My last article seems to have created quite a stir, even prompting an online poll showing a big split in opinion over the nationality requirement for the pending America’s Cup match between BMW Oracle and Alinghi. There was even at least one email lobbying people in how to vote! As I struggled to find something to write about this month I thought I would at least include some photos that I am pretty sure will get unanimous approval. Doesn’t matter if you are Swiss or American, you will like the graphics of my new boat. However, I can’t take credit for all of it, just the bikini top, as the original artwork came with the boat.

With the America’s Cup in a constant state of waiting for court orders and speculation about when it will happen, where it will happen and so on, like many others I am growing tired of that subject. But there is plenty of other great racing going on around the world right now.

The Farr 40 Worlds was a fantastic event with 33 boats from 10 countries. The TP52 season has just kicked off and I am racing with the new boat El Desafío Español, built in the team’s AC shed in Valencia with their crew and shore team doing the construction… I am very impressed with what they did in four months! And the RC 44 fleet is growing and becoming impressive as well. So there is a lot of good sailing going on but instead of talking about that this month, I ended up writing an introspective piece that I hope hits a note with someone.

The other night I was lying in bed in a Spanish hotel room, jetlagged and awake at 0400, and I started thinking about what I am doing (don’t do this, it is definitely a bad idea). I started thinking about the fact that I will be 50 next year, that I have been doing this pro sailing thing since 1983. I started wondering if I should be doing something else. As I was thinking to myself, ‘I have spent the last five years doing…’ I focused on the word ‘spent’. We often use this phrase in lieu of ‘I passed’: ‘I passed the weekend doing such and such’.

As I focused on the words ‘spent’ and ‘spend’, it really hit me. Someone got it right when they coined the phrase… you are spending your time and your life. Years are like cards and you only have so many of them. Figure you have 90 ‘year cards’ if you are lucky. As I am almost 50, I have 40 more to spend… if I am lucky. Then that’s it, you can’t ask for more, you can?t buy more, you simply run out.

All this thinking made me very happy with my decision to buy a boat and race with my kids to Hawaii this summer. I am going to spend a few months of time for a lifetime of memories and for enhancing the most important relationships of my life. In fact, I will lose some income during this period, missing two TP52 regattas with Desafío. Further, the project will cost me a few hundred thousand dollars.

I usually spend my time trying to make money. Now I am spending my time on something much more important and valuable to me: my kids. At the end of the road, when I am 90 and about to check out, what will be stuck in my mind? My trip to Hawaii with my kids, or one more race with a bunch of pros. And what will be stuck in my kids’ minds? A little more inheritance or the race to Hawaii with their father? That is how I want to spend my cards.

So the Hula Girl project for the 2008 Pacific Cup is now well underway. I have a few friends helping me make some improvements to the Santa Cruz 50, which was designed by Bill Lee and built in 1980. At 28 years, she is a little old for a boat, but she is still very cool. And as is the trend in today?s world, she has had some work done to perk her up…

Compared to how she was born, she has a 2ft deeper T-keel, 2ft more of pole, a carbon mast and boom and a 2ft hull extension. And we are putting her on a diet right now: stove off, refrigeration off, Spectra watermaker on, freeze-dried on, wood table off, laminate table on, quarter berths out, pipe berths in. And now she has gennakers rather than spinnakers.

My crew (18-22 years old) all sail 49ers and the like. They know what it is like to get up and plane and sheet on when the apparent wind goes forward. When they catch a wave, they are not going to want to bear away to keep the kite from collapsing, so we are putting on a Harken pedestal as top-handling the winches would get old and could be hard on us ‘senior’ guys.

We had our first crew practice at the end of April. We checked all the sails and gear that came with the boat. We reefed, peeled the kite, we hit 14kt in the bay reaching across the top of Alcatraz in 20kt of wind. In the evening I had all the kids over for a barbecue and we opened the liferaft in my pool. They got in it, checked out what gear is there, flipped it over and righted it. We will be training again soon with some night sailing, then again in July when we will sail the first 200 miles of the course and back to get a feel for the sails to be used, the watch system, cooking the freeze-dried, running the watermaker, and so on…

Then on 18 July we will slip out of the Golden Gate with an ebb tide and head to some islands 2,070 miles to the southwest. We understand that when we get there the natives may have some refreshments for us… pronounced MaiTai.

Well, I guess the worst-case scenario developed for the America’s Cup… it seems that Alinghi and BMW Oracle will have a race, probably not much of a match, in multihulls some time in the next 18 months. The rest of the teams and all the corporate sponsors and all the fans of sailing will wait on the sidelines while these two play their game… or maybe not. More on that later. Justice Cahn has yet to finally rule on when the grudge match will take place. Alinghi get to decide where.

Throughout the months of last autumn, as the legal battle lumbered down the road of due process, several attempts were made, mostly by BMW Oracle, to settle. Naturally BMW had demands and, yes, they got a bit steeper after the judge ruled that they were right in their initial claim against the validity of the Spanish Challenger of Record’s yacht club. But I would say that most of those close to the discussions were reasonably impressed that the ‘demands’ of BMW Oracle were not as outrageous as one might have expected given the ‘power’ they attained as events developed.

Yet the demands were too much for Alinghi. My feeling is that Alinghi were willing to put the ball in play on a short cycle, 24 months, if they had the deck stacked in their favour… Therefore the original Protocol of 5 July 2007, with the new class of boat and the defender racing in the challenger selection series and managing all aspects of the event, including deciding how the challengers would organise their own selection series.

As the critics mounted in the weeks that followed, the Swiss were willing to concede some of those points and they did. But not sufficiently for BMW Oracle and really not enough for anyone looking at the event objectively. Alinghi would not bend beyond a certain point and they bet all their marbles that Justice Herman Cahn of the New York Supreme Court would substantiate the validity of Club Nautico Espa&ntilkde;ol de Vela as Challenger of Record and that Alinghi could then proceed with the event they wanted and BMW Oracle would have to beg to be allowed to enter.

As the months went on through the summer and into autumn, Russell Coutts, CEO of BMW Oracle, sifted through the 2007 team, discarded some people, hired some new ones and built a strong group all the way around. He then put the technical team to work, first on a catamaran and then on the AC 90 rule once it was made public on 31 October.

By 27 November, when Judge Cahn issued his ruling in favour of BMW Oracle, BMW Oracle were ahead in a race for 2009, no matter what the type of boat. I think Alinghi realised this and reversed their strategy. They were no longer interested in racing a multichallenger event in AC 90s in 2009. They would rather go for the freak show of a ‘one on one’ multihull race… sort of a throw of the dice.

So that is where we are heading… watching and waiting for one of these billionaires to get his way and then create an event that the rest of the world can compete in… a world of people who really enjoyed AC 32 (this is to Alinghi’s credit), and who are interested in developing and continuing relationships with corporations who have supported the sport and put their reputations on the line in a very public way. I know a lot of the existing teams are doing some serious dancing and shuffling for 2008 in an attempt to preserve these corporate relationships.

Desafio Español, like many of the 2007 teams, has had to create a new schedule for 2008. Since there is no America’s Cup in the calendar and no class of boat to train in, the operations in Valencia have been stopped. Instead, the sailing team will be kept active by racing on both the GP42 and TP52 circuits this summer.

The GP42 Quebramar already won last year’s circuit with Laureano Wizner, Santi Lopez and the Desafio team onboard. This group will continue for 2008.

Meanwhile, a new Judel-Vrolijk TP52 is being built in the Desafio shed in Valencia and will launch in late April. John Cutler and I, and 13 others from the team, will sail that boat in the MedCup. Sandro Benini and Nihat Aydin will design sails for both boats.

Both will be painted with Desafio livery including our main sponsor Iberdrola. Other components of Desafio will handle logistics, rule advising, coaching, physical training and other types of support for the two crews. In this way they will stay active in very competitive racing, carry on building a working relationship, keep the sponsors happy and in the public’s eye… and quite simply keep the team alive.

What else? I have started to revive a dream I had about this time last year but did not fulfil… to race with my children to Hawaii. Last year it would have been the Transpac, which, in odd numbered years, starts in Los Angeles. In even numbered years there is the Pacific Cup that starts in my hometown of San Francisco.

My son Danny is 19 and daughter Alexandra will be 18 soon. We will take a few of their friends and at least one more ‘experienced’ (nice way of saying older) person to round out the crew. Sailing out under the Golden Gate Bridge with the next landfall being Hawaii… is there any better dream than that?

Now I just have to buy a boat.

In August I rejoined the TP52 MedCup Circuit for two events. I say rejoined because I sailed both the 2005 and 2006 seasons in the fleet with George Andreadis and his Atalanti team.

This is the class that has enjoyed the most growth in the past three years. I think that’s because of the perfect balance between fun in fast, fairly evenly matched boats, and costs, which are not minimal but are obviously manageable for 25 teams. After spending most of the spring commentating on TV for the America’s Cup, I was anxious to see if I could remember how to sail myself.

My first regatta in 2007 was Copa del Rey in Palma where I joined Alberto Roemmers and his Matador-Siemens team. The skipper of the boat is Guillermo Parada and he has put together a great team. The boat is one of five new Vrolijk designs for 2007 and Siemens have joined as the sponsor. Everything was well organised and the boat was fast so it was a pleasure to be asked to step aboard in the tactician role.

We sailed a very consistent series, never out of the top five in the windward-leeward races. I did manage to get us a disastrous result in the ‘coastal race’ but what would you expect from a guy with little offshore experience? In the end we won the Copa del Rey with a nice margin. This fleet is now so competitive that the slightest mistake and you lose six places.

My second event was in Portimão, Portugal with Doug deVos and his Windquest team. Doug skippers and helms his boat and is a very good sailor. Even more, he is a great guy to hang around with. The current Windquest is last year’s Botin & Carkeek designed Warpath which was a very strong boat. We managed to finish fifth overall in the shortened series as the wind was MIA for the last two days…

Another feature of the Portimão event was the first appearance of Lagos Sports on the sailing scene. Everyone there was quite impressed with the shoreside hospitality and organisation. There was a large tent with breakfast for everyone each morning… I am talking about freshly made omelettes, fruit, cereal, juices, breads, yogurts, you name it, we had plenty of it. The free bar was always open and there were great evening events as well. Lagos Sports really impressed and set a new standard for hosting a sailing event; this fact was especially pleasing to Russell Coutts and myself as Lagos Sports is now the managing partner of the World Sailing League!

It is impressive to watch the eight new boats in the TP52 fleet. The five Vrolijk designs, upwind in particular, are very fast. They just have a nice little edge in anything over 11kt. Even compared to Mean Machine, last year’s Vrolijk super-boat, this year’s models are special. The new boats are even wider in the transom on deck, which must make more use of the crew weight when hiking. The new Botin boats, Caxia and Mutua Madrilena, are good boats also but more so under 10kt of wind… and downwind all the time. Patches, the only new Reichel-Pugh boat, is a very good all-round performer. For sure the new boats are faster but Peter de Ridder’s Mean Machine team showed everyone in Portimão that it is more about who sails best than boatspeed.

Artemis won the 2007 Breitling MedCup circuit with owner Torbjorn Torqnvist steering his own boat. That is the second year in a row that an ISAF Category 1 helmsman has won the season championship in this very competitive class. I think that sends a great message to the sailing community.

A few words on the Cup. I read Grant Simmer’s ‘justification’ of the Protocol for the 33rd AC in this magazine last month. I like Grant and respect him a lot. He asserts that changing boats will be ‘better for the small or new teams’. I really struggle with that. With 100 boats built, the existing AC class is running out of design space so it is harder for the big-budget teams to find significant gains. The competition this spring was the closest ever. Teams like Shosholoza surprised many.

And I think the final, with Team New Zealand, was a real scare for Alinghi. A new rule will create a wide open playing field and a lot more research will be required so the best flow codes and operators will yield significant speed advantages for their teams. That is good for the big teams who have money and a large design team in place now.

Of course Alinghi are stacking the deck even more… in case a new rule wasn’t enough. They are the ones creating the rule so they are pocketing another six months’ design time advantage. So help me again with this one, Grant?

Then once the new boats are launched, and since two-boat testing is not allowed, the teams with the most experienced people will be able to develop their boats more and faster. How does this help a small or new team?

There is another new rule, the ‘no two-boat testing rule’, whose purpose it is to save money by cutting personnel. This rule will cut some costs but maybe not as much as one might

think.

First of all, any cuts in personnel are from the lower end of the pay scale, not the top. Then, because delaying the start of construction will give the design team the best chance to find the right shape the teams will get their new boats with just three months to go until the racing. How do you optimize this boat that no one has any experience in? You hire one-and-a-half shore teams and they work all night every night to make sure that the boat is on the water every day. You hire two full sailing crews and you keep that boat sailing every single day of the week! But this rule is the motivation behind Alinghi saying, ‘Well it wouldn’t be fair to us to not have anyone to race against so we

are going to join the challenger selection series.’

This has all gone way too far. Changing the class of boat and moving to a two-year cycle is too much to do at the same time. Now we have the uncertainty of a court case to boot. The event was growing in such a positive way. Let’s come back toward the rhumb line… a couple of hundred miles to the right I think.

The two round-robins are now finished. No surprises among the top three. The battle for fourth was a tough one. Mascalzone Latino looked favourite for the final spot after beating Team New Zealand in their very first race, but they could not hold the form and in the end Desafío Español secured that fourth slot.

Having done some work with Desafío this spring, it was nice to see the Spanish grow through the round-robins. They have a good boat, great boat-handling and they steadily improved. For sure they will face a tough opponent in the semi-finals but they have possibly the most potential to improve.

It was interesting to see the differences in the designs and which shapes prevailed. A high-prismatic boat (more volume in the ends) would do better in strong winds and lower prismatic (volume more concentrated in the middle of the hull) would do better in lighter winds and in manoeuvring. Also there are the cross-sectional shape differences. Some boats are very round and some have very hard bilges, almost chines. As the class has got narrower, bilges have been pushed harder to maintain stability and to reduce wetted surface at 30 – 33 degrees’ heel … the upwind target angle in 15kt. But the harder bilges seem to make the boat slower manoeuvring. While on these Version 5 boats with Desafío I often had the sensation I was sailing a shoebox in the prestart, as compared to the 2000 boats.

To my eye, in the top six, high-prismatic boats are Victory and Mascalzone, middle are BMW Oracle and Desafío Español, and the lowest-prismatic boats are Luna Rossa and Team New Zealand. The other big variable is which boats have been worked up to near the maximum of their potential. Obviously the bigger teams, with more money and time and experience, have got the most out of their boats. So from a design perspective we can’t draw any big conclusions simply from race results.

Personally, I like the mid to high-prismatic boats. I think Mascalzone and Victory are very good designs but both suffered from lack of experience in getting the most out of their boats in the time. Also the detailing, including fin/bulb/rudder, may not have been optimised fully. There is a lot of speed in detailing, tuning and sail shape and trim. There is a lot of speed in the steering and trimming that goes on during a race. Sailing is very dynamic. Not all teams are sailing their boat to the full potential all the time. The good teams can keep the boat ‘in the groove’ 97 per cent of the time while the less experienced teams will get distracted by the race and sail well maybe 85 per cent of the race. I think Alinghi is at least as high prismatic as BMW if not close to Mascalzone. That is why Alinghi are moving the start time for the match to a time that suits! Nice to be able to do that, eh? The others… 11th) China – good first try? Nice to have them in the game. 10th) Germany – first-timers. Nice to have them in the game. Not a terribly slow boat. 9th) +39 – underfunded. Too bad for an excellent group of sailors. 8th) Areva – more of the same from France, a country that should be doing better by now. 7th) Shosholoza – simply the best of the rest. Tomasso Chieffi and Paolo Cian did a great job. A lot of heart and soul in this team. 6th) Mascalzone – huge improvement on 2003. Almost! 5th) Victory Challenge – close but no cigar from a country that has been in the game for a while now. Got going too late.

A quick look at the semi-finalists

Team New Zealand came into play on the last day of the roundrobins. Good to see this type of execution when the pressure is on. The boat seems OK, but not great. It is good in 11kt and under. Fast downwind but these races are won at the start and up the first windward leg. Is there some more in the shed? BMW Oracle look very strong in all areas. USA 98 is a good all-round boat. Brady and Isler are doing a nice job of keeping it all together in the back. The crew are solid. But the question is will they be able to maintain the form when the going gets tough? Luna Rossa are similar to TNZ in design and performance – best suited to 11kt and under. Maybe not quite as powerful upwind. Will these teams be able to improve their range? Luna already have the low CG/high wetted surface bulb. What else can they do? Desafío look to have a similar prismatic to Oracle. This boat has the wheels in 15kt and defends well in 10. The sea breeze should be more regular as we go on and the start time from now on is 1500 which should favour Desafío and BMW… Desafío will be the underdog in the semis but no pressure is a great way to race.

Desafío Español are the only ‘first-time’ challenge in the four. The other three are into at least their second (BMW Oracle) or 6th (TNZ) attempt. The ‘roll-on’ factor is a big advantage. The best ‘first-time challenge’ and ‘bang for the buck’ award has to go to Shosholoza. This team impressed and enchanted. So what is the end game for the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup? Alinghi are waiting. Well, not really waiting. They are working hard testing changes and making their own schedule while the challengers try to win races and develop boats at the same time. After an incredibly well-conceived Protocol which has given Alinghi more advantages than any defender has ever had, the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup can expect not only every card stacked against them but also a very fast boat and well-oiled crew. The Alinghi trimmers are the best in the business so they are getting the most out of their boat more of the time than the rest.

The crew are mostly the same as 2003, so lack of confidence is not a problem! The one weakness may be at the helm. Obviously, Russell Coutts is the best but probably Baird or Holmberg will be good enough to get the job done.

Outlook: Alinghi 5-1. This may be generous to the challenger. Then what? Cup in Valencia in two years? Cup in Dubai? Cup to the highest bidder? Probably. Entertaining Dubai and others just to up the ante for Valencia? Probably.

Valencia has all the infrastructure so it would be a shame not to use it again. Collecting money from everywhere possible has been one of ACM’s most prolific traits… Just ask anyone who ponied up the 500,000 euros for a parking spot in the harbour for a couple of months.

All the hype by ACM about being an objective race organiser is just that – hype. This is the first time ever that the challenger eliminations have been run by the defender. It has never been worse for the challengers and I would be surprised if they accept this imposition again from this group. It is a shame really because the concept of one independent race management for the entire event is a good one.

But this ACM is a subsidiary of Alinghi and little has been done to mask that fact. I think BMW Oracle should send Larry in himself to do the negotiating next time. He seems to do pretty well in the software world.

It is the beginning of a new year and there is plenty going on. In the spring in Spain the Louis Vuitton Cup will be a great spectacle as it always is, and the America’s Cup will be raced for the 32nd time. In the ramp up toward the Olympic Games in China the ISAF Combined World Championships will take place in Cascais, and here in the USA we will hold our Olympic trials six months earlier than in the past in an effort to upgrade our performance in Qingdao. There will be a new roundthe-world event, the Barcelona World Race, and teams for the 2008 Volvo Ocean Race are already getting out on the water, with the Mean Machine crew taking the lead by getting out sailing for a few weeks before Christmas in the old Black Pearl.

I was flattered to be invited to join the Spanish America’s Cup team, Desafío Español 2007 – an invitation I accepted. I have agreed to work with them in February and March, in trialling their two new boats and in their preparations for the Louis Vuitton Cup. I am joining in an advisory role and will sail on the B-boat. I am looking forward to sailing with the Spanish, as they are a very good team that is fighting a tough battle with several other teams to be Louis Vuitton semi-finalists in May.

I am also interested to see the technological progress that has been made in the America’s Cup Class in the past four years. I am sure that sails and rigs have reached a very high level of refinement with all the money that has been poured into this event… I think this Louis Vuitton Cup will be one of the most competitive and closely fought contests in the history of the Cup.

The class has now been around for 15 years, 100 boats have been built and there are more professionals spending more time with more resources than ever. Should be good spectating…

Later in the year I am still planning on racing in the Transpac with my kids; but I have to admit that I have not solved all the issues of getting organised for that. In fact, I am still without a boat!

I have looked at a few options but not decided on anything as yet. Plan B will be to do the Pacific Cup in 2008. This starts in my town and finishes in Hawaii, so it has the added benefit of sailing out under the Golden Gate Bridge. The adventure is the same and the extra year of prep time may be a necessity.

In early August, my son, Danny, will compete in the 29er Swedish Championship in my in-laws’ home town of Kullavik, Sweden, as well as in the European Championship in Gottskar, slightly further south. I am not sure whether it will be Danny or my father in-law Pelle [Petersen] who will enjoy those events more. Danny is also a newcomer to the 49er class and has promised to take his dad out for a burn on the bay. I just bought my own trapeze harness and am standing by for the call!

I am also planning on jumping into the Star Olympic trials toward the end of the year. It will be a last-minute thing as opposed to the 18-month effort I put in for Athens. But I have been around Olympic Trials since 1980. I have been involved in sailing for over 40 years. I have seen plenty of people who deserved to win a regatta not win it and those who had little invested win. That is the nature of our sport and you have to know your venues. Some are more conducive to such a ‘hip shot’. Our Star trials will be held in late October in Marina Del Rey. Now there is a spotty, fluky, choppy venue at the best of times. Perfect for an older, seasoned, experienced and out-of-shape, untrained but hopefully lucky competitor. Nothing invested is the best way to sail loose.

I have been around my home in California most of the time since the Volvo ended in June. I have really enjoyed my family and being a supporter of their interests rather than being so consumed and focused on my own project that I missed everything that is going on with them. I am learning, slowly, that there is more to life than sailing, that life is relatively short, and that if you don’t make the time to participate or enjoy certain special things, you will miss them and they will be gone forever. This isn’t to say that you must put aside your competitive desires or career. It is to say that, if possible, you should become more selective as you grow older. I think that this will make the things I choose to do in both my sailing and my personal life more enjoyable and probably even more successful.

Finally my new book, The Black Pearl – A Pirate Ship, has now been published. Great winter reading in front of the fireplace plus all the profits will go to support youth sailing in the San Francisco Bay area!