Over its 155 years of history, the United States has dominated the America’s Cup. From 1851 to 1983, the New York Yacht Club held on to the trophy. Since then, American teams have remained prominent, as defenders and challengers in the Cup. That legacy is now being carried forward by BMW ORACLE Racing, the lone entry from the United States in this 32nd America’s Cup.
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Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10
BMW ORACLE Racing can certainly be ranked among the favourite challengers. The team has top three finishes in each year of the Louis Vuitton ACC Championships and this season, skipper Chris Dickson’s squad won Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10, concluding the season just one point off the top spot overall. Clearly, this is a team to be reckoned with.
In November, the team packed up its base in Valencia and moved to Auckland for the southern hemisphere summer, in an effort to take advantage of longer days and more predictable sailing conditions. With its second new boat now under construction, the team is shifting its focus from design development to sailing skills.
"We have spent four years on design and research and boatspeed development. Our objective here is to zero in on sailing the boats as well as we possibly can."
Chris Dickson
“It’s great to be back in New Zealand,” Dickson said at a press conference late in November after the team arrived in Auckland. “We have basically completed our testing programme. We have spent four years on design and research and boatspeed development. Our objective here is to zero in on sailing the boats as well as we possibly can.”
Objectives and goals are what come across clearly from this team. In looking back at the 2006 season, navigator Peter Isler, one of the Americans on the boat, spoke about what had been achieved. He noted the team had sailed 150 days in 2006 before leaving Valencia, testing and training, and feeding data into their design computers.
“We definitely feel the ticking of the clock now. For our team, we feel quite good because we achieved all of our goals this year. We feel like we’re in a pretty good position,” Isler said. “In the America’s Cup, time can sort of accelerate and even little problems can have a magnified effect as you get closer to the racing. So we’ve planned accordingly and checked off everything on our ‘to do’ list.”
“We accomplished a lot of the hard, half-a-per-cent at a time kind of gains. It’s time consuming stuff, but very important. We’ve worked up our first new boat, USA 87, and that was a big priority early on. We were able to sail it in the first set of Louis Vuitton Acts and win the match racing which was a big goal. Following the Acts, we went into our last phase of testing and development and now it’s a push to get to the start line next year in race mode.”
USA 87 and USA ??
Chris Dickson
As with the other top teams, BMW ORACLE Racing is building two new boats for this America’s Cup. The first, USA 87, has been described by skipper Chris Dickson as one of the most innovative America’s Cup Class boats ever built. The second is under construction near Seattle. Dickson says it will be a step onwards from USA 87.
“USA 87 is a very innovative boat. It was a big step forward in many areas,” Dickson said. “We learned a lot from USA 87, but our second boat is not out of the same mould. You will see more next year.”
According to Isler, there is less and less space left for the designers to come up with more speed. He expects advances to come in small steps. But if you add enough little gains together, you’ll be the faster team.
BMW ORACLE Racing
“We’ll see whether anyone jumps out with their second boat. But my guess is not, because nobody found that with their first boat,” he says. “Therefore, the gains are in the details – the rudders, the fins, the mast, the sails, the trim, the shifting of gears. All of that in combination is what’s going to make a difference.”
To this point, BMW ORACLE Racing has shown it can compete with the best teams in this America’s Cup. In 2006, Dickson’s team beat all of the challengers at least once, but it couldn’t manage a win over Alinghi. In fact, including the 2005 season, BMW ORACLE Racing has just one win in five matches over the Defender. It has a losing 3 - 5 record against Emirates Team New Zealand, but holds the advantage 4 - 2 over Luna Rossa Challenge.
Peter Isler
That means this very strong team must improve further if it is to realise its goal of lifting the America’s Cup. The long summer days in Auckland will no doubt be spent with that in mind. For Isler, the key is to keep looking for improvements. He says it’s important to get better not just in between the racing periods, but once the Louis Vuitton Cup begins as well.
“Watch for us to make some pretty big steps. Historically, that’s always been important in the America’s Cup – to make progress from the early rounds through the semi finals and into the Cup. That’s the way to be the team that’s there at the end. You have to keep improving or you get left behind.”
Statistics
The maximum winning delta is 4:38 against China Team in Flight 8, Match 4 of Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10.
USA 87 has beaten each of the new boats built for the 32nd America’s Cup.
BMW ORACLE Racing beat each of the other challengers in Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10, but lost its race against the defender, Alinghi.
Its closest race victory was a 25-second win over Desafío Español in Flight 10, Match 1, in Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10.
BMW ORACLE Racing finished the Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 11 in fourth position overall with race finishes of 9, 6, 4, 2, 3.
Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 10 is the second Act won by BMW ORACLE Racing, who were also winners in the Marseille Louis Vuitton Act 1, one year, eight months and 7 days previous.
BMW ORACLE Racing lost one race on the final run, against Luna Rossa Challenge in Flight 9, Match 6 of Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 12. This race also stands as its minimum losing delta – just eight seconds.
Only Alinghi, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa were able to beat BMW ORACLE Racing in 2006.
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