Alongside the still-sore tragedy of the loss of Andrew Simpson in the Artemis crash, Prada boss Patricio Bertelli has stirred his own drama by going public with a demand for lower wind limits, and by sending Luna Rossa out sailing rather than wait out the one-week grace period requested by the newly-appointed safety review committee. Lower wind limits would be an inevitable conversation regarding over-horsed boats, but Bertelli in his press conference on Saturday also injected the new notion of wind limits during racing of “a couple of knots” higher than the numbers for starting. Hitting those numbers during a race would trigger automatic abandonment.

Would we ever complete a race?

The San Francisco Bay seabreeze builds through the day. Luna Rossa skipper Max Serena and his team know this. Why else would they have been out there at 1000, on the West Bay waters where the racecourse will be laid, and gone by 1100 on their first day of toe-in-the-water testing?

Seabreeze at 1000 Saturday, 12 knots from the west. Seabreeze at 1500, 19 knots from the west, and the locals who were sailing their own races remember it as a warm, mild, golden day on San Francisco Bay. Not the bear, much less the big bear.

Presently the wind limits for starting a race are 25 knots for the Louis Vuitton Round Robin and Semi-Finals, 28 knots for the LV Finals, and 33 knots for the America’s Cup match. Bertelli proposed lowering the starting limits to 20 knots throughout the challenger eliminations for the Louis Vuitton Cup, and 25 knots for the match. Offhand, that doesn’t sound problematic, but automatically pulling the plug at an additional “couple of knots” sounds highly problematic.

Meanwhile, one surface ripple of deeper currents flashed in Bertelli’s comment, “We will not tolerate a bending of the rules using the fatality as an excuse.”

Other writers have undertaken to tell of Andrew “Bart” Simpson, his young family, and his friend from childhood, Artemis sailing team director Iain Percy, partners in winning two Olympic medals. I can’t add to what has already been well said, but I can say a word for at least some of the sailors of San Francisco Bay who greeted the arrival of the America’s Cup with so much joy and hope and who haven’t let go of the hope even in the midst of mourning. Mourning for Simpson; mourning for the ideal America’s Cup that now cannot be. For three years I have experienced the enthusiasm of the Bay Area for the Cup. Sailing audiences, general audiences, no matter, peaking in the crowd-pleasing AC45 races of August (especially) and October that converted many old-school thinkers to the new order. Converts who are wavering now. Nonetheless, for most, hope and enthusiasm have survived among compounding disappointments. Volunteers are still volunteering. And now this. In the space of 24 hours, Friday night to Saturday night, I witnessed two full-house turnouts. The Saturday-night screening at the Sausalito Film Festival of The America’s Cup: 150 Years in the Making was dedicated to the memory of Andrew Simpson and attended by a range of people, from a few who just wanted to know “something” to wooden boat enthusiast Alan Olson of the educational nonprofit, Call of the Sea, who wouldn’t let a thread of carbon fiber anywhere near the tall ship that he’s beginning to build. But all of these people care. All of them want to welcome the world to this wonderful patch of water. All of them want to see a good competition. All of them, hope.

A week or so ago, when we were reading “might be cancelled” stories, people needed assurance that it wasn’t so. Now there are questions about whether individual challengers will drop out, and—

The Italians might make threats, but they didn’t come to leave. The Kiwis have been quiet (since coming to town) but they are in the mindset of warriors in a hostile country, outgunned but spoiling for a fight. If you don’t already know that the Kiwi-Kiwis don’t like the “American” Kiwis, you’re missing essential backstory. That leaves Artemis, Challenger of Record, the question mark.

Artemis CEO Paul Cayard once partnered with now-Oracle Racing CEO Russell Coutts to attempt to launch an international circuit in large cats, along the lines of the ORMA 60 trimarans that were then racing, and occasionally cartwheeling, around Europe. It’s worth noting that the then-presence of the ORMA 60 circuit was part of the reasoning to go a step bigger than 60 feet to create a catamaran class for the America’s Cup. We’ve said before that the 34th America’s Cup is the biggest gamble ever undertaken in any sport, not just by fielding boats that reach near-freeway speeds but by attempting to revolutionize every aspect of the event. Cup historian John Rousmaniere is no fan. Talking to NPR’s Richard Gonzales on All Things Considered, Rousmaniere called the AC72s “Indy cars without brakes.”

Well, choices were made early on that have taken us to the edge or beyond. The boats did not need to be this powerful to make their point. Ellison and Coutts both have been saying so for months, but the AC72s can be sailed and surely will be sailed. Post-2013, we won’t see them again in this form, if at all. Safety matters are one thing, but there’s also the fact that, because of those powerful and (to me) fascinating wings, it takes a small army and a lot of time to launch or retrieve an AC34. They’re each a marvel, but at this scale the wing is a hassle.

How well will catamarans prove out as match-race vehicles? I’ve heard predictions here and predictions there. Call me in October.

In the run-up to 2013, Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton has criticized Cayard and Coutts for having a chummy (my word) rather than adversarial relationship—challenger versus defender—and the description is true enough. Were Artemis to stand aside, the Kiwi team, next in line, would become the Challenger of Record, and challenger-defender negotiations would become darker and much more complex. About a month ago, as the Kiwi team was packing up to ship out of Auckland, Dalton told me, “The America’s Cup is a very nasty place right now.”

And that was then, and this is the new now.

OTHER BIG GUYS

Still the fastest go-places boat in the world, though the 500-meter and nautical mile records now belong to hyper-specialized Vestas Sailrocket (65.45 knots and 55.32 knots) Alain Thébault’s trifoiling l’Hydroptere has spent more than half a year on San Francisco Bay/ The French record hunter is now preparing to sail south for an attempt on the Transpac course. Not to sail the Transpacific Yacht Race, mind you, but to take a start and finish from the Transpac Yacht Club from the familiar start to the familiar finish, Point Fermin to Diamond Head, whenever the weather lines up. This was the look in the summer of 2012 . . .

Photo KL

Also soon to launch in Alameda is John Sangmeister’s Tritium Racing, the ORMA 60 that Artemis Racing used for trialing its first wing, the one that broke in early testing in Spain. It is possible that the two boats will sail south together, and however that goes, it is likely they will tie up together at the pier in Rainbow Harbor in front of Gladstone’s Long Beach. Sangmeister, a veteran of Dennis Conner’s Cup-winning crew in Australia, is a restaurateur, a business pioneer (Rainbow Harbor once was a blighted neighborhood) and multihull enthusiast. He does plan to race Transpac in July. This is the boat sailing in a previous incarnation—

Artemis Racing today held a private ceremony commemorating the memory of our friend and teammate Andrew “Bart” Simpson. After eight bells, a wreath was cast upon the water by representatives of the four teams of the 34th America’s Cup. Then the morning’s rain parted and sunshine spread across San Francisco Bay. The Artemis Racing team thanks everyone for their support. Bart, may you rest in peace.

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The Review Committee is scheduled to meet with the teams for the first time on Friday morning.

From Dan Meyers – Newport, RI:
As I get older I figure that I have seen all of the foolishness in the world, but this week the nonsense submitted to Scuttlebutt is appalling.

Mr. Clark, I disagree with your assertion (in Scuttlebutt 3838) that Andrew Simpson “died well”. That he was a wonderful guy and a champion professional racer seems incontrovertible. But athletes are not gladiators to be thrown to the lions. They want to compete, enjoy the sport, the people they sail with and against, be fairly compensated, and then at the end of the day go home, hug the wife and kids, have dinner and go on. This is a tragedy, nothing less.

Mr. Livingston, for you to use this awful accident (in Scuttlebutt 3839) as a bandwagon to promote mostly yourself as a visionary, the venue which is in absolute contravention of the Deed, the promoters who have misrepresented every material development – economic, cost, safety, participation etc, etc, etc – is plain absurdity. But then to twist this around and bash Ernesto Bertarelli is stunningly wrong and in bad taste.

The Cup didn’t need a rescue; many believe the 2007 version was the best ever. A dozen or so teams, millions of spectators, hundreds of thousands of jobs and a host city transformed. Safe and close racing, sometimes with the winner determined by a single second. Mr. Bertarelli has been out of this for years. He has gone back to the sport itself, actively participating as a true yachtsman. And you then have the hypocrisy to complain about “the politics of the past”? Take your garlands and fig leaf and do something anatomically impossible with them.

We now must wait to see what will be done for future safety, to prevent another catastrophic accident that is too likely as the boats get more urgent and in closer proximity of racing. I am no expert, but smaller wings would help, or much lower wind ranges. This was all so predictable, and it is a tragedy that it took a death for others to admit it.

Lastly, if you can’t behave with decorum, how about trying it for a brief period so Andrew Simpson’s family, friends and teammates can bury him and grieve without this stupidity buzzing around their heavy hearts.

The America’s Cup match of 2010 was a rescue. The direction of the Cup under Alinghi post-2007 was so sour as to convince Louis Vuitton to bail out, remember? Only a risk taker with tenacity, resources and experience in hostile takeovers—Larry Ellison—could have undertaken the mission. So I guess we’ve reached that part of the movie where Princess Leah looks to Luke Skywalker and says, “Some rescue!”

It was all so pretty, wasn’t it? Finally, Stan Honey would get financing to move the sport onto a viable television platform. At last, America’s Cup boats would represent the Loud Now and not the cutting edge of some previous decade. It would happen live for tens of thousands of eyeballs and be broadcast for any number more. We would see the fruition of Tom Blackaller’s quip, 1987, “If we ever get the America’s Cup to San Francisco Bay, we’ll show the world how good sailing can be.” And in catamarans? Blackaller would have been in clover.

And now this. I woke up this morning, and Andrew Simpson was still dead.

All the platitudes apply, just as I’ve heard them from one person or another over the past few days. He died doing what he loved. All sports have accidents, and sometimes we lose people. All true, but of no help in this place, at this moment, and too mindful of Ellison as quoted by Julian Guthrie in her upcoming book, The Billionaire and the Mechanic. With his maxi, Sayonara, delaminating in heavy seas between Sydney and Hobart, Ellison declared to himself, “What a stupid way to die.”

It would have been an easy call to stay with monohulls for business as usual, after Oracle Racing and the Golden Gate Yacht Club captured the Cup. But the upward arc of business as usual (11 challengers in 2007) was interrupted by two years of courtroom headlines, and I lay the blame for that at the door of Ernesto Bertarelli, with garlands and a special fallen fig leaf cluster.

The TV people told Russell Coutts that business as usual, even amped up, would never hold their attention. Not everyone could give a hang about the TV people and their view of sailing, but the event went for the not usual, and we’ve crossed a threshold. For the first time in the history of the galaxy, not one but two TV teams set up cameras in front of my house. When the big guys aren’t talking, the press talks to each other. I did my best to say something useful, and I think I did, but who knows what part runs. I mean useful as in parsing out this: The conversation about what anomaly caused Artemis to implode is completely different from the conversation about relative safety while racing AC72s.

The AC72 conversation is not complete without a reminder that the good old single-hulled boats of the previous cycle included OneAustralia, which cracked open and sank in 1995 in one of the more vivid two-minute sequences in the annals of televised sailing, and Young America, which”cracked open in the Hauraki Gulf but not below the waterline, and so it didn’t “quite” sink.

I was nowhere near the meetings where these things were discussed, but Tuesday’s press conference confirmed what I believed, that when everybody has had a deep breath, or several, we will pick up where we left off, and we’ll go racing. I figure that Artemis will trial its new boat, and if this one isn’t a dog, they will race, hard. Maybe they will race, even if.

Luna Rossa and Oracle are likely to resume sailing on Thursday. New Zealand’s first scheduled sailing day is May 23.

I am keenly aware that Artemis has asked that we “not persist in unnecessary rumor,” but the news cycle does not stop. The void will be filled. When the Cup came to San Francisco, I was thrilled. My mouth was all over it. I beat the drum hard. Talked it up on radio and TV. If the same people call me now, I think I have an obligation to do the best I can with the situation.

The German Sailing Federation withdrew its financial support for the German youth team for the Red Bull, but the team has not withdrawn from the competition, no matter what you may have read. You should have no trouble finding plenty of sources for accounts of the appointed international review committee that was announced today. It would just be fodder here.

Going forward, there will be some ugly talk. You may have seen it in the forums already. But a chunk of the more polemical stuff coming from abroad has its origins not in this moment but in the politics of the past. There were good reasons for all of the decisions that got us here. Each AC72 is a prototype, and America’s Cup 34 is a prototype, and with a prototype, you don’t know where the edge is until it’s behind you.

This is where we started, 27 years ago, trying to bring the America’s Cup to San Francisco Bay . . .

(Credit needed, probably Robert Campbell)

Thursday, May 9 may never be completely behind us, but I look forward to America’s Cup 34.

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I remind all involved that a void will be filled.

For a bit of perspective on the America’s Cup as a development platform, and the risks of pushing the envelope, here is an essential read from 1995. And then (and only then) you should relive the drama at OneAustralia swallows the ocean.

Yes, it’s hard to look at Erik’s pic.

ABClocal/KGO

See capsize and recovery from every point of view

Hallelujah, the Vega Carina made Barbados from Trinidad late Wednesday, presumably with The Container aboard and its contents of seven 5O5s, masts and sails for another dozen or more boats, and international juror Vicki Gilmour’s rule book.

Unfortunately, Wednesday was a holiday, so even an early arrival would not have meant an offloading, and even an offloading, whenever it happens, won’t mean jack. Because there is no hope of getting The Container unsealed and its contents through Customs in time for Friday’s final race of the SAP 5O5 World Championship. Even if it would be worth it to try, and it wouldn’t. A dark cloud and rain closed out a day of sunshine as the ship came in. Of course.

Some folks have already packed up and gone home, Krysia Pohl, for example, who greeted the news of the impending arrival of the Vega Carina with a wry, “Just in time.” A few other orphans have lucked into rides as replacement crew, and Jeff Miller was “happy” just to get out on a press boat after declaring it his mission to speak against MSC Shipping “for the rest of my days.”

Gosh, Jeff, it’s only time and money. And a lot of both. Figure now that the thing gets shipped back to the West Coast without ever being unsealed, and the sails for various Europeans can be mailed from there.

In other news, a consolidation day moved Stefan Boehm and Gerald Roos to the top of the leaderboard after six races. Got a good story about the race 5 winner, but have to write it for the regatta before I can take more time here. As a great American once said, gotta go.

Like the SAP 5O5 Worlds on facebook: SAP 5O5 Worlds

Follow the action on twitter: Twitter Worlds

Does God think that because it rains in torrents I am not to go to Peru
And destroy the world?

Doesn’t relate, quite, but it’s a gangbusters line and I’ve always wanted to use it. From the wonderful, fierce poet, Ai. And it did rain in torrents, straight down, with no wind on Monday in Bridgetown, Barbados and destroyed plans to sail race five of the 2013 SAP 5O5 World Championship

God’s judgement on the meanderings of The Container?

Said object being now anticipated to arrive in Bridgetown on Wednesday aboard the Godot, I mean the Vega Carina, last spotted via AIS in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Spotted frustratingly briefly via marinetraffic.com. And then the icon disappeared. For all I know, The Container has been abducted by aliens, yep yep yep.

RED HAT PARTY GETS REAL

I reckon I have a dozen or more Mt. Gay caps, all of them earned, some of them hard-earned, and a few that I’ve given away. And I reckon I’ve been to Mt. Gay parties on more than one coast and in between, but tonight they’re opening the doors to the temple. Barbados is the home of Mt. Gay Run, the source, the fount, the beginnings of which you and I and whats-their-names are the end consumers. Their web site tells me—

Every great story begins with a time and a place. For Mount Gay Rum that time and place is the Caribbean Island of Barbados in 1703. Rum, originally called “Kill-Devil” by the Barbadians who first distilled it, is truly a product of the island. The abundance of molasses combined with the culinary ingenuity of early settlers and, of course, their legendary thirst for alcohol lead [sic] to this unique discovery in the production of spirits.

I’m still struggling, however, with the information that Sir John Gay partnered with John Sober to run the company.

THE CONTAINER

With seven boats aboard, masts, and sails, the absence of The Container has rocked this event, but not in a good way, at least for the West Coast contingent. A fortunate few shipped their boats to Barbados last winter for a look-see and some practice. The rest, well, the rest would consist of

Jeff Miller/Mike Smith
J.B. Turney/Justin Shaffer
Krysia Pohl/Paul Von Grey
Anne Fitzpatrick/Christian Pittack
Holt Condon/Reeve Dunnes
AND Jason Tindale/Robert Povey of Barbados. SAP co-founder and 5O5 enthusiast Hasso Plattner shipped a boat so that there were would be an entry from Barbados, which has no indigenous 5O5s. These guys are still waiting for their first ride. Hasso brought his own boat down last winter.

The waiting crowd has been touring, snorkeling, paddle-boarding, all the things that, in a different context, would be just great.

Me, I’m through writing.

The sun’s breaking through. I’m off to the next yachting hellhole.

The walk home looks like this—Kimball

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