What's new?

I have followed sailing all my life, i should know. But they make the AC so bloody complicated that I have given up trying to keep up with it. At least a trimaran like the world has never seen has come out of it so far, whether it ever gets a race or not - I can't tell.

Lot of bitch-slapping by mail going on...Alinghi saying "send us your boat certificate or else" after Oracle launched their tri (one would assume that it's their AC trimaran - but they have time, and probably will, build a second one if we end up on multis...so technically this may not be an AC trimaran). Oracle replying "your appeal was temporarily upheld by the courts, we're not the official challenger at this time so we have no requirement to give you bupkis" (I'm paraphrasing loosely) :-)

As far as getting into a DoG match, we're in a holding mode while we wait for the last appeal hearing in New York (figured to take place in January '09). HOWEVER, word has it that Bertarelli was out on the left coast last week and may have sat down with Ellison to "talk" face to face for the first time in quite a while. I haven't been online to see if anything actually took place. There has been some banter about going back to a monohull multi-team challenge...there's no telling at this point...but I don't think you'll see Ellison back down from keeping Alinghi from having such a one-sided rule set....probably won't see Bertarelli waver much either.

I had a little time to catch up...they did sit down for about an hour last week. The meeting was "cordial". No agreement reached though Oracle did offer up again the "if we go back to AC32 protocol for the next AC33, then we'll drop the suit" which was not "immediately" accepted by Bertarelli. I'm not sure what all this will ultimately mean...it could be the beginning of a negotiation but I think it's probably more of a stall tactic (Oracle's due date to file court paperwork for the appeal is tomorrow...and they also announced they will be filing on time)

Meanwhile, the 90' Oracle tri was transported and relaunched in San Diego for further training this weekend.

Hopefully they will get to race Dogzilla.