"WHERE THE WORLD CONNECTS"
Good morning from...







...Dubai International Airport in the UAE. Perhaps not quite as nice as Singapore's, but a modern oasis nonetheless at the midpoint of a "trip from hell": Valencia-Barcelona-Milan-Dubai-Sydney. Headed there to chair the jury at the Farr 40 Worlds next week. DXB-SYD leg is nearly 15 hours (ugh, in eco -- biz class is chockers), but at least it is on Emirates. Never flown them, but is reputed to be one of the world's nicest airlines. Good to patronize them as they are the title sponsor of Emirates Team New Zealand (no connection to this trip).

Shots above taken with my trustly little Nokia phone-cam upon arrival this morn. The airport is now in the second phase of expansion (since 1997). Costing US$ 4.1 billion, the expansion includes the construction of Terminal 3, Concourses 2 and 3, a cargo mega terminal, Dubai Flower Centre and a major upgrade of the existing Terminal 2. Dubai International Airport at present has the capacity to handle 22 million passengers annually. On completion of the expansion programme by 2008, DXB will have the capacity to handle over 70 million passengers annually.

Been to Dubai a couple times before for regattas, including one trip with Leslie and Meg when she was quite young, but not too young for a camel ride on the beach!

(Soon as I turned on the computer here in the lounge the Skype calls started coming in. Free internet telephony, and anyone who has broadband and does a lot of long distance calling and is not using Skype (free to download at www.skype.com) has more money than brains. Grandma Jan was able to download and install it, and register (also free) in minutes. We now talk with her from Germany-Michigan almost daily. Grandpa Tom is a recent convert as well. And, no, I do not own stock or have any other connection to the company; just a fan of the technology.)



OK, time to check out the vaunted DXB duty-free shopping before the loooong flight to SYD.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Maybe it's a new "Clean Hands" policy....





From the popular German magazine, Der Spiegel ("the mirror"), a piece entitled "Faux Paws"....

In Central Europe, when they say politicians have to press flesh, they mean it very literally. Custom dictates that you always greet someone with an un-gloved hand, no matter the weather. When US President George W. Bush didn't remove his warm leather gloves while meeting Slovak diplomats after his arrival in Bratislava on Wednesday night, he created quite a public stir. The protocol malfunction -- while offensive to those who were proffered the leather encased hand -- may not have been nearly as big a deal if it weren't for the fact that the reception was being broadcast live on national television. It's understandable that in temperatures only just above freezing that the president and his wife would want to keep their fingers warm (Laura remained be-gloved, too), but some protocol officer should have warned them in advance. "I don't know whether this is usual in the United States, but it is not in our countries. They may have not been informed about Central European habits," said Deana Lutherova, a Slovak protocol expert, said to the Czech news agency CTK. Yeah, apparently they weren't. Still, on the grand scale of diplomatic faux pas, this hardly rates alongside, say, vomiting on a prime minister and then falling over. Bush Jr. continues to do his daddy proud.

CARSON'S COPPER CLAPPER CAPER
Grandpa Tom kindly forwarded a...



...video clip of the hilarious 1968 sketch with Johnny Carson and Jack Webb, the star of "Dragnet." The sketch is a spoof of Dragnet, the popular USA television cop show of that era -- the "Law and Order" of it's day.

Have now figured out how to post video files; click here to see it, assuming you have Windows Media Player installed on your machine.

Amazing, too, how much President Bush looks like the '68 Carson.

12 YEAR-OLDS HAVE PROBLEMS, TOO
Found stuck to my computer...

...this morning after Meg had left for school, in follow-up to yesterday's guitar lesson....

GRANDMA JAN'S 71st
A cold Saturday...

...evening in Michigan at the end of January warmed by family and friends celebrating Grandma Jan's birthday with a casual but delicious dinner at the Club....



L to R: Tom Sr and wife Lynn say hi before heading to Ann
Arbor for the UMich hockey game; sister Ruth, Jan's husband
Scope and Jan.



The birthday girl and the first of seven kids launched in only ten
years, over 50 years ago!



After dinner gather-'round, clockwise from left around the
table: Roger O'Brien, Ruth, Scope, Jan as usual offering food -
in this case to Gordon Chapin, Betty Chapin, Neta O'Brien, Chef
Brian Huff, Karen and Clark Chapin.



On the way back in to Ann Arbor after dinner, we caught
up with Leslie's sister, Kathy Leonard, as she arrived
home from another engagement that prevented her
from joining us. It was about 5 deg F, and needless to
say there had been much snow in the past week. Sure
miss those Michigan winters!



Grandma Jan, with their new dog Gabby, a birthday present
from Scope after Buddy the beagle had to be put down a few
weeks before.

Now if someone would please email me a digi-pic of Grandma Jan's new computer that she received Sunday morning, a present from the Hamburgers, we could round out this post.

UNSER LIEBES ZUHAUSE*
For our family and friends who are...



a bit geographically challenged, at least when it comes to central Europe, and especially those who are always asking why we don't get together with sister Cristine more often -- we live in Hamburg and Cris and Klaus live in Karlsruhe, 6+ hours by train or car (if you are lucky and the traffic around Hannover and Frankfurt is not too bad) to the south.

*roughly, "Home Sweet Home" auf Deutsch.

HEAVEN ON EARTH
Well, that may be a bit of an...




...exaggeration, but these Sennheiser PXC 250 noise-cancelling headphones are the cat's meow. Some say the Bose are better, but they are big and clunky, and cost $250+ compared to $125 or so for these Sennheisers, which are smaller, lighter and fold up into a neat little travel package. Top-rated by a number of the tech sites and mags. Forget about the Sony's and other similar headphones -- they pale by comparison.

Bought these in Singapore a few weeks back on the good advice of Brian Gong, my "infotech," (these days I figure everyone needs a doctor, lawyer, accountant, banker, travel agent and infotech) and for all the flying one does am wondering why I didn't get them years ago. They are terrific in a plane, bus or other environment with a steady roar or similar background noise, and are fine in a normal environment, too. They use circuitry to "hear" the background noise and generate the "opposite" sound -- cancelling out about 75% of the noise.

Weekend before last I survived a 6.5 hour bus ride from Amsterdam back to Hamburg with 50 of Meg's ISH schoolmates -- four basketball teams -- thanks to these headphones and my MP3 player (Palm T3 with a 1-gig SD card loaded with 14 hours of my favorite jazz).

If not heaven on earth, then at least heavenly peace and quiet.


Granda Jan taking the Sennheiser-Palm combo
for a test drive when I was in Michigan for her
birthday in late January.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
A family friend just found an article...



...on a web archive from last year mentioning a number of Cup officials, including your simple scribe, on the website called "Sailing Anarchy," reputed to be the biggest sailing website today (in terms of daily visitors, etc.). He wondered why I had not mentioned the article, let alone linked to it, on the EFB. Okay, so here it is.

That SA piece was mild compared to many, and almost clever. Unfortunately, the site often veers into personal attacks and smutty, adolescent humor or what some think passes for humor. Most everyone in the AC world says they ignore SA, yet am continually amazed at how many "have you seen SA" emails I get the minute they run a Cup piece. I have thought more than once about starting a site called "Sailing Sanity" and giving them a run for their money.

The site is visually appealing, and the only sailing site among all of them out there that is a blog. Don't you think the blog format is much more user-friendly than most typical websites? This seems to be a large part of SA appeal.

I was heartened to read that our friend Laurie Fullerton, a yachting writer in Marblehead, was going to contribute regularly to SA. But apparently she has had second thoughts, which is too bad because when she has written for them in the past it has lifted SA's Cup coverage from "tabloid" to more credible and mainstream.

I have never met the Editor, but he appears to be cleaning up SA's act, perhaps due to pressure from their growing and rather impressive list of advertisers. Regardless, and for the sake of the sport, one hopes that this trend continues, and that SA treats us to more good pictures and breaking news and less kicking of people in the shorts.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT -- II
A new twist on an old joke...



...that will give our many HP/Compaq friends (they are a large TMI client) a good chuckle, now that Fiona has been broomed but not without an eight-figure severance....

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina dies, and she goes through the usual process of defending her case in front of the Divine Jury. It is not clear what happens exactly and where things go wrong, but when the jury comes back and the sentence is read, it turns out she is admitted into Heaven. So Carly is filling in the usual paperwork at the HAO's desk (Heaven Admission Officer): non-disclosure agreement, legal disclaimers, non-competition clause, etc...

'Congratulations and welcome to Heaven,' finally says the angel. 'Go down the corridor, first door on your right.'

Carly walks to the door, pushes it open... and staggers back. Through the flames and behind the door, all you can see are countless devils inflicting the most horrible tortures to screaming souls. She rushes back to the Officer and waves her admission pass, breathless. 'Must be an error, this thing here says Heaven!'

'Oh yeah,' says the angel, barely looking up from his/her screen. 'Forgot to tell you... we merged'.

BLOGGING NOTES II
Have finally figured out how to post a...



...smaller picture and then let you, dear reader, click on the picture (above) to see a bigger version of the it, or click on a word in the text to do the same thing. How cool is that!?!

As to the picture, it is TV-screen shot of Meg and Leslie appearing recently on a German televsion show, about which Meg has promised to write something for the EFB. With the ISH on "mid-semester break" this week, perhaps she will find time to bang something out.

YOUR (BRITISH) TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
"Nice work if you can get it...



...and you can get it if you try...."

(Without googling it, can you name the song title, composer(s), year, movie?")

ELLEN
There are few people in our sport...



...who almost everyone "knows" on a first name basis -- Buddy, Dawn, Dennis, Ernesto, Larry, Russell, Torben and perhaps a few others here and there around the world. Not that they have ever met the person, but they refer to him or her by first (given) name. Today no one needs to say Ellen MacArthur. And even though she has now been knighted, somehow just plain "Ellen" is a better, stronger, more important appelation than "Dame Ellen" (yucks).

Sail Newport, the community sailing association, is one of our sport's great organizations. Am proud to have played a small part, with quite a number of others, in launching it when the Cup left Newport in 1983. Long-time friend Brad Read is its Executive Director; by all accounts he is doing a terrific job. And, like his brother Kenny, Brad is a word-class sailor in his own right. He covered the waterfront with Ellen in Scuttlebutt this morning....


GUEST EDITORIAL - Brad Read
Mentoring is a huge industry in the United States. Big Brothers and Big Sisters and similar programs all around the country do countless good deeds for kids from all walks of life. We are lucky that the mentoring philosophy has become a large part of sailing at all levels. All over the country, I see the "rock stars" of our sport volunteering time and energy towards their local sailing community. Young and old are enthralled with the excitement that the elite of our sport bring to the seminars, speaking engagements and personal appearances that they freely do. I have never been turned down by any of the big names that I've ever asked to come down and spend time with our youth or adult programs at Sail Newport. These range from Olympians, AC sailors, Around the World sailors and off shore veterans. The value that these elite sailors add to our programs is immeasurable. That said, there are those currently doing things in our sport that transcend sailing.

Ellen MacArthur needs to be recognized as quite possibly the most important sailing figure of our generation. My son came home from school Tuesday and we had the usual question and answer session that all parents have to decipher what they learned that day. It was Library day for his second grade class. Even though we live in Middletown, neighboring Newport, our school librarian is not a sailor. But today, the kids learned about one of the most amazing feats in the history of, yes you guessed it … Sailing. The Librarian picked up the story from USA Today of a British Girl, 28 years old that sailed all by herself and became the fastest person ever to sail around the world. "Was that a cool story for the class?" I asked my son. "Yeah, she was all alone you know, nobody else on the boat" he told me. "Would you like to do that someday?" I countered. "No, I like to sleep in my own bed." said Brendan. (Just like his Dad!) "The Queen of England wrote her a congratulations note!" I told my 5 year old daughter. She of course countered with "Did she send you a note when you won a race Dad?" "No, Queen Elizabeth must have missed that one!"

Ellen MacArthur is the ultimate role model. Her effort, talent and her accomplishments can be used to encourage the sport of sailing to the non-sailing community as well as the kids that we already are teaching to sail. The voyage that Ellen just completed has made International news. It is a story that transcends our sport. We as sailors have a new asset to use in our communities to get non-sailing families interested in our sport.

"ALMOST HALFTIME IN AC 2007"
Here is Richard Gladwell's article that appears...



...in the Jan-Mar 2005 issue of Pacific Motoryacht Magazine, just out on the newstands in Australia and New Zealand, for which I sat for an interview over a good, long lunch at Heaquarters -- better known as "HQ" -- the popular Auckland yachtie pub/watering hole.





It's hard to believe that it is almost two years since the America’s Cup left New Zealand’s shores. And, equally hard to believe that there are just over a couple of years left before the 32nd America’s Cup match is contested in Valencia, Spain.

Concluded is the first series of preliminary regattas, or Acts, as they are known in current Cup-speak, which have marked a radical departure from the old Defender vs Challenger relationship that served for 153 years. The Acts have been a big step forward for the America’s Cup and professional sailing, and most of the issues have been overcome in terms of logistics, media and spectator interest, and action. Now there’s a high profile yachting event that can take place out of a large area of hardstand in a dock area.

Far from being the tedious set pieces that many feared, the Acts in Marseille and then Valencia, took on a character of their own. And, one that was different from the Cup itself, and the “Road to the Cup” regattas seen in New Zealand. All of the competitors had their moments and certainly the Acts did not turn into the Alinghi and BMW Oracle Show, with the other challengers just playing bit actor roles.

Despite a major setback at the end of the first Act in Marseille, when NZL-82 was knocked from her cradle in a freak storm, Team New Zealand bounced back to emerge as top points-scorer from the three regattas. Given the sorry state of play in mid-2003, Team New Zealand have exceeded the wildest dreams of their home-town fans – including building a new team from local and international talent, and getting a big chunk of the funding in place including the signing of Emirates Airlines as major sponsor. With a two boat testing program now underway in the Hauraki Gulf, and the success in 2004, Emirates Team New Zealand has definitely moved out of its dog-box in Struggle Street.

Announced are the first official Challengers for the 32nd America’s Cup. Eight challengers from six countries met the first entry deadline. Six of these were named when the first deadline passed on 17 December. A seventh, El Reto from Spain, announced a few days later, and at the time of writing, an eighth challenger was still unannounced.

Passing through New Zealand recently on this way to the next Challenger meeting in San Francisco in early February, was Chairman of the Challenger Commission, Tom Ehman (USA) - whose America’s Cup pedigree extends back into 1980 when he was a rules advisor for the New York Yacht Club and the defenders. After a diet of Cup campaigns, 1987 in Fremantle with America II, organisation of the ’88 and ’92 Cups in San Diego and as DC’s rules advisor in 1995, followed by an involvement in Formula 1 motor-racing, Ehman got back into the Cup in 2000 with AmericaOne and with then Oracle BMW in 2003. He is now the first Chairman of the Challenger Commission – a group representing all Challengers - following the appointment of BMW Oracle and the Golden Gate Yacht Club (San Francisco) as Challenger of Record.

A major item for the Challengers is to reach agreement of the format and scoring of the Challenger Selection Series (CSS) – the winner of which will go forward to face defender Alinghi.

“We have considered a number of formats and plans,” says Ehman making it clear that he is speaking as Chairman of the Challenger Commission and not BMW Oracle who have their own spokespeople.

“On the format issue, the one expected to be preferred for the CSS is to use a number of round robins, probably three. The competitors race each other once starting in mid-April. Round Robin 1 might count for 1 point, RR2 for 2pts and RR3 for 3pts. After that the top four go onto the semi finals, and sail a best of nine match racing series, and same again for the Defender Final.

“This all happens from the middle of April to the middle of June – two months, when in the past it has taken four months. So it should be better racing, more intensive, a simple system and one that has produced AC winners in the past”, Ehman explains.

Sailing for points in the build-up regattas, or Acts, was another of the initiatives introduced by Alinghi in their Grand Plan for the 2007 America’s Cup. While bringing some needle into the regattas, now the Challengers have the vexed issue of how to use and apply them.

“The thing we have all been grappling as teams, and ACM (America’s Cup Management being the overall event organiser) is that we have been doing these pre-regattas – which will number 13 in total, starting with three in 2004 through to the fleet race regatta in 2007. The challenge has been how to use those Acts in a meaningful way, but such that we don’t determine the challenger in 2006, before we start the Challenger Selection Series in 2007.

“The idea that will be worked through in February is that the Act regattas will not be used for points in the CCS, but for “Perks”.

“This year, 2004, Emirates TNZ was the top team, for successive years, the thinking is that we will weight the years so that as we get closer to the Cup each are weighted a little more and you will get a seeding of the Teams. That seeding would be fixed and wouldn’t change, so that going into the CCS, the first seed retains that title.

“The use of points for 'perks' means that say the top seeded team will get to chose their opponent in the semi’s – and this right does not fall to the team that has the most points out of the Round Robins, which is the way that it has been in the past.

“This will be sufficient incentive to sail hard because although you might the fourth boat in the semis, if you were the top points-scorer from the Act regattas - you still get to choose your opponent. So everyone needs to sail hard.

“Another 'Perk' could be that you get to choose the entry side of the starting lines for the first race. In a light air series, or if the first race is light, you are going to want starboard entry because starboard entry wins such a high proportion of the races. It is not an insignificant advantage to have.

“Or, ties could be broken in favour of the highest seeded team. For example, if you are tied for 4th at the end of round robins – the higher seeded team could go forward. That could mean a whole lot.

“There could also be other non-racing things like where you get to march in the parade. The point is that we want to create some additional fascinations for the media and spectators. At the same time, the trick is to create a motivation for the teams to race hard during this whole preliminary period without determining who the semi-finalists are before the racing even starts.

“Initially the CSS format is decided by the Challengers as a group within the Challengers Commission however it is still subject to the agreement of ACM, because they are interested in having something that builds interest and excitement and can be promoted to the media. Hopefully this plan or something very similar to it will prevail.

“Everyone likes the idea of using the preliminary regattas for perks not for points. The concept has been discussed since December and seems to have broad support. We don’t know officially what ACM’s attitude is. Even if it’s just the three perks that have been mentioned - then it’s enough that every team is going to fight hard for every point."

In spite of the points accumulating from the Acts or that some Challengers may announce late and miss accumulating points form the Act regattas, Ehman is adamant that Challengers will remain masters of their own destiny. “Win races in the round robin, win your semi-finals, win your finals and you will still go forward to be the Challenger. It doesn’t matter how you are seeded you win you will still go forward. But if it is close, and you work hard in these Acts then you can get some perks to help you progress in a tight situation.

Another minor issue is how to handle the points accumulated to date from the 2004 regattas.

“Under the Protocol the current points count, unless we decide to all discount them. My idea is that they should count but not for much and should be weighted so that 2004 doesn’t count as much as 2005 and 2006. But if we start now then that is fine as far as I am concerned, it is over to the challengers as a group as to what they want to do," concludes Ehman.

Other issues at the Challengers Meeting include discussing details of the 2005 Acts. “Acts Four and Five are in Valencia in June. Six and Seven are either in Kiel or Malmo (Sweden) with the final venue still being negotiated by ACM. Eight and Nine are scheduled for late September and early Oct in Southern Europe, however that deal has not yet been signed but has been announced by the locals that it will be held in NW Sicily.”

Also on the agenda for the Challengers Meeting is the latest update on marketing the Challenger Series and America’s Cup, plus television and Team Base issues that Challengers normally have as a group.

Compared to Auckland and previous Cup venues and organisations, Ehman believes the 32nd edition of the America’s Cup is coming along well. “So far, so good” he says.

“The relationship between the Challenger and Defender is quite different from what it has been in the past. This is all new territory for all of us. We have never done pre-regattas. We have never had a central organising committee, or a single television production covering both the Louis Vuitton and America’s Cups.

“Some of it s going very well, some of it is not going so well as when we had separate deals. I don’t want to go into the details, because we might be able to get it cleared up.

“Since’83, when Louis Vuitton first became involved the Challengers have been able to use more or less the same cookbook and same recipe to run the Cup.

“You form a Challenger group, hire someone a Regatta Director, maybe do a television deal yourselves and you have a Challenger Selection Series.” For the 2007 Cup that has all changed and everything has been put in the one bucket.

“There have been some growing pains”, concedes Ehman. “There are new budget and personnel issues. Shopping the venue was a brand new concept. This is not only the first time that the Cup will be held at a non-Anglo venue, it is also the first time for the Cup in Europe. It is also the first time that the venue is not the home town of the Defender - which is both a plus and a minus.

“Valencia is a town without a lot of Cup experience and they don’t have driving force of a local yacht club like NYYC in Newport, San Diego and certainly RNZYS here and with Sir Peter.

“Now we are dealing with government entities that are competing with each other and it is quite a bit more difficult to get things done than it was in Auckland, for example, where the key people knew the local yachting scene.

“So it remains to be seen. We have created a monster by centralising all of this. But in some ways it is way better and the opportunities are way better because we have got these pre-regattas.

“Hopefully we will all be co-promoting with ACM, which works for everybody. A lot of the Alinghi vs the Challengers thing has gone away. The idea of competing on the water but not on the shore has, in many ways, taken hold.

“I would say that the venue, Valencia, itself is very potentially very good. And if it doesn’t end up costing the teams a lot of money - which is a potential problem - we could have the best of everything we have ever had, all in the one place.

“It’s sunny, the wind is good; the local people are very interested; if the television coverage is good, and the shore-side crowds are good then that is 90% of the battle.”

In spite of the Spanish political machinations and typically slow European start to major construction, Ehman believes that progress is acceptable thus far. “It seems to take a long time for them to get a plan and get it moving. But once they get it moving, the Spanish, and in particular the Valencianos, are very efficient. It can be frustrating waiting to get the plan in place on any of these shoreside events. But finally when the buttons are pushed and the Madrid Government’s involved and the organising committees and team all get on the same page – it’s impressive as to how quickly things happen.”

“I’m confident things will be ready on time”, Ehman adds.

Turning to the Coutts vs Alinghi situation, Ehman declines to comment, saying it is a matter between the two parties and it is over to them to resolve. Referring to the fact that the 2007 America’s Cup will probably be sailed without some of the long-time stars and icons of the event such as Tom Schnackenberg, Russell Coutts, Paul Cayard, Tom Whidden and Dennis Conner, he says, “You and I and any serious yachties will miss not having some of these people around. But most of the fans who will watch the next Cup will never have heard of any of these people. And it will be the Dean Barkers, Chris Dicksons, Ed Bairds and James Spithills who will be known. I’m less concerned about which individuals are competing than I am that ACM have a strong global television show, because that is way more important. The Cup needs Reach and Frequency.

“For the non-sailing public the America’s Cup needs to be seen as a fascinating game among teams, and a number of teams from a number of different countries and that all are competitive in the contest for the world’s oldest sport trophy.

“Based on the press reports, I was pleased by the positive response and success of those pre-regattas or Acts."

The first of the new Version Five boats will appear on the start line in Valencia in June. Ehman believes the latest edition of the America’s Cup Class rule has been “boxed” so that they boats will be very similar, but “souped-up” a little for downwind sailing – with a tonne lighter displacement, bigger sail area and more draft. Upwind performance is expected to be similar to the previous generation, but downwind will be faster which should encourage gives more overtaking.

“The tolerances of sail area, waterline length and draft have been significantly narrowed. Instead of the boats varying in waterline length by half a metre they will vary by only a few centimetres. They will come in on the maximum draft, same displacement, and within 2-3 sq metres of sail area when the range was 30-40 sq metres last time, under version 4 of the rule.

“So although the boats won’t be one-design, there are still some tolerances to play with, the boats will be more boxed, within this latest version of the rule than in the past, which will lead to closer racing ,and the sailing will be more important than ever. That is going to make the event more exciting, I hope so.

“Add to that the additional possibilities of passing downwind over shorter time – 90 minutes than three to four hours – only two laps instead of three. At least in the early going, two races per day, more fleet racing which is visually spectacular."

As one of the instigators of the introduction of umpiring to match racing, Tom Ehman has always been one of the visionaries of the sport. While his focus is on 2007, he can’t help but try and peer over the horizon beyond Valencia.

“The biggest problem with this event, in my personal opinion”, he says, “is the time. It’s way too long between events. This event should be happening right now in ’05. We should have raced here in 2003, gone off and done some events like we did. And the Challenger selection series should already be starting in March or April. If that were the case then the cash-burn rate for the teams would be half what it is at present. So you get as much or more sponsorship revenue (some would say more, because you get two big events in four years) for half the price!

“If this event were happening every other year you would get many more teams because it costs half as much money to get the team up and running.

“We have come a long way from America’s Cup 31 to America’s Cup 32. And now you have to make the next step which is to figure out how to have a main event every other year. If we can make this next event, who ever wins, held in 2009 rather than 2011, then we will have done the sport a huge service.

“We need to regularise and it needs to happen more often, that is the next big goal."

Had Tom Ehman had his own way, Auckland would be sitting back in its armchair and preparing to watch America’s Cup 2005 sailed in the Hauraki Gulf. “From my personal perspective, and I proposed this at the time, regardless of who ever won in 2003, the 32nd America’s Cup would have been in Auckland in 2005. Whoever had won in 2003, would have had the venue in 2007. So you give everyone their four years to prepare the venue, and you know with regularity when the next event is going to be and where.

“If everyone gets it in their mind that we will have more teams, more promotion, more excitement and more interest. It is better for everybody that we do it every two years – or conceivably every year.

“As we are showing with these preliminary regattas it’s not difficult to move these teams to somewhere like Marseilles, set them down on a big hard surfaced area, lift the boats into water and have a regatta. That, to me, is the next big step the Cup has to make. But that is only possible when you are bidding the venue, and only possible when you have a central organising committee."

This time round, with all the changes that have been made Ehman seemed reasonably pleased with number of Challengers and believes that the Cup game has always been limited to some extent by the talent pool of sailors, designers and others who are available. With each team running at about 100 strong, at a peak, the nine teams that will contest AC2007 will involve about 1,000 professionals, of whom about 300 are sailors – most of whom would rank amongst the top professional sailing talent in the world.

“The big problem with these campaigns is that they run for too long. The marginal cost to the teams to participate in these Acts is not that great. What we are learning is that the more events you have the more revenue you are getting. So if we have more events with less burn rate, then the cost drops, and that's good for everybody.”



Who will hold the next Cup defense? When and where??

YACHTING ERASES A RACIAL BARRIER

Great front page article in the...







...New York Times last week about the South African AC challenger, Shosholoza. The article, entitled "In South Africa, Yachting Erases a Racial Barrier" can be found here, but you have to sign up (free) with the New York Times to access their website if you have not already done so.



The caption for the picture, above, which also appeared on the front page -- "Marcello Burricks has gone from a crime-ridden ghetto to taking part in yachting competition with a diverse crew of South Africans."



More nice ink for Shosholoza, the America's Cup and our sport.

BLAST FROM THE PAST
Interesting email received this week...



...from a former Ann Arborite who grew up playing hockey with brothers Paul and Martin, did some sailing at Portage Lake, and even crewed for me in a regatta or two along the way. What's it been, 25 years since we last saw "Robbie"?

Hello Tom, Robert Weymouth here reading up Boats, etc. looked you up an there you are, with the whole story. Fascinating. As far as being up to speed I am in Mexico City and have done picture framing here for about 12 years. Before that lived in England (6 months) Italy (Florence mostly) for one year. This was after finishing school at Michigan State, BA English, High Honors. Neat seeing Meg’s interest in poetry. At Michigan State studied under Diane Wakoski and for the most focused on the Whitman tradition in 20th cent. American Poetry. Wakoski focuses on that getting to Ginsburg and the resurgence of Whitman’s influences there-which really gets to a base for the strongest currents in US poetry. Wakoski uses Greek myth divided into the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian” to teach, separating the bacchanalian, gods of wine and earth, reproductive cycles and sex, from the Apollonian: governments, architecture, structure, form.

Also liked seeing Paul there with fish and kids, Leslie, Michigan Moments (HEY PAUL!).
Was in Mi. in June, Dad had Mitral Valve surgery and they stumbled on an aortic aneurysm so they put in a new section of (5cm) the aorta. He is doing fine. Mom’s in Tenn. though thinking of moving. Sara can be caught up with at www.saraandjoe.com. Joe is a programmer and has www.lastminutegolfer.com Sara truly excels at her profession as a figure skating pro and works too with underprivileged kids, involving them in skating and quality instruction. Mike has Treetown in A2 and is one of the best there is at tree trimming and removal. Anyhow just wanted to say hello, ci vediamio dopo-amigo. Check out www.artmobile.us

Great to hear from you, Rob! Keep us posted, and will look you up if we ever get to Mexico City. Hope you don't mind I plucked that picture of you off your website -- wish I had time to dig through the old photo books to see if we have one of you from 30 years ago.

Un abrazo amigo mio!

BLOGGING NOTES

So I changed the...



...seasonal graphic from Groundhog to Valentine's Day, thanks to Peter Huston's very quick response to my earlier post. But then Meg also sent me one, so I put it up, too. Not too difficult to guess who sent which -- LOL.



The EFB recently went over 1000 visitors since I figured out how to put a counter on in September; too bad I didn't know to to it when this was launched last Feb. The counter is at the bottom of the main page.



Have been trying to get Meg to take over editing the EFB, but today she decided to start her own blog. With no encouragement from me, and virtually no help, she got onto www.blogger.com, and in maybe 20 minutes had her own blog up and running at http://megehman.blogspot.com. Have added links at the right to both Meg's Blog and the Challenger Commission blog.





Meg setting up her blog today.

THE "BIRDS AND THE BEES" UPDATED

His first contribution to the EFB...







...Tom Ehman, Sr. sends along this digital-age funny:



A little boy asks his Dad, "How was I born?"



Dad says, "Ah, my son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in an AOL chat room. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.



"We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall protection, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little pop-up appeared and said, 'You've Got Male!'"

POSTUS INTERRUPTUS

Been almost two weeks...







...since there was time to post to the EFB. Has been an unusually busy period -- Valencia, Detroit, San Francisco and finally Amsterdam, and that on the back of a lap around planet last month. Back home now, and will get some new posts up today and tomorrow.



At least I found time to update the "Happy New Year's" graphic that a number of you gave me a hard time about being outdated. Ok, so now you say the Happy Groundhog Day thing is past its used-by date. Guess it's time for a Happy Valentine's Day pic. Anyone have something appropriate to post?



In the meantime, and so you don't think I have been totally out of it, if you are following the America's Cup check out the new Challenger Commission blog. My mother, Jan Davis, will be pleased to know that the CC blog was set up while I was overnighting at her place last weekend in Ann Arbor. Woke up jet-lagged Sunday morning at 0330, and without getting out of bed (brrrr -- it was cold in Michigan), turned on the computer, got online and set up www.challengercommission.com. Now Mother can, and no doubt will, lay claim to playing a small part in the modern history of the AC. ;)



And now I have two blogs to maintain.