Oscar's Big Day Out at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series.

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 28 Jan 2009
New Zealand Double P-class champion Oscar Rorvik (Tauranga)is enjoyed a day out at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series as guests of BMW Oracle Racing.

The fifteen year old winner of the Tanner and Tauranga Cup, went sailing with BMW Oracle Racing in the 18th man position aboard BMW Oracle as they trained against Ben Ainslie and Team Origin off Takapuna, in a willing seabreeze.

Oscar arrived at the BMW Oracle Racing base at 1030 ready to race and get a couple of media interviews out of the way. Then it was off to a team meeting before going out of the water.
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The Tanner and Tauranga Cups are the two most famous trophies in New Zealand Junior sailing, and are usually a milestone along the way to latter sailing success.

The only BMW Oracle Racing crew member to have won the Tanner Cup is skipper Russell Coutts, who won the trophy in 1978. Emirates Team New Zealand skipper, Dean Barker has won both trophies. As did Alinghi weatherman, and now www.predictwind.com!Predictwind.com, guru Jon Bilger who won both in successive years.

From a non-sailing family, with a solo mother, Oscar's first exposure to sailing was when the BOC Around Alone race stopped over in Tauranga and the young sailors and would be sailors were invited aboard the visiting yachts.

Graham Dalton (older brother) of Emirates Team NZ CEO, Grant Dalton, was one of the competitors in that event.

Since then Oscar has competed in the usual progression of Optimists and then moving into p-class. he sailed wooden Optimists before borrowing a fibreglass yacht and finished 5th in the North Island Championships. His P-class is the one owned and sailed by triple Olympic Gold medallist Barbara Kendall, who it would be fair to say did not enjoy the same level of success in P-167 that Oscar has enjoyed this season.