Oracle
Racing Team suffer misfortune (01/08/02) (source : NZ
Herald)
For the third time in just over
a year, ill-fated sailing team Oracle Racing came
limping back into the Waitemata Harbour yesterday.
In November, one of the Oracle boats, USA49,
lost its keel in the Hauraki Gulf - almost exactly
a year to the day since the other training yacht,
USA61, suffered the same fate on Auckland waters.
Yesterday, one of the two training boats sailed
by the US America's Cup challenge (helmed this time
by Peter Holmberg) snapped its mast in two while
sailing off North Head. The famous millenium rig
snapped at what seems to be between the first and
second spreaders.
Oracle Racing has become the third America's Cup
syndicate in as many months to break a rig while
training on the Hauraki Gulf. Previously during
the final preparation for the next America’s Cup,
both Team New Zealand and one of the other American
challenging syndicates, One World, have had the
masts on their training boats broken in two.
Oracle were last night uncertain why the rig broke
at its halfway point in a mere six knots of wind,
but the boat quickly returned to its base in the
Viaduct Harbour with the mast strapped on board
so the incident could be investigated.
Oracle spokeswoman Joanna Ingley said 'We are all
well aware that America's Cup masts can break. We'll
be back on the water two-boat testing later in the
week."
On Base 2, both Oracle
boats have now re-appeared, fully rigged with their
bows protruding from their sheds. Both are fully
skirted from deck to ground and look ready to hit
the water. Given that USA-49 is skirted Cheryl suspects
it has been fitted with a new keel ready for two
boat tesing after the Christmas-New Year break.
Both boats have millenium rigs.
Victory today re-opened their base and the crew
returned to the harbour area with an increased activity.
During the day, the crew has concentrated on the
training boat Cristina and its mast, with the prospect
of the launch on Tuesday. The continued endurance
tests on the newly built Örn will probably start
on Thursday. Both boats will then go out on the
Hauraki Gulf.
As the sailing with Örn is restarted on Thursday
this new America’s Cup-boat will be in focus. She
shall sail during every day until 24 January, when
the evaluation shall be ready to draw as many experiences
as possible for the construction of the second America’s
Cup-boat in Gothenburg. The tank tests that have
been performed have given good result. The boat
construction will start during this quarter of a
year.
On the German Illbrück and American Stars & Stripes
bases, it was dead calm before Christmas and it’s
now full activity. The boats from the Volvo Ocean
Race, which will start the next sailing for Rio
de Janeiro on 27 January, they will be delivered
there today.
Next to Swedish Cristina is the Assa Abloy-boat,
which won the latest distance in Volvo Ocean Race,
from Sydney to Auckland. Next boat moored is America’s
Sports One, designed by the Victory Challenge-designer
German Frers Jr. It is on second place in total,
after the total leader Illbrück – the only team
that participate in both Volvo Ocean Race and America’s
Cup.
But the newly arrived super yachts get even more
attention. One of the newly arrived is Oracle Racing's
Larry Ellison with his “Katana”, one of the world’s
30 largest super yachts, 75 metres long, with a
two-floor apartment onboard disposable for the software
billionaire, with a maximum speed of 35 knots.
Nearby is the 40 million dollars Salperton, 53 metres
long and launched on 6 December last year and the
largest pleasure ship ever built in New Zealand.
The owner is European and wishes to be anonymous.
Around the corner is Princess Marla, owned by the
founder of the TV-Shop-channel American Shopping
Network, Lowell “Bud” Parson. His super yacht is
in comparison quite small, 49 metres. But on the
upper deck there is space to land an helicopter,
next to the jacuzzi.
At the Victory Challenge’s base is Black Knight,
the classical motor yacht of Jan Stenbeck, the Swedish
challenge’s initiator. Black Knight was until 1983
starting boat for America’s Cup when New York Yacht
Club was the organiser. The club that won the world’s
oldest and established sailing competition for the
first 132 years.
VOR
have to wait Paul Cayard (12/17/01) (source : The
log)
Speculation and rumour
about the Paul Cayard and VOR will continue. The
former finalist of the LVC announces that he wait
before leaving Oracle.
"I'm still an employee of Oracle Racing and I'm
waiting until New Year's to see what my exact role
is gonna be. I'm hopeful that something is gonna
sort itself out and I'm gonna be able to work with
the team, because I think Oracle has a great chance
to win . . . the team with the highest chance of
winning of all the teams I've ever worked with".
"The upside is I'm home and going to soccer
games and spending a lot of time with my whole family.
My project right now is a new front door on my house
. . . a lot of little personal things, updating
my trusts and my wills, going to the dentist, stuff
I'd never had time to do".
"I'm certainly leaving my options open with Oracle.
If that doesn't work out . . . " explained Cayard.
"The
best chance to win the America's Cup (12/12/01) (source : Oracle
Racing)
Larry Ellison and the Oracle
Racing will be going to the awards ceremony and,
no doubt, the next Defense will take place on San
Francisco Bay. With $85 million of his own money,
Ellison's Syndicate is sure to win.
"This is probably the best chance that America has
to win the America's Cup in a decade," Ellison said
Tuesday at Oracle Corp.'s big annual conference
in San Francisco.
"I think we're favored to win the Cup," Larry Ellison
said in an interview with The Associated Press a
few weeks ago. "And I think we should be."
More, "We think our team is so good and our boat
is so good that I'm going to do a bit of driving
in the race," Ellison said.
During a Q & A from Oracle's
Open World event reported by Chuck (2003ac.com Forum),
Larry Ellison said :
"I'm absolutely going to drive the boat. Some people
on the team are horrified to hear about this, but
this boat is so fast,... I'll say it two ways. I
certainly won't drive if I'm going to hurt the team".
"I'm not going to drive any starts. I went
down to (Ventura) and drove a start, and, uh, I
clearly can't drive any starts (crew laughing in
the background) ... but I don't think DeAngelis
is going to drive any starts for the Prada team
either".
Cayard
interested in joining the VOR
(11/30/01) (source
: madforsailing.com)
Paul Cayard is hedging his bets and having
to be fairly non-committal about the immediate future
since his recent and sensational sidelining from
Larry Ellison's Oracle Racing America's Cup team.
But you only have to hear him talking about it,
to realise that he is very interested indeed in
joining the Volvo Ocean Race.
Officially the top American skipper who won the
last Whitbread hands down when leading EF Language,
will only say he has a 50-50 chance of taking part
in the current race, but one suspects the real chances
are much higher and rising.
Paul Cayard says he is going to give the Oracle
Racing situation another month to sort itself out
before he starts taking decisions on his future
himself. In the meantime negotiations or contacts
are underway with at least one Volvo syndicate.
Cayard confirms he has been talking to one but will
not identify it. However, the likelihood is that
it is Assa Abloy, a team he has always tipped for
honours and one which includes some of his key collaborators
from four years ago, among them Mark Rudiger and
Magnus Olsson.
"If things don't work out for me in the America's
Cup arena I may become more interested in the second
half of the Volvo because I like the race and I
think it's an awesome event and, provided the right
opportunity arises, I might be interested," he said.
It is clear that the "right opportunity" is not
that far off. Cayard agreed that joining the race
in Sydney was unrealistic but Auckland or Rio were
possibilities. "I'm not particularly close to jumping
on any of the Volvo boats - it's not imminent,"
he explained. "I seriously doubt I'll be in Sydney
for the start of that leg. Auckland or Rio are more
the timeframe I am looking at, if I choose that
path, but that depends on how things simmer along
over the next 30 days."
Oracle Corporation announced that the upcoming
Oracle OpenWorld (OOW 2001) conference, held from
December 2-7, 2001 at San Francisco's Moscone Center,
will feature a special Oracle Racing Pavilion, complete
with 30-foot yacht and insight into the Oracle technologies
helping the Oracle Racing team prepare for their
America's Cup Challenge.
At the show, attendees will be able to view the
technology that is helping the team build ever-faster
boats. Using Oracle9i Database and the Oracle Apache
HTTP server, Oracle Racing has developed a sophisticated
design tracking system allowing designers and engineers
to quickly retrieve detailed reports and compare
dozens of designs at once. A key component to this
is the integration of data across systems, accessible
via a simple Web browser over a secure Internet
connection.
The team also is using Oracle technology to help
with their testing and training on a daily basis,
as more than 70 instrumental variables are collected
every second for the two boats and loaded into an
Oracle database. The data is then analyzed and the
resulting reports and charts help the sailors refine
their performance; all data is then stored in a
data warehouse for easy retrieval in the future.
USA-49
keel update
(11/17/01) (source
: NZ
Herald)
As USA49 was back at the Viaduct Harbour early
yesterday, New Zealand skipper Chris Dickson said
that the mast and sail were rescued.
"Obviously the whole keel was not strong enough,"
Dickson explained. "A year ago we changed a
number of things and thought we had made significant
improvements. We thought we had solved the problem
but obviously we haven't.
"The problem is that they are old boats and the
protocol prevents us from getting the plans of the
keel, therefore we don't have any specific engineering
knowledge of the keel structure."
According to the interview Larry
Ellison gave to ESPN, we knows that Chris Dickson
is back - with Peter Holmberg and Larry Ellison
himself - as helmsman for Oracle Racing (LE : "You'll
see a few people driving. You’ll see Peter Holmberg
and Chris Dickson driving the boat. You’ll even
see me driving").
But yesterday, USA 49 was out trailing with sister
yacht USA 61 on the gulf, when the boat, helmed
by Chris Dickson, suddenly fell onto its side. The
boat had been sailing in 14-knot winds and moderate
seas when its keel suddenly snapped off, around
10.30 AM (NZ time).
Last year, on November 21, USA 61 suffered the same
fate when its 21-tonne keel sheered off at the hull.
Dickson was also at the helm that day. Back then,
the crew dived into the water fearing their safety.
But yesterday, the sailors managed to stay on board
the boat, and successfully battled to save the mast
before it was submerged. Only a handful of the Oracle
crew got wet this time, after diving in to secure
the mast immediately after the mishap.
Three Auckland coastguard vessels went to the rescue
of the boat and crew, and a floating crane was towed
out to the site of the incident, near Waiheke Island
in the eastern part of the Hauraki Gulf. Pumps were
used to drain water from the hull in an effort to
right the boat. The boat was towed to a sheltered
bay on nearby Motuihe Island, but with winds gusting
to 40 knots, it was unlikely that the boat would
be towed back to Auckland before morning.
In a statement released by Oracle, 'all crew were
said to be safe and the sailing and support teams
were working together to rescue the hull. Once the
boat is back at the base the shore team will be
able to better access the time it will take to get
USA 49 back on the water.'
It has been a rugged spring in Auckland - with OneWorld
and Team NZ losing masts in the last two months.
