March 2009 America's Cup?

The latest issues in the mega-multihull match aired

Yesterday at their futuristic facility next door to the newly rebuilt BMW World museum in Munich, BMW announced the renewal of their partnership with Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle Racing team for a third campaign.

As ever on these occasions over the last year, whether they are organised by either of the two warring factions in the 33rd America’s Cup, some of the most interesting aspects are the secondary messages being delivered.

One such issue yesterday was over the date of the 33rd America’s Cup. For those who still care about such matters, two months ago the New York Supreme Court’s Justice Cahn issued his ‘decision’ that the 33rd America’s Cup will get underway on 12 March 2009, ie 10 months after his ‘decision’. “Surely some mistake, mi Lord?” all the AC pundits echoed at once, as the all-important Deed of Gift states clearly that racing in the America’s Cup cannot be held in the Northern hemisphere over the winter months, between 1 November and 1 May. The most likely scenario at the time, it was felt, was that Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing and their respective clubs would agree on a date in May 2009 in accordance with the Deed. At the time Alinghi’s legal council Lucien Masmejan’s for example was quoted as saying: “This 10-month notice period should commence when there is a final decision regarding the propriety of the GGYC challenge and fully taking into account the Northern Hemisphere window as indicated in the Deed of Gift. This means that the Match cannot take place before May 2009.”

However yesterday both BMW Oracle Racing’s spokeman Tom Ehman and CEO Russell Coutts were adamant that this was not the case: the Judge’s decision takes precedent even over the Deed of Gift. So according to BMW Oracle at least, the 33rd America’s Cup will be kick off on 12 March 2009 at the venue of Alinghi’s choice, be it northern or southern hemisphere, regardless of the Deed.

“We believe the order does allow the race to take part in the northern hemisphere outside of the Deed of Gift restraints,” Russell Coutts told us. “The order was very clear. The order said it could be in Valencia in March.”

Hear Tom Ehman expand in this in our audio interview with him here.

It seems highly likely that Alinghi won’t see it in this way – it is certainly in their interest to delay the 33rd America’s Cup for as long as possible in order to maximise their preparation time – so they are likely to be of the view that the Deed of Gift still prevails. How this will be resolved perhaps only Justice Cahn knows…

Aside from this obviously everything remains up in the air at present as both parties, indeed the whole America’s Cup community, waits to hear if the Appelate Division of the New York Supreme Court take issue with any of Justice Cahn’s rulings. Tom Ehman, as he states in our interview with him, seems fairly confident that the Appelate Division judges will stick by Justice Cahn’s decision.

Another stick BMW Oracle Racing yesterday indicated that they will use on the Swiss derriere will be over where not only the defender’s yacht but its equipment is built. This is a Deed of Gift America’s Cup and the Deed states that “Any organized Yacht Club of a foreign country…..shall always be entitled to the right of sailing a match of this Cup, with a yacht or vessel propelled by sails only and constructed in the country to which the Challenging Club belongs against any one yacht or vessel constructed in the country of the Club holding the Cup.”

Coutts is wondering particularly where Alinghi will be getting their spars and sails built. Ellison’s US challenge has the advantage of having the Nevada-based North 3DL plant within their territory along with several spar makers, notably Halls, who it already been announced are building their spars. In Switzerland there is of course the ubiquitous North loft, but their 3DL comes from the US. Prior to the last Cup Alinghi were known to be testing a new black sail cloth being manufactured by a Swiss company, although in practice we never saw this being used in the 32nd Cup. Will the sails of the Swiss boat be all-black or will this be another issue to go before Justice Cahn?

And Switzerland has no indigenous spar maker, certainly none big enough capable of building one of the tallest wingmasts ever seen on a race boat. However given that there is one almighty oven, if not an autoclave, certain to have been used to build the hulls of the Swiss team’s giant multihull down at Decision’s new facility in Villeneuve at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, then surely it would not be a drastic step to import the specialist labour to build the towering wingmast there?

At the press conference yesterday it became a little more evident exactly who holds what cards in this competition.

Under a Deed of Gift America’s Cup in basic terms the challenger has to specify their boat in their challenge document and can choose the date, while the defender gets to select the venue.

So the Golden Gate Yacht Club on behalf of BMW Oracle Racing stated when they lodged their challenge just over a year ago now that they will be pitching up with USA, a single masted sloop rigged boat with the length, beam and draft specified.

Firstly the easy one - according to their challenging document their boat will have a draft of 3ft with the boards up and 20ft with them down.

Its length is specified as being 90ft long along the load waterline. Load waterline (LWL) is a figure is taken from the Deed of Gift and it should be noted is not the same as length overall. With bow and stern overhangs and a bowsprit and a boom overhang the challenging yacht could easily reach 120ft LOA – so really we should not be referring to them as 90ft long boats.

With beam there is potentially the largest pothole. According to their challenge document, the BMW Oracle Racing boat will have a beam at load waterline of 90ft and an extreme beam (ie Beam max) of 90ft too. How load waterline beam and Bmax can be the same remains to be seen, but Alinghi have been making great play of the BMW Oracle Racing challenger being 90ft wide exactly, not up to 90ft.

In fact the Deed of Gift offers some insight into this. It states: “Accompanying the ten months' notice of challenge there must be sent the name of the owner and a certificate of the name, rig and following dimensions of the challenging vessel, namely, length on load water-line; beam at load water-line and extreme beam; and draught of water; which dimensions shall not be exceeded.”

In the Deed specifying these dimensions shall not be exceeded, the implication is that they can up to these figures. Or so we suspect BMW Oracle are likely to argue if or when it comes to the crunch (neither Ehman nor Coutts will be drawn on the subject at present).

But there is another problem. If the platform is more or less square it pretty much has to be a trimaran, but typically trimarans only ever have two hulls in the water at any one time – and very often only one… So how is the beam load waterline to be measured? Maybe BMW Oracle need to come up with a water ballast arrangement that allows them to sink the whole platform until all three hulls touch the water!

While these are the constraints of the challenger, Alinghi’s defending multihull can be of any beam or draft (it seems probable that it would be deeper than 20ft with the daggerboard down – for example on ORMA 60s the boards are around 16.4ft long) and the only constraint is that they too must conform to the Deed of Gift which stipulates that:

“The competing yachts or vessels, if of one mast, shall be not less than forty-four
feet nor more than ninety feet on the load water-line; if of more than one mast
they shall be not less than eighty feet nor more than one hundred and fifteen feet
on the load water-line.”

The Deed of Gift doesn’t specify that a single masted boat cannot race another with more than one mast so perhaps Alinghi might go for the bigger option? So a 140ft LOA trimaran perhaps yawl rigged with a tiny vestigal mizzen on the transom? One hopes that the Alinghi design team will have shied away from this given the monstrous complexities of building a boat this size.

Another aspect that is having increased bearing with every day that goes by is the challenger not knowing the venue of the 33rd America’s Cup. According to Justice Cahn’s last decision, Alinghi/SNG only have to announce the venue six months before the America’s Cup match itself – so on 12 September this year, assuming the 12 March date is indeed cast in stone. So while Alinghi may have already known the venue for some months and can tailor their boat to the conditions of that venue, BMW Oracle Racing are in the dark. As a result the challengers are having to keep all their bases covered designing a boat that can be as effective in light winds as it is in strong or medium airs, in a seaway or flat water.

“It is an advantage [to Alinghi] in time,” says Coutts, “because we have to spend time building components we will probably never use. For example masts: we have to plan for a light wind venue, a strong wind venue and so forth. That makes it a bit of a disadvantage although, there are so many sailing venues I have been to for many many years – I’ve just experienced one on Lake Garda last week where ‘they said it hasn’t been like this for 70 years’. I could easily see people standing there saying ‘it never happens like this!’ So having to cover your bases a bit might turn out to be an advantage.”

It seems certain that the new BMW Oracle Racing boat will have at least two rig options to take into account the wind conditions once the venue is announced.

Not knowing the venue is also certain to create some major logistical issues. Typically the only way to transport a giant multihull (unless it is on its own bottom) is deck cargo and this could take several weeks out of the BMW Oracle Racing program.

Coutts confirmed yesterday that they will be putting their boat together in the USA and not transporting it to Europe (assuming that is where the venue is) and assembling it then (presumably they image this could leave them open to attack by Alinghi for not fully complying with the Deed of Gift).

“We’ll sail it in the States,” states Coutts. “Under the rules you have we have to construct the boat in the US. We believe we have to assemble the boat and if we have the boat completely constructed, which is what we have to have, we might as well take the thing sailing.”

Another option to possibly solve the transportation issue is to make the boat demountable although we suspect that even an Antanov wouldn’t be able to accept the disassembled parts of a boat this big even with its boot open.

“That is one of the questions, strategic choices your design team faces at the start,” says Coutts of the demountability option. “Because we don’t know where the venue is so we don’t know where we have to ship to and that was one of the major considerations we had to make. If you make the joints that you can disconnect the thing and ship it, it comes as a weight compromise and a time compromise as well: you have to machine a lot of the surfaces to get the joints absolutely perfect.”

While it seems most likely that BMW Oracle Racing’s boat will be a trimaran, might Alinghi build a catamaran? “The choice between catamaran and trimaran, one of the main things is that it could be very very wind dependent,” says Coutts. “A very very light wind venue could favour a narrower boat, it could even favour a smaller boat. But a lot of this multihull design technology is very new to me. We originally set our campaign up as a monohull campaign. I am learning a lot about it. Particularly these day with the multihulls that in certain conditions will sail on foils, it changes those parameters a lot. That is another aspect to consider particularly when you are considering strong winds or light winds. And the last thing - depending upon the size of the boat, at certain sizes a catamaran will be lighter, while at other scales a trimaran will be lighter. You also have to bear in mind that you have enormous loads on these boats. Three, four, five, six times the loads of the last America’s Cup boats.”

As to the racing itself, pre-starts are likely to be very different in giant multihulls. “It could be really wild depending upon the conditions. If it were strong winds – watch out!” continues Coutts. “And strong wind could be 12 knots… So depending upon what rig you have on the boat... I am reserving judgement on it until I see it.” While there has been much talk of multihulls not making great match race boat due to their speed, Coutts is adamant that they have been having racing in the Extreme 40s.

While the giant multihulls will be capable of sailing upwind at more than 20 knots, off the wind they could easily reach 40. Coutts reckons the hairiest part of the 33rd America’s Cup will be race two. While the first race of a Deed of Gift America’s Cup match is a familiar windward-leeward, the second is a triangle with two reaching legs to get back to the leeward mark. “I can tell you now that [race two] is going to be a very very challenging race in these boats. The reaching legs are what I have come to know in multihulls as ‘no-go zones’ in particular conditions, when it will be very very challenging to sail on the 120 degree reaches.”