wind and waves can imagine the performance of the professional sailors on their racing machines much better.

After their daily match race duels boat against boat, which will also be held on Saturday at the same time and Sunday two hours earlier, the trio starts again for a fleet race. The finish can be watched in the inner fjord of Kiel at around 6 to 6.30 p.m. (Sunday 4 to 4.30 pm). Afterwards, Christoph Schumann, the voice of sailing in Germany, will talk to the sailors of the day up on stage in the race village.

The first German Sailing Grand Prix will convey the fascination and excitement of the America’s Cup to enthusiastic sailing fans and interested general public alike. The three teams, which have asked the Kiel Yacht Club to act as the race organiser, take it seriously: 'We will start with our top teams and give our best,' the three crews said in one voice.

The German team will show up in their home port with the GER 72, a formerly Italian boat from Mascalzone Latino of 2003. In Kiel the crew around skipper Jesper Bank had been training for several weeks last year. 'I don’t know, whether it will be an advantage', said the Danish skipper, 'but we want to improve our results from the last races in the Valencia Acts.' In Spain, the United Internet Team Germany became next to last, also because the other teams started with their faster new boats.

But in Kiel they will all start with their training yachts. Even the USA 71 from BMW ORACLE Racing is three years old and served as sparring boat on the whay to the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2003 against the Swiss Alinghi team, that later won the America’s Cup.

'It will be a great opportunity to line up against two other challengers in a different venue from Valencia and bring the excitement of America’s Cup Class racing to Germany for the first time', says Chris Dickson, skipper of the USA 71. 'We race every chance we get in preparation for 2007. Many of us have sailed in Kiel but never before in America’s Cup Class yachts so it will be a new experience for all of us'.

Tim Kröger (41) is boat captain on the RSA 48 in the Shosholoza Team, which is supported by T-Systems. The boat which is the yacht that Prada Challenge (Italy) had used in the Louis Vuitton Cup 2000 has been prepared for the start to show a perfect performance. Kröger: 'The RSA 48 is the foundation stone of our campaign, it is like a myth. It made its way from Cape Town to Valencia and now comes to my home country. It means a lot to us to show the yacht in Germany.'

Not enough going on for you with the Rockefeller Center exhibition in NYC continuing through 2 July and Act 12 beginning here in VLC tomorrow?

Then check out the welcome news (team website and CC Blog) announced at Kiel (GER) yesterday of the "German Sailing Grand Prix" that will take place there in August among United Internet Team Germany (GER), Team Shosholoza (RSA) and ourselves.

For the first time in the 155-year-old Cup history, three challengers will meet in Germany to compete against each other in a regatta.

Tony Kolb (GER, sailing team) was in Kiel yesterday with Benedict Horber (GER, marketing team) to make the announcement along with reps of the South African and German AC teams.


Tony Kolb (right) giving BMW Sauber F1 team driver Nick Heidfeld (GER) a
tour of our team base in VLC during Act 10 last month.