BMW Oracle's America's Cup Challenger launched

by Jane Eagleson, BMW Oracle Racing Media on 26 Aug 2008
BMW ORACLE Racing’s new 90-foot multihull yacht touched water for the first time today and the trimaran was commissioned with the traditional bottle of champagne smashed across the bow.

In a team gathering at the water’s edge, the carbon fiber boat was lowered into Fidalgo Bay in front of the boat yard where it was constructed on the Anacortes waterfront. Melinda Erkelens, Golden Gate Yacht Club board member and BMW ORACLE Racing team member, broke a bottle of Moët et Chandon as she commissioned the new BMW ORACLE Racing 90.

'We have learned a lot and developed a lot of new technology in building this boat and I’m really looking forward to testing it on the water,' said team CEO and Skipper Russell Coutts. 'It is going to be an interesting challenge and we will need to build up slowly and carefully to testing its full potential,' Coutts said.

The team expects sea trials to begin in early September once the fit-out is complete and structural load tests are conducted dockside. The team partnered with Van Peteghem and Lauriot Prévost (VPLP) of France and one of the most successful skippers in multihull racing, Franck Cammas, to design the innovative trimaran.

Led by Mark Turner and Tim Smyth, the BMW ORACLE Racing construction team has worked in a purpose-built composite yacht construction facility housed in a 100-foot x 200-foot, three-story shed. Janicki Industries in nearby Sedro-Woolley provided high-tech precision tooling.

Bringing unique technological competence and setting new standards in the area of intelligent lightweight design, BMW has been a key partner in developing the boat. BMW aeronautical engineers, Christoph Erbelding and Thomas Hahn, have stayed with the design team since the 32nd campaign providing unique expertise in finite element analysis, which is a key tool for fulfilling EfficientDynamics requirements in the automotive industry.

The yacht is a key element of the team’s preparation for the next America’s Cup, representing San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), on which a ruling is expected from the New York State Court of Appeals in the next six months.