BMW Oracle Racing’s 30m trimaran docked in San Diego last week, outfitted with all the lastest video production gear. While most big trimarans were built for offshore racing, this one was designed for inshore racing and has been clocked at speeds twice that of the wind.
Skipper, Russell Coutts, said it’s much lighter, more powerful with a much bigger mast, sails and so forth and much more extreme.
Coutts won the America’s Cup with Team New Zealand in 1995 and 2000 before switching sides to lead the Swiss Alinghi team to victory over Team New Zealand at Auckland in 2003. He sat out the 2007 Alinghi win over Team New Zealand in Spain after a management dispute, then moved to the BMW Oracle camp.
A lawsuit contesting the rules for the next America’s Cup has stalled preparation for history’s longest running sporting event. It is possible BMW Oracle’s three-hulled boat will never be used in the America’s Cup.
If BMW Oracle wins an appeal in the New York courts sometime next year, the team may race its trimaran against one being designed by Alinghi, the America’s Cup holders, in a one-on-one series under the rules outlined in the Cup’s governing document, the Deed of Gift.
That would be a Deed of Gift match, or DOG match - giving the trimaran its Dogzilla nickname.
