James Spithill, the helmsman of BMW ORACLE Racing is the man entrusted with taming the 90-foot by 90-foot behemoth the sailing cognoscenti has dubbed ‘Dogzilla’. He appears to have been made for the challenge.
Spithill was barely out of his teens when he burst onto the America’s Cup scene as the skipper of Young Australia, a youth challenge for the oldest trophy in sport, that turned heads in 1999, in Auckland.
Although the team didn’t win often, its lack of experience and old equipment were hurdles too high to climb, they conducted themselves with maturity beyond their years and won enough battles to get noticed. Many from that team have forged careers in the America’s Cup since, including their skipper.
Today, at the ripe old age of 30, Spithill, has three America’s Cup campaigns to his credit. He was hired by BMW ORACLE Racing shortly after the end of the last event in Valencia, Spain … Details
Sail-World’s recent story on the state of the proposed AC33 venue at Ras al Khaimah (America’s Cup: Images from Ground Zero in Ras al-Khaimah? ( click here to view ) provoked two very different responses from our readers:
A Dubai resident and ex-Hong Kong sailor wrote to us saying:
‘You really think it (AC33) will be held in RAK? I doubt it. The venue hasn’t been constructed yet and this place has a history of failing to build anything on time. The pictures of the venue show that it will be an island with no road access, and around here nobody would dream of walking more than two metres to get to anything… there is precious little sailing in this place, I have done some racing in Dubai, and it was rubbish.’  … Details
BMW Oracle Racing have confirmed that they do not have a second yacht under construction and that they will challenge with the trimaran, BOR90, which is again sea-trialling in San Diego after major modifications.
Challenge spokesman Tom Ehman confirmed, in a media statement, after today’s New York Supreme Court Hearing that BOR90 would be renamed ‘USA’ and her dimensions would be used to produce the Customs House Registry certificate which has to be issued by the US authorities.
‘We are very satisfied with today’s court session and the discussion around the Custom House Registry,’ Ehman said after the Hearing in front of Justice Shirley Kornreich…Â Details & PicturesÂ
The BMW Oracle Racing team put BOR90 through her paces off San Diego, this time apparently in full race mode and in a reasonable breeze, with her foils fully deployed. Sir Russell Coutts was also sailing.
Some of the angles of these images are interesting from an evaluation perspective…Â Great PicturesÂ