John Craig just back from Europe had much to say about setting up the Oracle Racing Teams 110 shipping container command center for the first time in Portugal and then a second go at it in Plymouth, England. Seems like a lot of equipment to support a A/C 45 that weighs something south of 2000 lbs. In all the team puts something like 40 boats in the water for these preliminary races. Three containers are used for computer and video support. There are more lengths of video cable at the command center than there is line for the boats! Seated off to one side of the dining room members of the racing team sat at a table after working some 82 out of the 86 days they were in Europe. Boxers look like fighters, football players look like oversized teddy bears and world class racing team members look like men who have no life and shop for clothes at Sears. We can’t forget what they are doing. They are racing incredibly powerful catamarans that can in just 12 knots of wind reach speeds of over 33 knots over the water. In San Francisco Bay summer winds can breach 30 knots any day and gusts to 38 knots are common. This kind of boat in this kind of wind will require a combination of skill and
courage. I heard a number of the sailors speak of the boats having a narrow range, a razor’s edge, and that when things go wrong, and they fall of that edge bad things can happen fast. I much enjoyed a medical emergency team leader describing how he’d ended up with a contingent of a crackerjack crew of Italian Navy rescue workers and that they were laconic, lazy and listless waiting for something to do. As he approached the capsized Chinese A/C 45 in Plymouth the entire team leaped unexpectedly into the water to practice their unique brand of lifesaving! Think spaghetti western meets Waterworld! This America’s Cup is in a rather interesting iteration. First choose the fastest boat designs in
the world, add to that budgets for all in costs that will approach a billion dollars per team, and mix the worlds best sailors and you have the makings for a spectacle of a kind humankind has never before witnessed. I’ll be in San Diego in November to take a closer look. Those 110 containers are aboard a ship and heading that way now. Thank Larry Ellison for all of this. Finally someone who knows how to enjoy his money.
Bankrupt Heart The Second Novel
Passing off to one side of Jasmine was Lenny’s boat headed in the other direction. Lenny shouted, “Long live Jasmine, may the gods and luck sail with you,”
He stood on the stern of his boat. Lenny was steadying himself holding on tight as his cruising boat self steered south.
Ry and Finn waved to the outbound offshore singlehanded sailor. “I don’t think I’d want to go offshore alone.” Ry said.
“Takes a particular kind of man,” Finn said. “Not many are cut from that clothe…”
