The BMW Oracle Racing 90 trimaran is a lot of yacht
By Ron Judd

Seattle Times staff columnist

ANACORTES - It's not that easy to make the jaws of old salts drop around
Puget Sound, where shipyards have been cranking out boats of every
conceivable size and shape for more than a century. But a carbon-fiber
behemoth stalking the waters of Rosario Strait this week is getting the job
done.
One look at this trimaran - one of the largest, and possibly fastest, ever
built - as she lifts her sails and leaps into the breeze off Orcas Island
leaves no doubt: This boat wasn't built to spend a lifetime plodding through
seawater.

She was meant to fly.

Not literally, in a Spruce Goose sort of way. Although in early testing,
even in light winds, the behemoth BMW Oracle Racing yacht - which, depending
on a court decision, may or may not compete for the America's Cup in 2010 -
has lifted her side floats almost as far out of the water as Howard Hughes'
famous seaplane ever rose.

This is all by design, on a boat that can squeeze 40 knots out of 20 knots
of wind and might yet become the fastest racing yacht ever known.

Even to the untrained eye, the boat, officially known as BMW Oracle Racing
90, is an engineering marvel, one that went from blueprints to sails-up in
less than nine months.

Her sleek, carbon-fiber main hull is 100 feet long, stem to stern, and 90
feet at the waterline. Her twin floats are 90 feet apart, side to side. If
you dropped the boat through the open roof of Safeco Field, it would cover
the entire infield.

When the boat is pushed from its dock by four bumper boats, it appears as if
a piece of the shore has just calved off.

The boat's three hulls are connected by sweeping, aerodynamic carbon-fiber
beams that look perilously thin. They have a unique droop to them, making
the craft, from the front or rear, look a bit like a Klingon Bird of Prey
spaceship from an old Star Trek movie.

The carbon-fiber mast, the only crucial part not fabricated on site in
Anacortes (it was built in Rhode Island) is more than 5 feet wide at its
elliptical base, and 158 feet tall.

The sails are similarly off the charts: a 5,000-square-foot mainsail; a
3,500-square-foot headsail; and 7,000-square-foot gennaker.

The boat will be sailed by about 15 sailors, wearing protective helmets and
high-tech garb that looks like it's borrowed from NASA.

Those are about the only hard facts revealed by BMW Oracle Racing, which
will complete initial sea trials here Saturday, then prep the big boat for
shipping on a barge to San Diego a week later. There, testing will be ramped
up, as syndicate officials await the decision in a court case which might
render the boat essentially useless, in America's Cup terms.

A bitter fight

The pursuit of sporting's oldest international prize has devolved into a
bitter legal fight between two billionaires: Oracle software icon Larry
Ellison of the Bay Area and Ernesto Bertarelli, a biotech mogul who runs the
Swiss racing syndicate, Alinghi, which currently holds the Cup.

Since successfully defending the Cup in Valencia, Spain, last year
(Ellison's team again did not make the finals), Alinghi, to put it simply,
has been unable to reach agreement with all competing syndicates on a fair
format for the next Cup races.

Ellison's BMW Oracle group last year won a court decision that named it the
"challenger of record" for the next Cup, meaning they would negotiate the
next Cup's protocol with Alinghi. When Ellison and Bertarelli could not
agree, both sides began preparing for the next remedy under Cup rules: a
match race between their respective boats with essentially no design rules,
other than a 90-foot maximum waterline.

That is the lesson lingering from a 1988 America's Cup challenge, in which
Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes won a legal decision allowing it to race a
multihull against a slower, plodding New Zealand challenger in a San Diego
race now considered a low point in Cup history. Since then, it has been
taken as a given that any Cup challenge without protocols agreed to by the
defender and challenger of record would be conducted in multihulls.

That's what sent BMW Oracle's design team into trimaran warp speed on Puget
Sound, where the team had built four previous conventional carbon-fiber
monohulls with Janicki Industries in Sedro-Woolley, and where other useful
composite-construction infrastructure exists because of the local aerospace
industry.

But last month, Alinghi won an appeal of that court decision, and announced
plans to stage a traditional Cup defense, in monohull boats with multiple
challengers, in Valencia as soon as 2009. Ellison's group is making a final
appeal of that appeal, with a decision expected in February or March.

$10 million bet

If Ellison wins, the big trimaran could race for the America's Cup in what
by all accounts would be a spectacular best-of-three multihull match race
with Alinghi in 2010.

If it loses?

The designers likely scurry to build a new monohull. And the trimaran
becomes a big, fast, very cool, black-and-white elephant, with design and
construction costs estimated to be as high as $10 million.

This boat is, in other words, not only a hedge on a bet, but something of a
guilty pleasure, and the BMW Oracle sailing team, based for now in
Anacortes, is treating it as such. Not even the world's greatest sailing
racers have ever seen anything like it.

"We're not even at 50 percent yet and it's already pretty impressive," said
helmsman James Spithill of Australia, the former driver of the Seattle-based
OneWorld Challenge Cup team in 2002.

Spithill and famed helmsman Russell Coutts of New Zealand both were hired by
Ellison after his most recent, unsuccessful Cup effort, and both are now in
Anacortes.

Initial driving duties, however, have fallen largely to Frenchman Franck
Cammas, hired as a consultant because of his expertise with mega multihulls,
which heretofore have been built primarily for open-ocean racing, and reach
speeds up to 44 knots.

The new boat has been sailed only in light to moderate winds, progressively
increasing loads on its joints and surfaces. But even at about half speed,
the boat is a marvel in the water, its speed deceptive because of its
massive size.

When its center hull clears the water and the craft seemingly takes flight,
riding on only the knife edge of a single float at about 20 knots, it's a
spectacular sight.

Needless to say, the boat, visible from miles away and accompanied by a
half-dozen chase boats, creates a spectacle in the otherwise quiet waters in
the waning days of summer around the San Juans. Seagulls steer cautiously
wide of it. Snoozing salmon trollers are startled to attention and sent
reaching for cameras.

And despite the thrill it gives the sailing team, there's still a bit of
tension in the air whenever the big boat lifts off the water. For each
voyage, the boat's tenders carry - in addition to telemetry equipment
monitoring onboard sensors - a physician and scuba divers in case of
emergencies.

Design coordinator Mike Drummond, mindful of the high-stakes poker game with
Alinghi, skillfully dodged most questions about the big boat's particulars
this week. But asked what keeps him awake at night during testing, he didn't
hesitate.

"Pretty much everything."

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at .

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;

Larry wrote in news:Xns9B15E46E5CAFnoonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCnR3ykz1Q

32 knots....LOOK AT THE REEF IN THE MAIN!

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote in news:Xns9B15E46E5CAFnoonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCnR3ykz1Q

32 knots....LOOK AT THE REEF IN THE MAIN!



I think this had a reef also... 47kts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCuP-...eature=related


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Capt. JG" wrote in message
ons...
"Larry" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote in news:Xns9B15E46E5CAFnoonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCnR3ykz1Q

32 knots....LOOK AT THE REEF IN THE MAIN!



I think this had a reef also... 47kts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCuP-...eature=related


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

I watched 'Team Philips' being built, launched and sailed. She was a
catamaran and IMO she was a more advanced concept than this trimaran.
However they built her to too tight a time schedule and the stresses of high
speed in rough waters led to hull failure.
She had twin masts which of necessity were unstayed so the twisting effect
on the hulls at the bases of the masts must have been enormous.
When built she was, I believe, the largest single carbon fibre construction
ever made.
I am sure the designers of this trimaran thought a lot about 'Team Philips'
before coming up with a trimaran with a single mast amidships. This allows
the mast to be stayed but the stresses on the crossbeams must still be very
great.
We will see if she stays in one piece, but if they have built her for the
America's Cup she is unlikely to be tested in gale force winds in the open
ocean that proved the end of 'Team Philips'.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:35:02 +0000, Larry wrote:

Larry wrote in news:Xns9B15E46E5CAFnoonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCnR3ykz1Q

32 knots....LOOK AT THE REEF IN THE MAIN!

I'll bet this guy is going over 32 knots:

http://cbs4.com/local/Kite.Surfer.las.2.798049.html

Steve

On Sep 11, 1:00*am, "Edgar" wrote:
....
I am sure the designers of this trimaran thought a lot about 'Team Philips'
before coming up with a trimaran with a single mast amidships. This allows
the mast to be stayed but the stresses on the crossbeams must still be very
great. ...

I doubt it. TP was either way ahead of her time or just a total
disaster but in any case would have been a bust in a course racing
event. This boat, "Stradivarius", is more of a development of the ORMA
60' class on the scale of the Groupama 3 which I'm sure they have
studied. The canting rig, foils and so on. That is why BMW/Oracle
hired Franc Cammas to oversee the project and drive the boat. The 10
foot overhangs are notably different from the ORMA boats and the only
bit that has obviously been developed to the DOG. Still, if they have
a DOG match the defenders just need to build a faster boat for the
location that they choose. It's virtually impossible to win a true
deed of gift challenge.

-- Tom.

"Steve" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:35:02 +0000, Larry wrote:

Larry wrote in news:Xns9B15E46E5CAFnoonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

"claus" wrote in
:

She was meant to fly.


Wow, what speed! Notice the little sloop walking away...(c;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCm2aR0ymLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnr5lkOz4U
Stepping the 150+ foot mast!

I guess Florida down the ICW is out of the question....(c;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCnR3ykz1Q

32 knots....LOOK AT THE REEF IN THE MAIN!

I'll bet this guy is going over 32 knots:

http://cbs4.com/local/Kite.Surfer.las.2.798049.html

Steve

A few weeks ago, The Mail on Sunday Magazine covered a story of a similar
French machine with foils, rumoured to be capable of 50 knots+.

Perhaps BMW-Oracle have already been pipped in the speed stakes?


Dennis.

"Dennis Pogson" wrote in
:

A few weeks ago, The Mail on Sunday Magazine covered a story of a
similar French machine with foils, rumoured to be capable of 50
knots+.

Perhaps BMW-Oracle have already been pipped in the speed stakes?


Dennis.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/gra...kite120big.jpg

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Dennis Pogson" wrote in
:

A few weeks ago, The Mail on Sunday Magazine covered a story of a
similar French machine with foils, rumoured to be capable of 50
knots+.

Here she is!

http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...p?id_=22698804


Dennis.