E-L-C-A-R-O, the view from OneWorld

by Ron Judd Seattle Times on 18 Nov 2002 OneWorld has a need for speed just to stay alive


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If you want to get a rise out of a OneWorld sailor in Auckland today, all you have to do is scrawl the letters on a white sheet and hold it up in the breeze.

It's the same sight the crew of OneWorld, Seattle's suddenly spiraling America's Cup entry, has been staring at all week: the 'O-R-A-C-L-E' logo backwards — the same way it looks viewed from the back of a translucent spinnaker.

That's where OneWorld spent most of its time in the Louis Vuitton Cup quarterfinals: Behind. Trailing. Struggling. And ultimately succumbing, 4-0, to USA-76, the improbable juggernaut owned by Larry Ellison, a man still solidly in the running for most annoying human on the planet.


To put this all in precise, nautical terms: Yick.

Oracle's stunning turnaround — from losing four of five in the first round robin to winning 11 in a row — is one of the two biggest stories of this America's Cup chase.

Alas, OneWorld's precipitous fall from grace is the other. It's no coincidence the two are intertwined. Oracle's gain, which began when Ellison moved veteran Kiwi sailor Chris Dickson from the deep bench to the starting lineup, came fully at the expense of OneWorld, which was 8-0 in the opening round robin, but has slid to a humbling 5-7 since — the last four a humiliating quarterfinals spanking by Oracle.

OneWorld's splat is exaggerated by the height from which the team tumbled. The Seattle bunch came out of the regatta gate in full stride, while others with similar star power and even more money, notably Oracle, flopped around.

A couple of weeks ago, the fleet caught up. Today, it's moving off into the distance. In this business, status quo is moving backward.

Of course, credit must be assigned where due, no matter how painful. Oracle's Lazarus act has been spectacular, and no doubt is tied to near-perfect crew work shown since the much-ballyhooed lineup changes that put Dickson onboard — and left Ellison off. But we're not buying the notion that those on-deck swaps have made all the difference.

It's the boat, mates. The same boat (although some people watching it then and now would swear otherwise) that was getting spanked on downwind runs earlier in the regatta by the likes of Victory Challenge.

After a series of 'mode changes' by the Oracle design team, USA-76 has surged forward like water out of a hydrant. Whatever designer Bruce Farr and company did, they did quickly — and perfectly. USA-76 today may well be the fastest boat on Hauraki Gulf — upwind, downwind, any wind.

For OneWorld, it was mostly tailwind. Nothing they threw at the Bay Area bunch in these quarterfinals stuck. True, skipper Peter Gilmour and helmsman James Spithill occasionally were out-smarted and out-started by the shockingly efficient combo of Dickson and helmsman Peter Holmberg. But even when OneWorld guessed right, or the wind blew its way, USA-65 slipped farther off the performance map.

It doesn't take a Kiwi design guru to figure out why. USA-76 — a touch slimmer and probably lighter than any other boat in the fleet — is flat-out fast. Perhaps fast enough to give Alinghi's SUI-64, which likewise waltzed through its quarterfinal match with Prada, a run for its money.

Would OneWorld's other yacht, USA-67, have possessed enough speed to match Ellison's baby? We'll never know, but consider: It was the 67 boat that Oracle ran away from late in round robin two, winning handily in spite of a penalty turn. As Spithill said Friday night: 'We wouldn't have come into the quarterfinals with a slower boat.'

That's why there's quiet resolve but little joy today at the OneWorld base. The Seattle team already has shown much of its hand by using both boats — each of which, on at least one occasion, has been casually put to the sword by His Royal Larryness, who lurks again down the road.

The Seattle group lives to tack again this Friday but now faces a perilous path. Just to stay alive and reach the Vuitton finals, it will need consecutive series victories over Stars and Stripes or Victory Challenge, then Prada, then either Oracle or Alinghi. One series slip sends you home.

So it's back to the drawing board for OneWorld, where the boat-shop lights, if they haven't been burning all night already, certainly will be now. It is here, in fact — indoors, off the water, where three Kiwi-stocked crews have largely canceled one another out — that this series is being won by Oracle and Alinghi — and lost by OneWorld.

Luck comes and goes. Wind shifts even out. But speed is everything.

OneWorld, which never was out of reach of Oracle, doesn't need pounds of it; just ounces. If the Seattle team is to survive, let alone thrive, on Hauraki Gulf, Laurie Davidson and his vaunted design team will have to prove their best tricks are ahead of them, not behind. They will have to provide a little more of the one thing their crew cannot: Boat speed.

It's just that simple. And that difficult.