BMW Oracle Racing's talk in Valencia's yacht club

by Valencia Sailing on 4 Jun 2008
'It was interesting but it wasn't what we were expecting or what we would have liked to listen or see', says Pierre Orphanidis of ValenciaSailing.com summing up Friday night's presentation by Tom Ehman, head of external affairs, and Manolo Ruiz de Elvira, senior designer, at the premises of Valencia's yacht club.

The two men from America's Cup Challenger of Record BMW Oracle talked to an audience of around 40 people on the America's Cup for about an hour and a half, touching almost all aspects of the world's oldest sports competition, ranging from its history to the most recent legal issues and the current state of affairs of their own team.

It was initially planned to be a 'private' talk, restricted to the yacht club's members but finally the media were allowed, a fact that in my view definitely altered the issues, tone and philosophy of the presentation. It suffices to say that around 25 minutes into the show, the crew of Valencia's main TV station was asked to turn off the cameras and take them out of the room.

Obviously, Valencia Sailing doesn't have any footage either, despite the fact I had my camera ready. In addition, even the liberty of taking pictures was restrained and I was once asked to put it away, when the presentation's most 'revealing' slide appeared (it was the oven where, according to Ehman, the biggest parts of the yacht's hull are baked; more on that later). It is true though, there was hardly anything revealing or new for anybody with some knowledge or understanding of the issues. Don't expect any scoops here.

As I said, around 35 members and 5 journalists were present. This is not Anacortes or New York, so nobody was expecting a huge turnout although any club member would have liked it, it was entertaining. The audience ranged from the old commodore down to the 9-year old kid and optimist sailor who took the microphone and stated his dream was to become a sailor of BMW Oracle. In fact, the whole show was a good PR action by the team towards the host city of the event, rather than a meeting of the design heads. The point was to make the American team look more pro-Valencian than Alinghi.

Given that aim, the show had to be fun and of course try to portray the Defender in a disadvantaged position. Seconds after getting the microphone, Ehman's first question to the audience was who was supporting Alingi and who his team. I can assure you there were more pro-BMW Oracle hands raised. After that he went on presenting the history of the America's Cup, from 1851 to the 32nd edition. He cunningly praised Alinghi and Ernesto Bertarelli for the all the 'great things' they achieved in the 32nd America's Cup that resulted in the best racing ever.

But of course he was not there to praise Bertarelli. His next slide was titled 'Why not continue with what we already had in the 32nd Cup?'. Because, according to Ehman, 'our friend Ernesto had a different idea' and created the CNEV (Club Nautico Español de Vela) in order to better control the America's Cup. When the now-infamous photo of the Protocol signature aboard Vava flashed on the screen, I was surprised by the boos heard, the voices of contempt and the shouts of 'shame' or 'disgrace'. It is true though, that Valencia's yacht club had high expectations to be the Challenger of Record, instead of the newly-formed CNEV.

Ehman and Ruiz de Elvira gave an overview of the legal steps taken by BMW Oracle after the presentation by Alinghi and the CNEV of the new protocol, always trying to choose the worst looking photos when anyone related to Alinghi was shown. In fact, with all my respect to him, the face of SNG's secretary while receiving GGYC's challenge, on July 11, was funny. He surely didn't seem happy at all.

At times it was not the photos that were funny but the captions used to describe them. There was one of the July 25 presentation, showing Bertarelli and Michel Bonnefous with the caption 'I can't lose - I have the best lawyers'

For the rest of this start and more photos http://www.valenciasailing.blogspot.com!click_here and scroll down to Saturday 31 May