DUBAI, U.A.E., 17th January 2010 – Dubai was today unveiled as the Middle East venue selected to host the Louis Vuitton Trophy, a two-week carnival of elite sailing which will put the global spotlight on the UAE.

Four spectacular 85-foot long America’s Cup Class yachts – sailed by world champions, Olympic medallists and round-the-world sailors – will be the focal point of the event which will firmly establish Dubai on the sport’s map.

The prestigious Louis Vuitton Trophy – a true test of the crews’ ability with teams racing identical yachts – is one of the most coveted events in sailing and Dubai joins established premier regatta venues, including Auckland, Sardinia and Hong Kong, as 2010 hosts.

It will be held at Mina Seyahi, the home of Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) next to the Palm Jumeirah, while Emirates Airline – a leading sponsor – will be flying in many of teams and their armies of support staff, as well as race officials and spectators from around the globe.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman DIMC, and Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said: “This is a real coup for Dubai. We are honoured to be part of this fantastic event which has rapidly emerged as a renowned spectacle of sport followed by millions around the world.”

“As well as thrilling spectators both here and on TV, it will consolidate Dubai?s status as a venue capable of hosting major international sporting events.”

“We are also looking forward to welcoming our very own Emirates Team New Zealand back to these shores and, having won the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in Auckland last year, confidence will be high coming into this event.”

“Emirates has a great affinity with sailing and it is exciting to be strengthening our commitment to the sport further by supporting a race which will bring the world?s finest sailors to Dubai.”

The event – which gets under way on 13th November and will feature on-shore entertainment and a host of other activities – is also expected to put wind in the sails of the UAE tourism industry.

Businesses throughout the UAE are expected to benefit after the organisers of the 2009 Louis Vuitton Pacific Series reported that the 14-day festival injected US$12 million (Dhs 44 million) into the Auckland economy.

As well as Emirates Team New Zealand – featuring sailing great Dean Barker – and Artemis (Sweden), with the legendary Paul Cayard pulling the strings, the line-up is also expected to include: BMW ORACLE Racing (USA); Azzurra (Italy), TEAMORIGIN (Great Britain); Mascalzone Latino (Italy); Synergy (Russia); All4One (France/Germany); and Aleph Sailing Team (France).

Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, said: “Louis Vuitton has been present in Dubai for more than 10 years. In 2010, we are thrilled to maintain this relationship through a great sailing event, while reinforcing the age-long Dubai tradition for regattas.”

Saeed Harib, President of the UAE Marine Sports Federation and CEO of DIMC, which will host the race, is delighted to be helping the growth of the sport in the region.

“Dubai was host to the Emirates Team New Zealand Pro Am Series in 2006 and Alinghi and Victory Challenge boats during the winter of 2007,” said Harib.

“With the Louis Vuitton Trophy, DIMC and our partners Emirates Airline are continuing that relationship and in doing so creating a new platform for the development of modern sailing in the region.”

Paul Cayard, Chairman of the World Sailing Team Association and skipper/strategist of Team Artemis, said: “I have been sailing in Dubai on several occasions. The conditions are ideal, the course is next to the shore and the atmosphere is exciting. DIMC is a fantastic host and I am sure our event here will open many eyes to this fantastic racing venue.”

The Louis Vuitton Trophy – which is split into two five-day rounds, followed by semi-finals and the finals run over two days each – will mark the start of the Sea Dubai Watersports Festival, under the patronage of HH Sheikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

The festival – now in its third year – will feature: the Dubai Shamaal World Surf Ski Championship; Oakley Riot World Wakeboard Tournament; UAE National Day Watersports Parade; Mina Mile Swimming Competition; Open Water Swim; Jet Ski Competition; Traditional 43ft Dhow Sailing Championship; and finishes on 11th December with the final round of the Class One World and XCat Powerboat World Championships.

For more information, visit: www.louisvuittontrophy.com

Artemis ended the Nice event with a loss today against All4One. It was a close race but the French/German team had the upper hand at the first cross and they did a nice job to protect their lead.

Two matches were completed early this morning in the northerly drainage wind. In those matches, Emirates Team New Zealand scored a come-from-behind win over Synergy in the last 100 meters of the race as the wind was dying and the boats sailed downwind into a very large sea rolling in from the east. In the other match, BMW Oracle handed Team French Spirit-Pages Jaune a loss in what was never really a close race.

Then we had the long wait as the wind transitioned to the easterly. We had a few issues on our boat before the start with a broken mainsail batten but we finally got underway around 1330. After our race, Emirates Team New Zealand and Synergy raced again and it was Synergy who took the win in a very close race with a few penalties being given to Emirates Team New Zealand. In fact, there was contact in one situation and the jury penalized Emirates Team New Zealand 1 point and Synergy 1/2 a point. So currently, Synergy leads that semi final with a score of 1/2 to 0.

In the other semi final, Azzurra was over the start line early and made things easy on TeamOrigin. So that semi final is tied 1-1.

Racing continues for the top four tomorrow but the bottom four are finished.

Artemis finishes up in 7th which is not what we were aiming for. But we have made a good investment in our future by getting the team together and competing here. We have learned a lot and will be stronger in New Zealand in March for it.

I am off to Dubai tomorrow with Robbie Naismith, Marco Constant and Jared Henderson where we will race next week on Katusha, the RC 44, with the rest of our team.

Despite the difficult conditions here with the wind in Nice, it has been a fantastic event and all the sailors have enjoyed the racing. This morning, at 0730, there was a line of people right out of the village gate waiting to get on the spectator boat list. Not bad for the middle of November!

Thanks to Louis Vuitton and the city of Nice for all of their support!

Only one race was completed today and that was a semi final match between Azzurra and Origin. The Italians continue to sail well beat the Brits by over a minute to take a 1-0 lead in their best of three series.

No other racing took place. We have struggled here a bit with the wind but it is the end on November in the northern hemisphere.

We are first up tomorrow with a 0830 start which means 0730 dock out. We race All4One in a one race knock out. The winner of our race will race the winner of BMW Oracle-French Spirit for 5th place.

We had a few meetings today one of which was the shareholders of the World Sailing Teams Association. We had a very good meeting that included planning for next year. The Auckland event in March and Sardinia event in May were confirmed. We are working on two more and they will be confirmed by the end of the year.

One win and one loss for Artemis today. The bad news is that we lost to Synergy who are on a bit of a roll. We beat All4One so they are definitely out of the top four.

Synergy then went on to defeat TeamOrigin in the third flight of the day, so now they are one point ahead of us and our tie breaking advantage has gone away as we both have beaten TeamOrigin.

In the Synergy match, we were just ahead on the first windward leg, not clear ahead, but with starboard tack rights as we came together for the second time. We tacked to leeward of Synergy as there was 4 times as much port to be sailed as starboard. We call that 4 to 1. However, we were not able to close up to them on the long port tack and we ended up following them into the windward mark. Approaching the leeward mark, we had closed a lot and almost crossed ahead of them. However, they were able to gybe inside of us and make the left gate mark. We may have not made the perfect tactical decision here as we could not quite pull off the pass. Once they rounded ahead of us, that was pretty much it.

Against All4One, we had a split tack start with us out to the right. This means that when we come together we have the power of starboard tack. We forced them away once and then the second time, they shot through to leeward of us as we completed out tack onto port. There were many protest flags flown here by both boats. There was a green (no penalty) by the umpires for the first incident, our tack, and then a penalty on us for the second incident, probably windward/leeward. Terry is at the umpire debrief so we will find out exactly what they saw and why we were penalized.

Anyway, we sailed well from there as the wind died considerably. I was up at the top of the rig most of this race and it was a very rough ride because there is a fairly large southwest swell running. Morgan Larson did a nice job calling the shots on the last lap and we stretched enough to comfortably get the penalty turn in at the finish line and take the win.

BMW Oracle lost both of their matches today against Team New Zealand and TeamOrigin so they are not looking good for the semi finals. BMW Oracle were well ahead of TeamOrigin in the first race of the day but lost the lead when they did not cover TeamOrigin and left them on their own going right. TeamOrigin got a big shift over there and passed BMW Oracle to take the win in that race.

There are three flights left. Team New Zealand, and TeamOrigin are very safe in for the semi finals and Team New Zealand will win the Round Robins and therefore chose their opponent for the semis. With Synergy beating us and TeamOrigin, we have our work cut out for us to get into the semis. I think they have to lose both (they face Team NZ and Azzurra) while we have to win both (BMW and French Spirit). If they only lose one and we win both we will tie and I am not sure yet how that gets broken. In any case, all we can control is the races we are in so we have to go out and win two tomorrow.

For complete results go to www.louisvuittontrophy.com and the team’s site www.artemisracing.com.

We had one race today and it was important. We raced BMW Oracle and if we had won, it would have put us in fourth place after Round Robin 1.

We knew the importance of this race and we were doing a great job half way through. Terry had gotten another great start and Morgan and Kevin did a great job of controlling the race. We rounded the first windward mark with a 20 second lead.

On the first run we suffered a hydraulic failure and lost all of our hydraulic controls. So we sailed up the second windward leg at about 93% of full speed. They got ahead of us and rounded the second windward mark about 2 boat lengths in front of us. We closed a bit on the run but they managed to hang on.

That was very frustrating to lose a race we had in hand through equipment failure. Did anyone else notice that it was Friday the 13th?

Now the Race Management Committee has decided to modify the format of the event. There will not be a complete 2nd round robin. Rather they had decided to pit the top four boats against the bottom four boats. So this will result in each team only sailing 4 matches over the next four days rather than the 7 we were supposed to sail. This is because the committee thinks it is unlikely that we could complete the full round robin give the current weather forecast.

So there is now a huge difference between being 4th or 5th after round robin 1. If you are 4th you race only 5-8. If you are 5th you race only 1-4.

There is one more match to finish from round robin 1 and that is between Synergy and BMW Oracle. If Synergy wins that race, Artemis will end up fourth. All three teams, Synergy, BMW Oracle and Artemis will be tied on 3 wins, an unbreakable tie, so it will go to the team who beat the highest placing team not involved in the tie. And that is us because we beat TeamOrigin.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed for our Russian friends tomorrow morning!

For complete results and even live streaming of the races go to www.louisvuittontrophy.com and the team’s site www.artemisracing.com.