SF-AC Negotiations:
Exclusive Pictures

By admin | Published: February 22, 2012

Okay, we hope it’s not quite that . . .

Even as negotiations continued between the city fathers of San Francisco and the America’s Cup Event Authority, with Stephen Barclay as the lead, Oracle Racing held a media day on Tuesday—I suspect the sailing team would rather have had the time for other business—and my takeaway was a comment from Russell Coutts that he knows of a fourth challenger who has begun work on an AC72 catamaran for the 2013 America’s Cup match.

Good.

We’ve downsized from the total of nine or ten AC72s that were thrown out as pie in the sky soon after the big trimaran won the America’s Cup, and we’re even downsizing (most probably) from the six challengers that more sober observers were guesstimating at the same time. But a fourth AC72 team in 2013 would be bigger than add-one. It would mean three pairs of raceboats on the water at a time, two pairs of challengers in the Louis Vuitton Cup plus the Defender’s two boats in what will be not exactly a Defender’s Trials. But it will be a trial all right to be prepared to keep the Cup in the USA.

Compared to Valencia in 2007 where there were teams that wouldn’t have held up in the regular run of Grand Prix competition, 2013 promises to kick off with an instant Final Four. And a long Final Four season they will have of it. It’s unlikely that a fourth challenging team (GreenCom?) would prove as strong as Artemis, Emirates Team New Zealand or Luna Rossa, but it is even more unlikely that anything less than a battle-hardened tough case will emerge to contest the America’s Cup match in September, 2013.

Is it good news if we don’t have more challengers? Of course not. At the gateway to the Orient we should have Korea and China. In a multihull format we should have France. But could a China-brand team of Western sailors actually transform itself into a team of Chinese sailors between now and 2013? Of these three countries, only a French team would be likely to apply meaningful pressure in the Challenger eliminations.

To my surprise, the downsizing of expectations took six days to hit the local press, counting from the meeting of the Budget and Finance Subcommittee of the SF Supervisors last Wednesday.

Pity the bloke on the street who thinks that this is news you can use, but, in the San Francisco Examiner we find Supervisor John Avalos fretting over the “disappointing turnout for a November event in San Diego.” Dude, it was November, and it was San Diego. That town ignored the racing even when it had the Cup. I could explain at least some of the reasons why in both instances, but you have to buy the beers and be prepared for a long sit.

In the same piece we have Aaron “oops, lost my political base” Peskin declaring to the San Francisco public that, “There’s no history of sailing regattas being a mass spectator sport in San Francisco or the world.” So let’s play a little game. Where’s Aaron?

Not in that picture, shot casually during the Louis Vuitton races in Valencia, Spain and easily duplicated by aiming the camera in any direction on any day from mid-calendar forward. Or before that in Auckland, New Zealand. Or in Fremantle, Australia. Never in San Diego, no. Not San Diego. So, Aaron, I’ll be happy—if you ever regain a political constituency—to explain at least some of the reasons why, but you have to buy the beers and be prepared for a long sit.

There’s probably another meeting today, Wednesday, for the city to present its proposals. Meanwhile, it is impossible for the bloke on the street, or me, to put a valuation on the matters at issue. Conspicuously, that is ACEA’s recently-surfaced desire for an after-regatta lease on Pier 29, the public space pier joined to the Cruise Terminal to-be.

Both sides have made occasional doomsday predictions about how the city could lose the Cup, and the Cup could lose the city.

But I don’t see it.

It would be possible to run a viable America’s Cup event from Pier 80, at the foot of Cesar Chavez. That’s the present Oracle Racing base, and it will be the primary base for racing this August and/or September when the one design AC45 fleet comes to town on the last leg of its 2012 tour. Retreating from the touted tourist-friendly, locals-friendly, renovation-desperately-needed downtown locations to remote Pier 80 would be a pity all around. But the city of San Francisco would lose more than the event.


THE ORACLE RACING MEDIA TOUR

The hulls for Oracle Racing’s first AC72 (but not the wing) are being built in the team’s gigantic shed at Pier 80. They let us go in, through this door . . .

though without cameras, on the argument that digitized photos could be fed into software that would analyze them down to the nth degree on behalf of the enemy. Inside, I gazed deeply into a half-mold for an AC72 hull. I studied. I pondered. I can tell you (but don’t tell anyone else or I’ll have to kill you) that it’s skinnier in front than in back.

Sitting nearby, not in a secured zone, was this thingamajig that is not unlike a catamaran hull . . .

Which I suppose, but do not know, falls into a category not unlike the L-turn daggerboards with the little bullets on bottom that both Oracle Racing tri’s were carrying in their demonstration sail (AC45s race with one-design straight daggerboards but can test-sail other configurations). I figure, if they liked them, they wouldn’t be showing them to us.

As originally pitched, Oracle Racing CEO Russell Coutts was going to have been aboard the restored FDR Presidential Yacht Potomac to mingle with the press as we watched the catamarans sail. Something tells me his priorities shifted as negotiations with the city took their most recent turn. Let’s just remember this basic rule:

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Love Letter to Sailing

By admin | Published: February 13, 2012

It’s such a common phrase, such a common feeling, that we take it for granted. The romance of the sea. Even those who dwell far from the sea are not immune to it. Red sails in the sunset. The very notion of sailing away to paradise. Those who heed the call, those who love the sea and sailing, will not find it strange that a sailor would choose Valentine’s Day to write a love letter to the sport.

Once upon a time there lived a young man so enamored of sailboat racing that he couldn’t look out from the deck of one raceboat to another race going on over yonder without wishing he could be part of that race, too.

Absurd? Whoever said that Rational was a component of Passionate?

Ernest Hemingway was no bigtime sailor. On the water, he was more at home in the fighting chair of a fishkiller with a touch of brandy close at hand. But the man had an eye. He could absorb what he saw and put it into words. He had gazed across the waters. He knew the look of boats under sail. And there came a moment in the writing of The Sun Also Rises when the blankness of the page demanded a next sentence that would describe, economically, the beauty of his heroine, Lady Brett Ashley. And he wrote, “She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht.”

The real flesh and blood Lauren Bacall, who brought so many fictional characters to life—Hemingway’s “Slim” Browning of To Have and Have Not, comes to mind— has many times remarked that her only real competition for Bogie’s affections was that danged boat, Santana.

Do sailors romanticize their boats? Do they ever. With so many women sailing now at the top of the sport, it’s awkward to wade into the origins of the usage of “she” to speak of a boat. But, let’s be simpleminded. Sailors in those early days were men, and that’s how they felt about their boats.

Are boats erotic? Don’t be silly. I just like to run my fingers along the hull . . .

And on a boat, it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day to need, seriously need, chocolate.

And there must be some reason why the last Transpacific Yacht Race produced three engagements.

Once upon a time, a not-quite-so-young man looked out across his home waters to a pair of wing-sailed catamarans moving fast. Their presence hailed the coming of America’s Cup to San Francisco Bay, a coming so devoutly wished, for so long, and (he knew he cared, but still he was surprised) he cried.

What more can I say?

Sailing, I really really really like you. I mean, I like you a lot. I mean—
Okay. I admit. It’s more than that. This is the real thing, and even though I really really really got ****’d in that last race, I’ll still love you tomorrow.

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Coming to a City Hall Near You

By admin | Published: February 10, 2012

I’m not old enough to write a whole column about my digestion, but I will confess that I read the San Francisco budget analyst’s report/recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, parsing the latest business negotiations between the Port, the Office of the Mayor and the America’s Cup Event Authority, without fully digesting it.

That is, there wasn’t any sentence or paragraph that I didn’t understand, but—

It’s 36 (thirty-six) pages long, and it peels the onion on where negotiations have gone since the Supervisors unanimously approved the Host City Agreement on December 14, 2010. I’m not going through it here. The point-by-point is all about piers and leases and leasebacks and there’s just too much detail and each detail raises another question, answers not included. The short of it is that (let’s give him a name) Harvey Rose’s office is recommending changes to be made in favor of the city, and this is your heads-up to expect more half-baked sky-is-falling headlines in the local press. Those 36 pages are now in the hands of the Supes. It’s going to be a busy week. And I note that we’re also in a time when doubts again are flying about the future of America’s Cup on San Francisco Bay . . .

But not here.

It’s good news that, contrary to a month ago, when the America’s Cup World Series event in April at Naples, Italy seemed in doubt, Naples is on.

It’s good, but it’s not yet “news” that another U.S. event could be added to the calendar in 2012. All the teams are up to date on the possibility.

Everything is going to be fine.

We’re going to have some arguments, some of them in public.

Agreements will be reached.

We’re downsizing expectations. There won’t be nine challengers, or six. There could be (and it is not pie-in-the-sky to hope for this) more than the three challengers now in-build on AC72s. China, Korea, and the Spanish/Italian challenger Green Comm are all in the hunt for funding, and Green Comm just announced a partnership to support their Bay Area operations through 2013. If their cause is hopeless, they haven’t noticed.

Until June 1 all the AC45 teams are still alive as possible one-boat, second-tier challengers (there’s no expectation regarding the French). But with or without more AC72s, the racing will be revolutionary, and the revolution will be televised. An important network (not CBS, not ABC) has been in-negotiation for a long while, announcement to follow soon, I believe.

Suddenly there’s all this speculation that America’s Cup on San Francisco Bay is in trouble.

But not here. It’s hard growing up. It’s hard making adjustments. Get over it.

See you on the water.

JUST A NOTE

Last weekend Oakland Yacht Club was packed to standing room only to share a farewell to Diana Green Jessie, a woman who opened doors for all the female sailors who followed on San Francisco Bay. Hard as it may be to imagine today, there really was a time when only one boat in the entire YRA had an all-woman crew, and it was considered startling to the point that Diana named her team the Uppity Broads.

It was after she married Jim Jessie that she took off on the 48-foot Nalu IV for a circumnavigation and a half, writing books and magazine stories and covering 62 countries and 130,000 miles. She was a mentor to many, including Behan of the sailing vessel Totem, presently at anchor in Brisbane, Australia. Behan wrote-in remembering Diana as someone who made . . .

“Footprints for others to follow.”

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TIME TO PANIC? uh, no

By admin | Published: February 2, 2012

Everybody please relax. The America’s Cup is going to be fine.

Through the lens of Gilles Martin-Raget

The recent spate of negative headlines from Auckland to San Francisco will someday make comic collectibles. I seem to recall, not so many years ago, a great handwringing around the building of a ballpark that was sure to drag the City of San Francisco straight to gridlock-perdition . . .

A “disappointing turnout” at the America’s Cup World Series event in San Diego? I wasn’t disappointed. I was validated. Before the event I had told contacts in the office of the mayor, the tourism office, and the port that, sure, they should go to San Diego and observe and learn what they could. But don’t take San Diego as a predictive barometer for San Francisco. San Diego never got behind the Cup when it was in town, 1988 to 1995, there was no buzz over an off-season catamaran race in 2011, and most people never even heard about it. The turnout had to be modest. The competition itself was good. Among the citizenry of San Francisco, meanwhile, there is a tremendous upwelling of curiosity and excitement surrounding AC34. I experience it every time I go out to give a talk, whether to a sailing crowd or a Rotary. Is it such a stretch to convince anyone that San Diego is not San Francisco?

I also hear the catcalls and snide remarks, but not from the informed.

And yes, as a few people have “discovered,” only three Challengers at this point are building AC72s, plus Oracle Racing as Defender. Total of four. But if at least a few (very few) of us could believe in 2010 that the Defender really did want to race on San Francisco Bay—that it wasn’t a ploy—then perhaps a few of us can recognize the signs that there will be more than four AC72 teams in 2013. As America’s Cup Race Management CEO Iain Murray puts it, “We have four more teams that credibly could build an AC72. China Team, for example, has build space on hold at McConaghy in Zhuhai.” I personally am hopeful for the Spanish team, GreenCom. They’re not in-build, but Murray asserts, “There’s more than smoke and mirrors.”

June 1 is the deadline for AC45 teams to put up or shut up, to pay the critical entry fees to advance to next-level status as AC72 Challengers for America’s Cup 34. Those who are funded to build an AC72, will. And then we’ll know.

And yes again, expectations are being scaled back, in some cases in absolute numbers, but not in all cases. Those close to the event have been trying for at least a year to adjust public expectations around the idea that we’ll see peaks of public interest, not two and a half months of Fleet Week-sized crowds on every race day of 2013. That’s good news/bad news, meaning not so much traffic of potential customers/not so much congestion as some imagined. And yes, it is easier to sound an alarm than to think things through, easier to “discover” and cry crisis about ongoing concerns that are being carefully addressed, easier to make wisecracks about giving away the waterfront to a billionaire than to realize that San Francisco is getting an incredible deal. As one veteran of waterfront development says—this would be Simon Snellgrove, Pacific Waterfront Partners, speaking—”Larry Ellison will be lucky to break even.”

Folks, it’s called the Flats. The long news hole when the trench work begins, after the honeymoon (such as it was) and before the payoff, which begins this summer.

It’s hard to know where to begin.

So let’s start with the piers. 27-29 have been in the works for a long time, to be converted to a cruise ship terminal for the sake of that seasonal business, with a large, rentable public space working twelve months a year to fill in the down times. AC is not the driving force on that redevelopment, and the AC impact is modest but valuable: A few physical enhancements not in the original budget, and a period in which AC, renting public space, is the Port’s (very welcome) first customer. South of the Bay Bridge, Piers 30-32 have been deteriorating for years. They’re out of hand, with maybe five years of semi-useful life remaining; meaning, portions of 30-32 are strong enough to support the parking of light vehicles, but not heavy trucks. Without intervention, within this decade, 30-32 becomes rubble blocking the Embarcadero from the Bay. Before the America’s Cup there was no Plan A for 30-32; now there is no Plan B. The piers were put out for bid years ago, and the biggest developers in town looked at them, ran the numbers, and walked away.

America’s Cup needs 30-32 for team bases, so Larry Ellison’s group took the deal. They’ll shore up the existing structures enough to make them usable in 2013. Beyond that, they have a longterm lease in which to recoup multimillions in upfront costs. But to do anything they will have to go back to square one: Further restructuring. Permitting. A new Environmental Impact Review. Approvals from multiple agencies. Anyone who didn’t need the piers would run, not walk, away.

Port Director Monique Moyer has described the system of rebuilding the piers in exchange for longterm leasing rights as, “our standard tool; it’s how we did the ballpark and the Ferry Building.”

Now, I would never hire me to explain high finance, and there are more elements to the deal than I’ve described, and it’s fine and dandy if SF Supervisors such as John Avalos and David Campos want to play to an audience about watching out for the city’s money. But simple minded little me will keep going back to the simple equation, no Plan A before, no Plan B now.

Olympic silver medalist Bob “Buddha” Billingham is the man on the ground for America’s Cup Race Management and its interface with the piers projects. He describes the Tuesday groundbreaking at Piers 27-29 as, “Ceremonial. They knocked a hole in a wall, and the tenant on the other side hadn’t even vacated yet.” So what’s the deal? “The real work starts on March 1 at 27-29. As for seismic work on 30-32, the contracts have been signed.”

So we’re off to the races.

America’s Cup 34 is the biggest gamble ever undertaken in the name of sailboat racing. Imagine any other sport being turned on its head to the tune of new equipment, new rules, new capabilities, all in one stroke. No guarantees, but if this works, it’s a new day at the high end of sailing, a new day for a revered competition that has defined yacht racing, for the public, for more than a century. For better and sometimes for ill. Watch closely. A grand adventure is unfolding before your eyes.

There is continuing discussion around a format that would see a best-of-three-short-races format earning one point. As in, a match race format between two boats where one boat wins the day by winning two of three short races. This will almost certainly be tested in AC45 racing this year. Murray said on Wednesday that it possibly, “could be carried over to Louis Vuitton Cup racing in 2013.” Advocates see it as a workout for the crews, but with a greater fairness because one dumb mistake, or one piece of bad luck, does not seal the day. This will shake out as we get closer to America’s Cup 34, and however that plays—

“I don’t see San Francisco being disappointed at all,” Murray says. “From August of this year you’ll be seeing people moving here to take up residence and support their boats. And whether it’s eight challengers or three challengers this will be heady stuff. As the defending Australian team in 1987, we practiced for years before we raced in Perth [Murray was the designer/skipper of the defending 12-Meter, Kookaburra] and even with those years of practice we had spinnakers under boats, you name it. Now we’re looking at boats that will be going four times those speeds, manned by quality teams, spending a lot of hours racing. No, I don’t see San Francisco being disappointed at all.”

The winner of more 18-foot skiff championships than anybody, a onetime Defender of the America’s Cup, a successful designer, boat manufacturer and waterfront developer, Iain Murray is one of the few humans qualified to take the helm of America’s Cup Race Management. Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget/ACEA

We should see Oracle Racing’s first AC72 sailing on San Francisco Bay in July, as soon as it is legal under the Protocol to sail. Challenger of Record Artemis will be here by September. Others will follow quickly, because, for an AC72, this is the only place to be.

Will all four of the “could build” teams get funded to go ahead? I wouldn’t bet on that. Will all four of them fail? I wouldn’t bet on that, either. Did I mention, the America’s Cup is going to be fine?

FLEET RACING FOR CHALLENGERS IN THE LOUIS VUITTON CUP

Not much fleet, racing, but a first. Three days of fleet racing, July 5-7, to launch this thing with a maximum visual punch. No two ways about it, fleet racing has been more exciting to watch than match racing on the AC45 circuit. With the 72-footers in an opener on San Francisco Bay, the visuals have the potential to be all-timers. The points on the table are small, however. I’d figure that, in traffic, all the teams will be sailing with caution, because winning the fleet racing is only a tiny step toward becoming the 34th Challenger for the America’s Cup.

And the schedule for 2013 racing is . . . right here.

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Time for a New Tall Ship?

By admin | Published: January 30, 2012

Number one question of the day: WHAT IS IT?

Answer of the day number one: Plankton.

Number two question of the day: Who sailed 27 of 31 days last October?

Answer of the day number two: The schooner Seaward, operated by Call of the Sea, an educational nonprofit focused on marine sciences, nautical heritage, and the environment on and out of San Francisco Bay. Aboard the Seaward it is an everyday thing to troll up plankton . . .

And study them under a microscope, then match up the tiny wigglies with the big board that shows what’s always there in the waters of San Francisco Bay.

Marine biologist Haley Chutz shares the wigglies board with young Torben

Seaward carried 5,000 passengers in 2011, most of them schoolkids—mostly three hour day trips for elementary students; overnight trips available for teenagers—to share the rich, lively wilderness lying at our doorstep.

Seaward in its educational capacity in Northern California is operating at capacity. Executive Director Charles Hart tells us, “There is such a need out there.”

That need, and that crunch point, prompt Seaward skipper Alan Olson, founder of Call of the Sea and now a man on a new mission, to declare, “We think San Francisco Bay is ready for its own tall ship, a ship that could provide 10,000 kid-sailing opportunities a year.”

You could see it as an audacious proposal to launch into a difficult fund-raising environment, or you could see it as the first step in a journey of a thousand miles. Educational Tall Ship, as names go, sums up the intent of the project rather well.

A brigantine’s square sails may not be efficient on all points of sail, but they do wonders for keeping kids busy. I am reminded of sailing down the Oregon coast on the US Coast Guard training barque Eagle, which led me to write: She carries a crew of 6 officers and 55 enlisted to ensure the safety, training, and bonding of the next generation of Coast Guard officers. This is a leadership laboratory. It’s about teamwork. As one officer put it, “You can’t gainfully employ 120 cadets in one shot on any other ship in the Coast Guard or the Navy.”

Olson looks toward his own project and says, “A ship is one of the best educational tools available. Building a ship keeps knowledge and skills alive.” Build it of wood, he says, and you can give back more than you take: “We want to use Forest Stewardship certified Oregon white oak and Douglas fir, sustainably harvested, and we intend to plant more trees than we take.”

Olson envisions using recent advances in propellers and electric propulsion/regeneration motors, battery design and electronic controllers to combine 21st century power with 19th century sailing technology. “We can recapture 50 kilowatts an hour under sail,” he says.” “In four to six hours of sailing we can achieve energy self sufficiency. The operation of the ship becomes a teaching tool.”

When that day comes, the action on deck will look a lot like a recent winter Sunday aboard Seaward. This was not a student trip, but there were a couple of younger souls aboard, and the teaching went on because Haley (“There’s plankton in your toothpaste”) Chutz, frankly, has no off switch . . .

Nor does Ryan . . .

And of course, everybody gets to steer. Jon D. Got the call . . .

All photos here are © KL

Except the shot below, Seaward coming at you, courtesy of Call of the Sea, which also does private charters to support the teaching mission. If you’re looking for a charter opportunity that is attractive, comfortable and 120 percent professional, you won’t go wrong here . . .



BAY MODEL PUMPING AGAIN

It was built to test a notion that today would be regarded as wacky from the get-go, but back in the day, a proposal to dam off San Francisco Bay at the Golden Gate fit with notions of “progress.” And what an incredible build it was. The model, that is. Enormous and enormously-complex, the San Francisco Bay Model was purely an engineering study at the time, but now it’s a public facility.

After a hiatus for an overhaul, the massive hydraulic pumps are pumping again at the 1.5-acre Bay Model—there’s nothing to match it anywhere—mimicking current patterns from Sacramento and Stockton to the Golden Gate. By operating the model, and observing the flow or lack of flow and the consequences thereof, the US Army Corps of Engineers demonstrated to its full satisfaction, mid-20th century, that damming off SF Bay was a no-no.

For a long time afterward, the model just sat there, but—

Today the Bay Model is a visitor center and even a community center for the town of Sausalito, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Years ago I would go there when that transformation was only a dream. I used to give tide lectures there too, and drop confetti into the water so that people could follow a six-hour tide cycle scaled down to six minutes. Since then the model has been, shall we say, re-modeled. It’s a great visitor experience with no door fee, though I don’t think they’re encouraging confetti any more, and that does make it harder to spot the finer points of currents and eddies.

(By the way, the Model is a worthwhile tour, but if your mission is to figure out how to sail the Olympic Circle, forget it. The East Bay shallows are just not modeled well enough to make it instructive.)

Bay Model doors are open Tuesdays-Saturdays, and on February 25 there is an official re-opening to celebrate extensive refurbishing that includes a new roof covered by solar panels, energy efficient lighting and a general sprucing up. Seaward berths on the Army Corps dock, and I hadn’t toured the model in a while, so imagine the convenience . . .

Learn more about the Bay Model right here.

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10-0 Vote But . . .

By admin | Published: January 25, 2012

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night voted 10-0 to reject two appeals against the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Review.

Though not until the AC Event Authority agree do re-site its JumboTron from a barge anchored in Aquatic Park – where swim clubs argued it would stir up toxic silt – to a spot on land instead.

The vote does not preclude civil action, but I note that certain parties to the appeal, such as the Sierra Club, are on record as wanting the America’s Cup to be sailed on San Francisco Bay. Things need to get moving and keep moving.

The next hurdle is a February 8 vote on the development agreement for the piers of the Port of San Francisco that will be used for America’s Cup events and later leased to Larry Ellison’s assigns to recover the cost of overhauling those piers from their present derelict status. As of Tuesday night, Supervisors Avalos and Campos seemed bent on trying to improve the deal on behalf of the city and, OK, that’s their job.

But before the America’s Cup came to town there was no Plan A for our several crumbling piers (30-32 have at most a semi-useful life of six years) and now there is no Plan B. I figure Ellison will be lucky to break even on the deal he has now, so the Supes should not push their luck to the limit.

I had to be elsewhere during the Board hearing, but I have seen this from Paul Oliva:

“I was there for the hearing and of course talked to a few people. As was known going in, the greatest populist issue was placement of a JumboTron with a diesel generator on a barge in the middle of Aquatic Park, which is a sanctuary for swimmers and rowers (how many can there b,e you may ask? About 2200 members of the swimming/rowing clubs in the cove and swim events rivaling the larger yacht racing events on the bay). There were more swimmers than sailors at City Hall last night.

“When the Event Authority pledged to remove the JumboTron and work through the other issues, the Supervisors quickly chose to deny the appeal. It remains to be seen if the appellates will take this to the court system, which they may still do. There are many folks who want to subject any development to the “bottomless can of worms” that Kimball mentions.

“Now, recall this was a vote just on the environmental review. There was an undercurrent last night that will come to the peak in a couple weeks when the supervisors need to approve the financial side of the project, long term lease arrangements, and departmental plans (such as municipal transportation). Some Supes (especially Campos and Avalos) want to see if they can rejigger the deal to squeeze more money out of the event and get more leverage in the lease terms.

“It looks like there are enough votes on the board to keep things moving, though we will all need to keep support up to provide political cover.”

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AC Priorities: View from Down Under

By admin | Published: January 24, 2012

Howzabout a little guest editorial from someone who has made the rounds of America’s Cup. You should know the name Keith Taylor. If not, what’s below is self-explanatory. Keith’s missive arrived at San Francisco City Hall yesterday, in advance of today’s hearing before the Board of Supervisors – the hearing to decide the fate of an appeal to the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Review:

Supervisors . . .

I urge you to hew to the greater good when considering the challenges to the America’s Cup Environmental Impact Report. Yes, you should respect the environment, but that’s not a mandate to block progress.

My first-hand perspective on the America’s Cup stretches over 45 years. As a marine writer and editor I’ve covered every America’s Cup defense since Newport, RI, in 1967, with the exception of the two Cup defenses in Valencia, Spain.

In 1986-87, and subsequently, I witnessed first hand the transformation of Fremantle, Western Australia and the broad benefits that accrued to Perth and Fremantle from the America’s Cup there. In Auckland, New Zealand where I now live, I walked the rotting quaysides, explored derelict industrial buildings and watched the dredges as they began the transformation of the dirty and defunct Lighter Basin to the current Viaduct Basin, home to pleasure boats, a fishing fleet, excursion boats and megayachts. Today it’s the most vibrant part of the city. It’s a powerful case study for San Francisco as it comes to grips with its America’s Cup moment.

I was also on hand to see how San Diego failed to marshall the political will to do justice to its America’s Cup opportunities in ’92 and ’95.

The plan for the 34th America’s Cup offers San Francisco an unparalleled opportunity. We’re talking here about change that will last for lifetimes, balanced against temporary increased noise, congestion or blocked sightlines. From the perspective of this American citizen your duty is clear.

. . . Keith Taylor, Auckland, NZ

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The Cup’s Next Hurdle

By admin | Published: January 23, 2012

One of my takeaways from a heap of 2011 trips to San Francisco City Hall was a higher opinion of city government than I had when I started. Knowing that some of the best minds in what they call down there the “city family” have spent the last year working with the America’s Cup Event Authority to develop a plan that will work for 2012-13, it strikes me as almost an insult (though it’s inevitable, I suppose) that an appeal has been filed against the Environmental Impact Report recently approved by the SF Planning Commission.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be hearing public comment on the appeal on Tuesday, 4 pm.

This is the first crunchtime since the host city agreement sailed through, and once again the troops will gather for the Public Comment period, pro and con. But it’s not Armageddon, I think. I hope.

The objections revolve around arguments that the framers of the plan have not paid enough attention to this or that, and the EIR is therefore “inadequate.” The first appeal was filed on December 14 by Lippe Gaffney Wagner LLP’s Keith G. Wagner, alleging that the EIR “fails to fully and adequately identify and mitigate the impacts of the projects.”

Well now, “fully and adequately” opens the door to a lot of interpretation (opens the trapdoor to a bottomless can of worms?) but a confident Board can close that same door.

One party to the appeal is the Sierra Club, whose Rebecca Evans has said, “It’s not the Sierra Club’s intention to stop the event. We know it’s important to the city. We just want it to be green and sustainable and in accordance with the laws.”

OK. And the rest of us want to get moving.

Now that a pile of dough has been spent restoring the bleachers at Aquatic Park (for example), it makes sense to at least a few people to use those bleachers for viewing aquatic events. America’s Cup racing, for example. And it makes sense to at least a few people to anchor a Jumbotron in the park to bring the up-close action to folks ashore. Will the generators that are required to run a Jumbotron burn enough carbon to justify appealing the EIR? The Sierra Club thinks so. I kinda doubt it. Will anchoring a big thingie in Aquatic Park stir up nasty industrial nuggets from days gone by, bringing harm to the once-content swimmers and rowers of the two clubs on the shoreline? That, I really don’t know. But I do know that we can have an America’s Cup with or without a Jumbotron, so let’s get this settled and move on.

I’ve written to all twelve members of the Board of Supervisors, urging them to reject the appeal: David.Chiu@sfgov.org,David.Campos@sfgov.org, John.Avalos@sfgov.org, Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org, Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org, Mark.Farrell@sfgov.org, Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org, Jane.Kim@sfgov.org, Christine.Olague@sfgov.org, Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org, Malia.Cohen@sfgov.org

[Public Hearing - Appeal of a Final Environmental Impact Report - 34th
America’s Cup and James R. Herman Cruise Terminal and Northeast Wharf Plaza at Piers 27-29]

29. 111358
Hearing of persons interested in or objecting to the Planning Commission’s decision, dated December 15, 2011, Certification of a Final Environmental Impact Report identified as Planning Case No. 2010.0493E, for a proposed project involving America’s Cup Sailing Races in the Summer/Fall of 2012 and 2013, including various waterfront venues, and a proposed project involving construction of the James R. Herman Cruise Terminal and Northeast Wharf Plaza at Piers 27-29. (District 3) (Appellants: Keith G. Wagner on behalf of San Francisco Tomorrow, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Waterfront Watch, and Telegraph Hill Dwellers, Filed December 19, 2011; Rebecca Evans on behalf of the San Francisco Group of the Sierra Club, Filed January 4, 2012). (Clerk of the Board)

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Posted in Destinations, Sailboat Racing | Leave a comment

CooperatingGate, the Next Salvo

By admin | Published: January 12, 2012

In our previous post, ETNZ a One-Boat AC Team (Not?), we examined the implications for the partnership of Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa of a December 28 decision of the America’s Cup Jury. The Kiwis and the Italians have been silent, but the third of the three fully-accredited challengers for AC34 (and Challenger of Record), Artemis Racing, today released the following:

12 January 2012 – The Jury Decision in Case AC06, issued on 28 December 2011, has made it clear that Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) and Luna Rossa can not proceed with all of their publicly announced plans without violating the Protocol for the 34th America’s Cup. This substantiates Artemis Racing’s understanding of the Protocol and the basis for the team’s filing of Case AC07, submitted on 16 November 2011.

ETNZ’s public announcements and submission to the Jury on 26 November 2011 stated that:

A. ETNZ have a collaboration agreement with Luna Rossa
B. The agreement provides for Luna Rossa to directly or indirectly build a yacht
C. The agreement provides that ETNZ shall obtain design and performance information from the Luna Rossa boat through “two boat testing”

The Jury Decision in Case AC06, clearly states that if an agreement exists between two teams, one which contains A, B and C; then there would a violation of Protocol 33.4.

Artemis Racing has received the clarification it was seeking.

Artemis Racing knows that ETNZ and Luna Rossa have done A and B and plan to do C. Artemis Racing is confident that the teams will modify their plans so as not to violate the Protocol.

Posted in Sailboat Racing | Leave a comment

ETNZ a One-Boat AC Team (Not?)

By admin | Published: January 3, 2012

Emirates Team New Zealand, incarnation 2011. Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget

I see the most recent decision of the America’s Cup Jury being portrayed in New Zealand as a win, but to my monkeymind it looks like a setback for the Emirates Team New Zealand/Luna Rossa partnership, with first-generation AC72 catamarans set to launch just six months from now. Am I missing something?

I figure ETNZ as a two-boat team, but they just might be nursing a sore toe—

While many of us spent the “holiday” weeks fa-la-la-ing away, folks involved in whatever capacity with America’s Cup 34 were cranking right along. The America’s Cup Jury on December 28 released a decision on Jury Case AC06, which is an indirect ruling on the partnership between challengers Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa. The two teams in November announced a cooperation agreement by which the Italian team gains “full access to all ETNZ design and performance data” until December 31, 2012. For its part, ETNZ gets money. When you’re older, I’ll explain, but for now note the words performance data.

Italian spirit, 2007. Photo by Kimball Livingston

Design sharing, within defined paramenters, comfortably fits the letter of the Protocol of AC34. But the Protocol imposes strict limits upon two-boat testing and development. The partnership announcement (the words “performance data” jump out) prompted America’s Cup Defender Oracle Racing to submit eight hypothetical questions to the Jury. Those questions were posed as if Oracle were considering taking on a partner, just as ETNZ had done, and they were aimed at clarifying just what a partnership is allowed to do or not.

The Kiwis reacted as if this was aimed at them.

When you’re older, I’ll explain.

Coming out during the holidays, the ruling on Oracle Racing’s eight questions attracted little attention. In the one spot where it did pop up promptly, it was interpreted by New Zealand journo Richard Gladwell as just what the doctor ordered for ETNZ/Luna Rossa. On Sail-World.com he writes:

“The only limitations that have been imposed are a requirement that all the boats be built by independent construction teams, and that the crews cannot swap between boats. Additionally, parts such as foils cannot be swapped between boats.”

Oookay. There’s a disconnect here. While I can’t claim to have been inside the heads of either of the team leaders, Grant Dalton for ETNZ or Patrizio Bertelli for Luna Rossa, my read of the December 28 ruling zeroes in on limits to pretty much everything involved in two-boat speed development, which is kind of, like, central to their planning. As in—

QUESTION 5
42. Would ORACLE Racing (OR) and Competitor B (CB) remain compliant with the Rules if OR and CB share performance data obtained prior to 1st January 2013?

43. Answer: Yes. There is no article that prohibits two Competitors from sharing performance data obtained prior to 1st January 2013, provided Article 33.4 is not breached by virtue of an agreement between the two Competitors. However, both OR and CB will be using each other’s boats for their development. They will therefore be Surrogate Yachts for each other, as set out in Article 29.4 and then both of them will be prohibited from building another AC72 Yacht under Article 29.2.

So, a one-boat team benefits from a sharing arrangement, but a two-boat team would be rendered one-boat in an instant if, by chicanery or error, performance data was exchanged. Their development opportunities would be suddenly skewed.

Are we learning here that ETNZ and Luna Rossa intend to build only two boats between them, to see how smart and how fast they can become before the legal cooperation window closes on December 31, 2012?

Perhaps it is so, but that scenario doesn’t square with anything. Not with my expectations. Not with Grant Dalton’s public statements about an intent to build two boats for his team. Here is Gladwell again:

“By building two boats to an identical design and working against each other, the two teams would obtain vital design and performance information which could then be laid off to good effect with the development of their second boats, which would have to be developed independently.

“In normal circumstances, a team would have the choice of building two identical boats and then refining that platform. Or more commonly, building two slightly different boats – with the second being the development of the first. The partnership contemplated by Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand would give the teams the best of both options.”

If it is possible for two boats to perform leapfrog development without sharing settings, benchmarks and whatever else might fall under the heading of performance data—rendering each boat, under the Protocol, a surrogate of the other—someone is going to have to cure my sense of dissonance by telling it to me “like you’re telling it to a four-year-old.”

And if you read the JURY DECISION you will see that Luna Rossa and ETNZ, through their legal teams, submitted a number of arguments attempting to subtly reconstruct the Protocol (suggesting, for example, that one segment was a subset deriving from an earlier segment—a line of argument that only lawyers could come up with) but those were rebuffed by the Jury.

MEANWHILE

Luna Rossa competing in Valencia, 2007. Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget

However the performance-testing game plays out, Luna Rossa’s entry is a tremendous boost to AC34. Luna Rossa won the Louis Vuitton Cup and raced for the America’s Cup in 2000 against ETNZ. They made a good showing in 2003 and then made the final four in Valencia in 2007. Patrizio Bertelli’s decision to stand aside while other teams became the early challengers for AC34 drew plenty of finger pointing—”There’s your case study, Russell Coutts, it tells you where you’re going wrong”—but having Bertelli aboard now comes as a tremendous vote of confidence in the uphill battle.

So, ETNZ gets an infusion of cash. Luna Rossa gains instant access to the best of design and technology. The event gets another very good team, which it needs, and it could not have happened any other way, given the timeline. We’re not forgetting that Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin—Melvin was part of the team that wrote the AC72 design rule—are now on the design case for Emirates Team New Zealand/Luna Rossa. Bertelli’s sailors, and Dalton’s sailors, have every reason to expect the partnership to put fast, capable boats under them. In Valencia in 2007, Emirates Team New Zealand pushed the Defender, Alinghi, harder than any of the pundits dared to predict, and they’re now leading the America’s Cup World Series circuit that Grant Dalton so likes to assail.

Uncharted waters these may be, but the reefs seem eerily familiar.

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