Volvo Ocean Race & America's Cup: Ask your questions
Starting Thursday, and for three days, Valencia sailing will be in Calpe in order to cover yet another edition of Open Match Race España, the ISAF Grade 1 match racing event organized by the Royal Calpe Yacht Club. The Open España is also a World Match Racing Tour Qualifier event and its winner gets a slot at St Moritz Match Race.
This year's lineup includes Torvar Mirsky, the world's #2 match racer, while Adam Minoprio, the world's top match racer, is calling tactics on Michlle Perris' yacht. Another young kiwi match racer will be keeping a close eye upon is William Tiller, recent winner of the Warren Jones International Youth Regatta in Perth.
Given the proximity of Calpe and Alicante, I will take the opportunity to first visit the start port of the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race and interview the CEO of the race, Knut Frostad. So, if there is anything in particular you would like to ask, feel free to comment or send an email.
As for the America's Cup, I was referring to the press conference BMW Oracle and Mascalzone Latino will hold next week in Rome, where they will outline the key dates for the 34th America's Cup. We will do our best to be there, so if you want Russell Coutts to, potentially, answer your question just write it.
Torvar Mirsky and his Mirsky Racing Team during the practice session of the Open Match Race España. Calpe, 27 April 2010. Photo copyright Jesús RenedoLabels: Adam Minoprio, Open de España, Real Club Nautico Calpe, Torvar Mirsky
29 Comments:
Please ask Mascalzone Latino if they have the guts to step up to multihulls for the next Americas Cup.
Is there a working group for a class rule formulation, and if so, who is taking part in this process?
Question to Coutts:
Has BOR a team currently working on boat design?
Question to Coutts:
Does BOR have a design team already working on developping a boat for the 34AC?
Question to Onorato:
Can you confirm formally you did not receive any financial support from BOR in becoming the CoR?
Question to Coutts or Ellison:
How do you explain that after sending a letter to the Spanish authorities, including the King, confirming that in case of victory in the 33AC, the 34AC would take place in Valencia, Valencia is totally ruled out without any minimum respect of explaining them why?
Question to either : Where will the Challenger Semi final and final be held and where will the 34th AC be held ?
Question to Coutts or Ellison:
Do they plan to propose cost constraint measures, like the VOR did, or will the next AC be a totally open event in terms on how much a team can spend?
Question to Frostad:
As a norwegian, are you somewhat frustrated that there isn't a team from Norway on the race? Do you think there is a chance to see one in the future?
What about the rumoured proposal that Oracle builds 4 boats and entering teams have to sail these? I'm sure you have heard whispers of this ridiculous proposal which effectively means teams only need to hire sailors!!
Question to ML: Larry has the Cup.
Why should he agree to anything that he does not want? Have you seen how fast Dogzilla is?
Larry wants multihulls in San Francisco. If Onorato and everyone else cannot play that game then they should forget about playing in that game and just fuck off. Let someone else challenge.
This is a billionaire's game, Bertarelli can but can Onorato afford to play with them?
Question for Larry/Russell
ACM negotiated excellent terms for Teams in Valencia including subsidised bases and tax deals for employees and sponsors.
How are you planning to mimimise team costs?
Is it true that all challengers will have to sign an agreement to run the AC in a certain way if they win. There is a certain logic to this if it brings stability but does it comply with the Deed?
Pierre, don't waste your time and money going to the Oracle dog and pony show...
The 34th America's Cup match will take place in San Francisco, most probably in September 2014.
Oracle's design team has been working full time on the new boat since more than a year. They will public the new rule, giving them a nice 3-year advantage over everybody else.
Coutts will organize in San Francisco a Defender Series together with 2-3 puppet teams. This will give Oracle yet another advantage over the challengers.
At the same time, Oracle will take part in the LV regattas as well as the Challenger Selection Series, up to the semifinals. Nevertheless, the Defender Series will allow Oracle to bypass any restriction the protocol might include on the number of boats, crews, design, technology transfer or training.
In fact, the new protocol will establish the so-called "Challenger Training Series" that will be compulsory and limited in time. The challengers will ONLY be able to train on AC boats during those periods, set by Oracle.
Since Coutts is not stupid, the "CTS" will be held far away from SF. Valencia wants to hold them but there are other candidate cities, such as Rome, Abu Dhabi or even Hong Kong.
In 2012, the CTS and the LVT will only be held on the new Cup boats. Fair enough you might say, but these boats will be provided by Oracle......
The challengers will NOT be allowed to launch a new Cup boat before September 2013, giving them just 12 months of preparation.
Finally, and that's the best part, the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Marin, Sonoma, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano, Napa and Monterey will prohibit the establishment of any challenger on their territories before October 2013. Why October? Because this way no challenger will be able to take their own wind measurements during the month of September in an area that spreads from Point Arena to the north down to Monterey to the south.
Oracle will provide all meteorological data for the month of September but with an obvious enormous margin of error....
I bet we will see a protocol far worse than what Erne$to signed together with their sham challenger, the CNEV.
Will there be a Defender Series?
Do the Defender series competitors have to be members of GGYC?
Ask Russell whether it's true they hired Ralf Vrolijk to design the new monohull Cup boat
Will Alinghi do the volvo?
Some people on here seem to be bitter.
get over it they won on the water
Alinghi will be back that is for sure.
If you look at the history of BOR they
have spent more time and money than
anyone else in regular cup cycles and
without lawyers to get the to the final
have fallen flat on their faces. I have
heard that some of the boatbuilders
are getting ready to go back to work
soon for BOR.
For sure the COR(which according to the DOG
there is no such thing) is a rules puppet with
LE`s,RC`s and TE`s hands so far up their arse
that their brains are being pulled like strings
Basically they are a all a bunch of suckers
and will get what is coming to them.
«I bet we will see a protocol far worse than what Erne$to signed together with their sham challenger, the CNEV.»
Dear 10:37 Anon,
You forgot to mention that, thanks to BOR's great PR and propaganda, they'll make everyone believe that the 34th protocol will be fair! And people will buy again their propaganda!
To 10:37 AM
Hey Mr "Deliusional"
would be nice if you could back your countless allegations and claims with real facts.
As is, you sound like a pubescent teenager on steroids...
Let's all wait and see what they have to say on the 6th. Russell is shrewd and sure as hell he wont want to contradict everything he's said over the last two years. Sure they'll not want to give away the deffender rights but they'll make it fair all round, just like they said.Wont they??
3.06
10.37's hypothesis sounds quite plausible. Coutts and Ellison can't afford not to win this fair and square! They rigged the last one with lawyers and screwed everyone on the way. They'll do it again and I think the challengers are just waking up to it.
By the way before you respond I'm not a bitter and twisted Alinghi fan.
To 6:46pm.
"Russell is shrewd and sure as hell he wont want to contradict everything he's said over the last two years."
Russell was not worried to lie in the face of the King of Spain. He lies more than he speaks. Why would you like him to have second thoughts lying to people such as Vincenzo "Stupid Naive" Onorato?
The next "Real America's Cup" will be raced whenever somebody has sewn up the technical edge that they feel they need in order to take on DZ. In the meantim, there will be an intermission entertainmemt provided by the RC/ LE/TE travelling circus called "lets see who can tack and gybe fastest between here and the next mark".
Enjoy.
to 6:54 PM
but you certainly sound like one...
6:54 PM
actually they won the last one fair and square on the water (with deltas of 15 and 5 min!!!) although Alinghi always claimed that BMWOracale wanted to win the cup in court.
Nothing more to say here...
12.17
They sure did win on the water and from what I've seen and heard Alinghi accepted that. Hard to deny that their court room strategy played a role and they skrewed it for a lot of other teams.
IMO IT WAS ALINGHI THAT SCREWED IT FOR THE OTHER TEAMS BY REFUSING TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE CHALLENGER OF RECORD
What has happened to the winning BOR 90 Trimaran? Has it been scrapped?
To RC: Larry likes the idea of racing fast multihulls. What is appealing about that idea?
To VO: Do you agree?
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