I’ve been doing some hard traveling (well, nothin’ on Woodie Guthrie), and it’s not over, so nowsabout I stick my head up for a breath of air down by the tracks and low and behold the whistle tells of Alinghi and a passle of the other AC players confabbing in Geneva and petitioning Larry Ellison to join the table.

I turn my back for one minute and this happens.

And before I disappear again . . .

It’s been a fascinating play on the part of Alinghi/Ernesto Bertarelli to leverage off the Down Under plans for a Louis Vuitton Pacific Cup, turn around, and say come one, come all, come race. Let’s get the next America’s Cup in gear regardless of what happens (or not) in court. And oh, by the way, Kiwi dears, if you’ll drop your suit we’ll enter the Louis Vuitton Pacific and face-savingly embrace you warmly etc etc and bless the event with the presence of the Defender of the America’s Cup. And oh, by the way, BMW Oracle Racing, drop that 600-pound gorilla lawsuit against CNEV, join the party (should I say, join the Party), and all is forgiven.

By December 15.

Or all is not forgiven.

And then, baby, if you win in court you get to take your chances on a Deed of Gift match for the Cup. And if you lose that one, you’re not tapped out, you’re o-u-t.

Imagine a poker game where you put your money down—on cards that are face-down, unseen. Those cards would be equivalent to the New York Supreme Court Ruling, still probably months away, as to CNEV’s status or un- as a legitimate Challenger of Record. It’s a blind bet. Card counters, your talents are useless.

The best minds I know say, “no way” should CNEV be declared legit, but the last court ruling declared the equivalent of “sure, whatever” and blessed CNEV’s status to most everyone’s surprise including the few then-still-operating elements of CNEV. Me, I was merely flabbergasted to read what seemed like at best a flabby ruling.

So, how does Larry bet? How would you bet?

PRESENT in Geneva
- Alinghi, Société Nautique de Genève, Switzerland – Defender of the 33rd America’s Cup
- Desafío Español, Club Náutico Español de Vela, Spain – Challenger of Record
- Shosholoza, Royal Cape Yacht Club, South Africa
- TeamOrigin, Royal Thames Yacht Club, United Kingdom
- Emirates Team New Zealand, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, New Zealand
- United Internet Team Germany, Deutscher Challenger Yacht Club, Germany
- Green Comm, Challenge Circolo di Vela Gargano, Italy
- Ayre, Real Club Náutico de Dénia, Spain
- Victory Challenge, Gamla Stans Yacht Sällskap, Sweden
- Argo Challenge, Club Náutico di Gaeta, Italy
- French Spirit, Yacht Club de St Tropez, France
- Carbon Challenge, Royal Belgian Sailing Club, Belgium

ABSENT in Geneva
-BMW Oracle Racing
-Mascalzone Latino
-Areva

The response from Tom Ehman, speaking for BMW Oracle and the Golden Gate Yacht Club::

“We have offered repeatedly to drop our lawsuit if Alinghi commits to fair rules, and our offer still stands. We would like nothing better than to have a fully competitive multi-challenger America’s Cup on the water by 2010. We stand ready and willing to meet with Alinghi and all of the other competitors to discuss the future of the Cup, but without unreasonable pre-conditions.”

In case you missed it there’s this: Alinghi's announcement

And this: The release from the meeting

Me, I'm hopping a freight train to wherever. I’ll be quiet for a while, back with you some time before mid-November—Kimball

So I was going to write about the current state or nonstate of the America's Cup—playing chicken, something like that—but I just can't get the words out.

Is it possible that what I hear coming back at me is a collective, "Oh thank gawd!"

Far more rewarding to note that the Challenger of Record du Jour's former team had a breakthrough in the long race of the TP52 Worlds at Lanzarote. That would be Desafío under Paul Cayard winning a 53-mile race in under five hours. Add twelve seconds, and over the line comes Terry Hutchinson and Quantum.

Quantum had been in front until a spinnaker blew.

We'll call that close.

What they talked about all night, however, was this clusterment at the first mark that included a hit (Russian boat's bow into stern of Platoon) with Bribón disqualified for not giving room to Synergy. Worth a click to enlarge.



Nobody has more fun, eh?

Thanks to Nico Martinez for the pics.



That's Desafío above, which gives you some insight into the conditions and helps in turn to explain why . . .

After Platoon completed the course, the boat's ex-Commie helmsman Jochen Schümann (he won a Finn gold medal for East Germany in 1976) made the beach and declared, "My whole body aches."

Me, I can't look at Paul driving with the tiller extension and not think of him as a kid in a Laser, surfing the break at the South Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Pushing the envelope.

And I'm impressed, frankly, that the Mediterranean TP52 fleet, famously built for light going, held together except for some blown sails. With four buoy races to go for the world title, Quantum has the points advantage in a fleet of 14:

1. Quantum (USA), Terry Hutchinson, 2-6-1-4-6-2.50-2.50, 24.00 points
2. Mutua Madrileña (CHI), Vasco Vascotto, 3-1-6-1-1-8.75-10, 32.00 points
3. Artemis (SWE), Torbjorn Tornqvist, 1-2-2-11-13-1.25-10, 40.25 points
4. Desafío (ESP), Paul Cayard, 5-7-11-12-2-5-1.25, 43.25 points
5. Platoon (GER), Jochen Schuemann, 8-9-12-3-3-6.25-3.75, 45.00 points

MIDWEST SPEED QUEST



OK, it's nothing to match the world records set in Namibia this fall, but the Midwest Speed Quest continues to be one of the coolest boutique operations going. I wrote about it on October 18, 2007 (Make Something Happen) and described how Craig Bergh took it on himself to just . . . make . . . this . . . thing . . . happen.

That is, to invite people to come to the center of his world, Worthington, Minnesota, and partake of the big breeze that blows across the plain. And partake of his hospitality. And get out on Lake Okabena and sail fast. As Craig describes the deal, looking back over 2008:

"I really want to thank the Sailors. Our home remains open to all visiting Windsurfers. We invite you all back again in 2009!

"The Midwest Speed Quest was designed to be different. This event is free to all participants, and yet pays the highest Prize Money in North America. The purpose is to promote the new Sport of Speed Sailing and the City of Worthington. Our goal was to bring Sailors of all skill levels together and introduce them to the new Sport of Speed Sailing. The schedule was open 7 days a week for a 6 month period. Any visiting sailor was assured of the chance to participate anytime he/she was in the area. We provide free or discounted motel rooms at the AmericInn, free refreshments on the Beach, and free hot meals at the end of the day.

"And we had the best Speed Sailing gear available for visiting sailors to try out.

"We also provided free on-site Child Care and Pet Care. We even provided Spousal Care (care of the Windsurfing Widow)!

"All the work associated with this event was done on a volunteer basis. Meals and refreshments were served beachside all season long free of charge. A special thanks to my wide Pamela Bergh for the many fine meals cooked and served over the last 6 months to the visiting Sailors.

"We were delighted with the demo gear provided by the Sponsors. Each year we seek out the finest Speed Sailing Gear available anywhere in the world."

Much of that gear is loaned out, and some of it goes as prizes.

You gotta love this guy. The '08 results:

Men:
1st Place: David Knight, Fridley MN 31.57 knots (36.31 mph)
2nd Place: Guy Miller, Austin Texas 31.46 knots (36.18 mph)

Women:
1st Place Allison Shreeve, Sydney Australia 26.24 knots (31.18 mph)
2nd Place Karen Marriott, Lakewood CO 22.78 knots (26.20 mph)

Dig that? Here's David Knight doing his Lake Okabena thing, as photographed by Todd Spence . . .



Now, in the spirit of the Midwest Speed Quest, go make something happen.

SIGH . . .

And I guess I need to put SAIL on record as acknowledging that Alinghi . . . oops, how could I be so silly as to write that? I mean of course La Société Nautique de Genève, as Defender, has announced an event upcoming in a matter of weeks for a few Cup players—apologies to those of you on some other side of the world—which is apparently intended to comply with the Annual Regatta obligation of the Challenger of Record du Jour, CNEV, an entity-of-sorts that nearly blew away in the dust of all court rulings to date except one. The most-recent one.

And they have announced a resumption-of-sorts of planning for the 33rd America's Cup, with an entry deadline that puts antagonists BMW Oracle Racing and Team New Zealand in a place-your-bets position by demanding entry from all challengers before December 15.

Almost certainly before the pending appeal is decided in the New York courts, re. the status of CNEV as a qualified Challenger of Record.

An interesting play, actually. Much better than some of Alinghi's moves.

And you gotta love this official announcement: "Alinghi, Defender of the 33rd America’s Cup, accepts the Challenger of Record, Club Náutico Español de Vela’s invitation to race in the America’s Cup Class series during their Annual Regatta in Valencia on the 8 and 9 November."

It was so good of CNEV to think of them.

Now, if there's anything bugging you about the America's Cup, do let us know . . .

It's release day for Morning Light, time to gather up friends and neighbors and kids—and nonsailors—and take Roy Disney's Transpac movie for a test tide.

I saw the premiere last week, at the El Capitan on Hollywood Boulevard, where Roy and Leslie Disney introduced the film with a waving Mickey Mouse ("the family crest") beside them onstage. People see the start of an ocean race, Roy said, and they see the finish: "We wanted to fill in the gap in between."

Try it. You'll like it. So will your friends who don't sail. It's a well-told tale of young people on a great adventure, racing from Los Angeles to Honolulu, and it is filmed as no sailing movie was filmed before. Will the movie draw a crossover audience? Those who see it will like it, and sailors will be coming back to Morning Light for years to come.

A confident prediction, and it's mine. Even curmudgeonly officers of Transpac Anonymous were caught up.



And what do I mean when I say that it was filmed as no sailing movie was filmed before? Heed this outtake from the October issue of SAIL Magazine:

Naturally the young crew of a 52-foot boat needed training to sail a Transpacific Race as the stars of a Disney movie. Less obvious is the prep needed for the film crew. Midway through listing the methods tested ("fixed cameras, high-wide views, infrared") producer Morgan Sackett interrupts himself to say, "Without 10 weeks of training and 10 months to plan, we'd never have been ready."

Plan A envisioned "a bulletproof system" of remote cameras on the raceboat, but a few [cough] thousand dollars into watersoaked electronics, Sackett saw, "It wasn't going to work. We had to put a cameraman on board."



Good call. Enter the uniquely-qualified Rick Deppe, a Transpac and Volvo veteran who also has filmed for The Deadliest Catch. It's a digital world. Sackett says, "We could never have shot with film cameras." Even so, Morning Light sailed hundreds of pounds heavy, including extra battery power and supporting fuel.

The key to the movie, however, was a cameraboat pacing for 2,500 miles. Forced to replace that chase boat two weeks before race time, executive producer Roy Disney hired Steve Fossett's round-the-world maxi catamaran. Cheyenne's mast was already removed in anticipation of new uses, and a tripod was mounted, but suddenly Cheyenne's crew was racing to go to sea in 2 weeks, not 6.

And there's Mark Monroe, the director, chosen in part because he is not a sailor: "They didn't want an insider point of view." In his race to the race, however, Monroe "was so caught up in devising how to film that I never gave a thought to crossing an ocean for the first time in my life. The day we left, I threw a couple of t-shirts in a bag and the next thing I knew I was getting a safety briefing. I can tell you, it was an adventure, but no pleasure cruise.

"Two days out I realized we could have brought along a supermarket. Instead, we had ourselves a former race boat stocked with oatmeal and freeze-drieds. One of our guys freaked and raided the galley, and he was coming up with all these numbered packets and that's when we realized the packets were numbered for days at sea. Leftovers from the boat's circumnavigation record in 2004."

Welcome to the life, Mark. The director's highlight? "No question," he says: "When Samba Pa Ti popped up, and we filmed a match race in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It galvanized the film crew; it galvanized the sailors."

BIG IS IN
The European multihull scene has changed. The 60-foot tris that served as sex symbols for so many years are has-beens, and 2010 Route du Rhum organizer Pierre Bojic (his organization, Pen Duick, also handles Transat Jacques Vabre, and Transat AG2R) says it's time to move to bigger boats.

"Over the last two years, nothing has happened within ORMA", Bojic says. "There are no new projects, no architects doing research, and no sailors trying to raise funds."

So bring on the maxis. Orange, Kingfisher, etcetera, and expect a circumnavigation race in 2011.

Volvo: Good, but no longer boxy
I hope you're following leg one of the Volvo Ocean Race, Alicante to Cape Town. The competition is keen, and I'm fully invested as editor to Matt Gregory, who is blogging from the nav station of Delta Lloyd.

Delta Lloyd is an older-generation 70 (modified; the winner of the last race). It came into this race at the last minute, and it was running last getting out of the Med so I suppose it's only natural that the Volvo promotions people sort-of ignored it for a while. That changed when Delta Lloyd started making smart moves and passing boats, working down the Saharan coast of Africa. Now the fleet is setting up for transiting the doldrums, which is the subject of the newest of Matt's missives to land in my email. About 12 hours after the last one. The man's a worker.

Volvo Race rules seal the crews off from the internet, so I have to post for Matt. What he hasn't mentioned yet at Volvo Hotseat is that Saturday the 18th is his 32nd birthday. Sister Caroline writes:

The big question for Matthew Gregory on October 18th is: What flavor birthday cake will you have on board? Can they make that in freeze dried form? If not, will anything else take the place of your favorite Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream cake??

Inquiring minds want to know....and wish you a very
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Caroline, Mom and Dad

Ditto—Kimball