America's Cup racing stutters and stalls

by Sail-World.com on 10 Feb 2010 Sail-World attended the dockout at BMW Oracle Racing base, as the delayed star, announced last night meant that the ceremony would take place in the dawn light.

When the four busloads of media and supporters arrived it was announced that the start had been delayed for a further hour and there would be no dockout as scheduled. This puts the earliest start time as 1400hrs, and the teams are required to be given three hours notice of any intention to race. That means that the delay can really only roll for another two and a half hours, meaning that a final decision will have to be made at approximately 1300hrs CET.

When we arrived back at the Media Centre the word was that Principal Race Officer, Harold Bennett had gone out on the water to inspect the situation at first hand.

The issues is believed to be the seas, at 1.5 metres, slightly more than 'anticipated conditions' specified in an earlier Notice of race published by organiser and Defender, Societe Nautique de Geneve.

BMW Oracle Racing were believed to be keen to race today and their Challenger was all set to cast off.

The breeze did not see to be too bad at the dock, just a little cold. Snow is being forecast for Spain for Friday.

Earlier reports

The Locals put the chances of any racing being held today at slim and that would mean for a second scheduled race day no racing has been possible.

This 2010 Deed of Gift rules event could fast turn into a DOG.

Because the two teams were unable to agree in Singapore to bring the event into the 20th or 21st century, the event has defaulted to the rules of the original Deed of Gift.

The problem is that under the current (inflexible) interpretation of the original Deed of Gift, the match racing leg length of the race is set at 20 nautical miles, much longer than the typical 2 nautical mile lengths sailed in modern times.

The very long leg lengths make the chances of top and bottom marks having similar wind dirrections unlikely unless there is steady gradient pressure. No problem for racing monhulls but for the gossamer spider Alinghi, 15 knots is well above her range and the extended 747 wing of USA-17 will problem want to stay south of 25 knots at all times.

The second inflexible, and as some have suggested, stupid interpretation of the DOG rules is that there has to be a day's delay after scheduled days which cannot be sailed, not just after days raced.

Had short 2-3 mile lengths been sailed then a giant world-wide television audience would have seen an exciting and historic race on Monday. Instead the cable channels switched away to motor car racing reruns.

Had races been able to be run the day after a non race, then the two boats could have sailed yesterday. No racing today will mean no attempt before Friday and the weather is not looing promising then either.

The effect of this Deed of Gift interpretation is that many media and event visitors may leave Valencia without seeing any racing at all.

We hope we are wrong! Stay tuned and maybe we will see racing in three hours time.