SailJuice Blog

A feeling of invincibility is growing around USA 98. BMW Oracle seem very comfortable with their new boat, far more so than they ever were with USA 87. One of the lynchpins of the Americans’ enormous design team, the Argentinean maverick Juan Kouyoumdjian, says he’s very happy with the USA 98’s performance compared with the Kiwis’ boats for example.

Here’s a comment about NZL 92 from an interview with Juan K on Kimball Livingston’s blog. “At the risk of being wrong – we haven’t sailed against them enough to really know – I’d say the boat lacks a touch of speed. That team can compensate with rigs, sails, sailing talent, but if you give that boat to any of the second-tier teams, you won’t see them going any faster.”

Tactician Gavin Brady is pretty impressed too: “What I… Read the rest

Gavin Brady was on typically chatterbox form after today’s race against +39 Challenge. Brady is always good for a quote.

From what Brady said this afternoon at the media zone, he’s more interested in racing the Kiwis to be able to compare boatspeed rather than gaining that top spot in the Semi Finals, which would give the winner the option of picking their opponent.

Here’s a clip of what he said about the much anticipated race-off between the Kiwis and BMW Oracle: “I think it’s pretty important. Both teams are going to be full on in that last race, because we’ve only raced them once with our best equipment. We’ve raced them in flat water in 8 knots of wind. So it would be interesting to see some different performances in maybe more wind and choppier water.

“We haven’t seen… Read the rest

Fancy a ride on BMW Oracle, the boat of the moment? Well, if you’ve got $40,000 spare, then you could ride as 18th man aboard USA 98. Go and bid on Ebay for the spot. Actually, it’s already $40k and there’s four days to go, and the way that Chris Dickson and Co. are sailing, you can expect bids to go considerably higher.

What’s more, it’s all in a good cause, because 100% of the proceeds are going to a breast cancer charity. What a great use of an 18th man spot – a good deal better than Alinghi anyway – who have a policy of never taking a passenger. Not that it’s going to happen, but wouldn’t it be great to see an Ebay match race between the Challenger of Record and the Defender, and see who can pull… Read the rest