Correct me if I'm wrong BUT the way I remember it :
Alter Cup 2003 as held in april 2003
Worrell 1000 2003 was to start at may 4th 2003
Alter Cup 2004 was held on Hobie 16's
So : "The boats were later used for the Alter Cup and the ICCT. I think sail #25-45 are the Worrell built boats."
Is nonsense. The boats were first used for the Alter cup and than supposed to be used for the Worrell.
With regard to the ICCT (2003 - 2004). I think only 4 were ever used there. Sailnumbers suggest that these were the Alter Cup boats that were never sold, with the possible exception of the Gunboat.
Correct me again if I'm wrong but were more than 10 boats used in the Alter Cup 2003 ?
Rick White wrote at the time :
"Tomorrow (Sunday) there will be practice races and each team will get to sail the boats two times (there are 20 teams and only 10 boats). "
Source :
http://www.catsailor.com/Stories_Temp/2003AlterCup.html#PreRaceStuffSo why would bimare produce sailnumbers #25 to #45 for the Alter Cup ? That would simple make no sense. Bimare is in it to earn money not to give boats aways. If only 10 boats were used then it would be unlikely that 20 were produced.
One explaination might be that the Alter cup boats were only issued odd numbers, for what reason I can only guess.
I spoke to a European team that wanted to do the Worrell 2003 about the cancellation of this event, he is a fellow sailclub member, and his comments prefectly line up along those from Mary, Jake and some other sources. (And no I will not identify them). It was not difficult to recognise a trend.
Even more so I think there are more people out there that "know".
To make things absolutely clear I think the press release that describe the Bimare company as fully in the clear is a correct one. They did what was the only senseble thing to do. On the other hand, blaming everything on Mike may well not be.
What was the saying again.
"Succes has many fathers but failure is always an orphan"
I say the woman who bore the unwanted child probably knew more than 1 "father".
Than the statement of :"sent a couple of containers full of HT's and then Mike cancelled"
Well yes, without getting into juicy details I often wondered one thing. If all these containers were send and the sailnumbers are right (45 boats ?) than why didn't the Worrell 1000 just go ahead but on a smaller budget ? What is the worse that could happen. The things that really costed alot of money were already here (45 * 10.000 = 450.000 US Dollars !). They had to be sold no matter what happened. Cancelling the Worrell would never have solved this issue in any way. Rather, having the worrell 1000 with them would most likely have made selling them alot easier. The costs of running the event would never approach this 450.000 US$ investment. Round Texel, including the week long preceding Dutch open is run on a budget of 350.000 Euro's. And here they need to cater for 500 boats + crews and tens of sponsors. No, the smart thing to do would have been to contact all the teams inform them of a change of plan because a sponsor dropped out, decide to go low budget from them onwards + cancellation of the price. The show must go on ! Theaters have survived set backs like this for centuries and lived through them. There is always a way. The teams would have accepted it when the alternative was no race at all. And it would have worked, afterall the Tybee 500 + OBX 500 were probably done for a similar tight budget. It would have worked unless something absolutely critical was not available. I wonder what that could be ?
Sometimes it is best if the truth is told by the class itself. Truth has a nasty habit of finding daylight on its own accord. Better pre-empt that. You may not have much time left.
So lets start by explaining the difference between Ricks comments and the Alter cup 2003 sailnumbers.
Wouter
