Ramblings from Spain

As if we haven’t had enough contention since Alinghi’s successful defense, I can’t see this one stopping here.

The America’s Cup between holders Alinghi and challengers Oracle is to be held in March 2009, a New York Supreme Court judge has ruled.

Judge Herman Cahn ordered the series to take place in Valencia, Spain, or another location chosen by Alinghi.

The winner of the duel will have the right to organise the subsequent event under the more usual multi-team format.

So if this is how it stands, and I have understood things correctly, BMW Oracle Racing have basically won themselves the right to race for the cup, avoiding a challenger series!

What about all the other teams who are expecting a crack at it, and are who made this the media success the last time around? What about Team Origin’s attempt at mediation and a compromise?

Despite their not-so-clean reputation in all of this, if it is what ends up happening, all I hope for is that Alinghi thrashes Oracle on the water, and we can return to some normailty.

Short of banging a few rather rich heads together, some common sense needs to be brought back into the process in order to ensure that the America’s Cup remains the fantastic sporting and technological spectacle it should be.

Tags: America’sCup

rti 07

Originally uploaded by digitallust.

I stumbled across this photo today, and just had top share!

America’s Cup champion Alinghi has lost its court battle against rivals BMW Oracle, raising hopes of the reinstatement of the 2009 event.

BBC SPORT | Other Sport… | Sailing | Alinghi loses America’s Cup case

I hope so, this has been an embarrassment on what is a major sporting spectacle.

Lets move on, and see this decided fairly on the water!

Tags: americas+cup, alinghi

Just a bit of family trivia!

Tania is nearly two, and coming out of nappies. We only started last weekend, and she’s doing great!

We were obviously a little pensive, over what can be a tricky phase, but so far, so good!

The last couple of days at nursery she’s managed to stay dry, and this morning she woke up dry for the second time! Thats two nights in a row
This has me very feeling very proud of her!

Tags: family, pottytraining, nappies

Yet more bad news!

The 2009 America’s Cup in Valencia has been postponed because of a legal row.BMW Oracle Racing and champions Alinghi have been in a dispute over Desafio Espanol’s status as challenger in the prestigious yachting competition.

BBC SPORT | Other Sport… | Sailing | America’s Cup postponed over row

So, not only have we to wait until 2010 to see England play in an international football tournament (assuming we can qualify!), but now it looks like we won’t even be able to enjoy the spectacle that is the America’s Cup before then either!

This is leaving me feeling rather fed up!

Tags: England, football, AmericasCup, Alinghi, BMW Oracle Racing

Finally got around to signing up to Feedburner, and moving my feeds, it was something I had been meaning to do for a while.

In the end it was a painful process, with a plugin doing the magic on the Wordpress end.

So, to my faithful reader, please feel free to re-syndicate my content again via the new feed!

Here are the links:

• Content: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RamblingsFromSpain
• Comments: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RamblingsFromSpainComments

Many thanks, and apologies for the inconvenience!

Blogged with Flock

Tags: rss, feeds, feedburner

Late in posting this, but we had another regatta weekend last Saturday and Sunday where we came out on top! This one was the “III Trofeo de la Hispanidad” organised by the “Real Club Astur de Regartas“.

We enjoyed two days of windy racing, 15-20 knots and waves, serious surfing with the kite downwind! The beats were a bit of a slog, and we were all hurting afterwards! But it was great!

The final blast home on Sunday was unforgettable, the fastest we’ve been in one of these. So fast we were dead downwind and still couldn’t keep the kite full all the time, the apparent wind went so far forward so quickly as we accelerated! Awesome!

So, we managed to get results of 2, 2, 1, 2 to clean up with 5 points after a discard.

I will try and find some photos, as there were a couple of people out spectating with cameras.

Yes, today is my birthday, the big 3-0! Happy birthday to me!

Not much more to say about it really, just a normal day at work, but maybe a good excuse for a beer this evening!

The weekend could be a different story though!

Technorati tags: birthday, 3-0

You can imagine the scene, you’ve just come to the end of a four year struggle to successfully organise a major global sporting event, no doubt with weeks of tying loose ends up still ahead; no sooner is the cup held aloft do you learn that you’ve got to do it all over again, only this time in a 2 year time frame… then news reaches you that there’s a court action challenging your every decision, so things are going to be even more complicated. The good news is you’ve pretty much spent the past 4 years accumulating all that you need for the next campaign, so you don’t have to worry about that. At the very least, you’d think your boss would let you hang on to your desk and chair to work from.

But this is the America’s Cup, and there’s sponsorship money to squander. So you decide to arrange an auction of everything that’s beginning to look a bit tatty - perhaps you have a new colour scheme in mind for the office, or you simply see an opportunity to rid the organisation of that golf buggy you might have accidentally ‘pranged’ on one of those cerveza-fuelled late night races around the car park.

Hilarious! Follow the link below for more.

So whats the big deal? The auction is real, check it out here: http://www.32acauction.com/

Source: The Afterguard: The America’s Cup - There’s Everything to Pay For