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BMW ORACLE Racing’s new 90-foot multihull yacht touched water for the first time today and the trimaran was commissioned with the traditional bottle of champagne smashed across the bow.

In a team gathering at the water’s edge, the carbon fiber boat was lowered into Fidalgo Bay in front of the boat yard where it was constructed on the Anacortes waterfront. Melinda Erkelens, Golden Gate Yacht Club board member and BMW ORACLE Racing team member, broke a bottle of Moët et Chandon as she commissioned the new BMW ORACLE Racing 90.

“We have learned a lot and developed a lot of new technology in building this boat and I’m really looking forward to testing it on the water,” said team CEO and Skipper Russell Coutts. “It is going to be an interesting challenge and we will need to build up slowly and carefully to testing its full potential,” Coutts said.

The team expects sea trials to begin in early September once the fit-out is complete and structural load tests are conducted dockside.

The team partnered with Van Peteghem and Lauriot Prévost (VPLP) of France and one of the most successful skippers in multihull racing, Franck Cammas, to design the innovative trimaran.

Led by Mark Turner and Tim Smyth, the BMW ORACLE Racing construction team has worked in a purpose-built composite yacht construction facility housed in a 100-foot x 200-foot, three-story shed.  Janicki Industries in nearby Sedro-Woolley provided high-tech precision tooling.

Bringing unique technological competence and setting new standards in the area of intelligent lightweight design, BMW has been a key partner in developing the boat. BMW aeronautical engineers, Christoph Erbelding and Thomas Hahn, have stayed with the design team since the 32nd campaign providing unique expertise in finite element analysis, which is a key tool for fulfilling EfficientDynamics requirements in the automotive industry.

The yacht is a key element of the team’s preparation for the next America’s Cup, representing San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC), on which a ruling is expected from the New York State Court of Appeals in the next six months.

The entire crew is kitted out by SLAM.

[Source: BMW Oracle] BMW ORACLE Racing will begin training in Cowes next week in preparation for the highly competitive iShares Cup at Skandia Cowes Week 2-4 August where the team is fielding two entries –Team Spithill and Team Cammas.

Spithill will helm with John Kostecki (USA), tactician/traveler; Dirk de Ridder (NED) trim/grind, and Alan Smith (NZL), trim/grind. Multihull consultant Franck Cammas (FRA) will also helm one of the team’s two Extreme 40s. His crew will include Thierry Fouchier (FRA), tactician/traveler; Joe Newton (AUS), trim/grind; and Simeon Tienpont (NED), trim/grind. BMW ORACLE Racing skipper Russell Coutts and design coordinator Mike Drummond (NZL) will be coaching the two crews in Cowes.

“This will be a perfect regatta for pushing our learning curve on multihull racing,” Spithill said. “It will be a very competitive fleet so I am sure we will be pushed hard. This is a great event and a great chance to keep preparing while we wait for our new America’s Cup boat.”

After a tough start in the Extreme 40s when one of the boats capsized in an exciting in-house match race in May, two BMW ORACLE Racing crews competed 20-22 June at the “Just the Best” regatta in Italy where Spithill and Coutts faced off in the Extreme 40s with Spithill’s team earning the regatta victory.

June also provided plenty of multihull sailing for the team. Franck Cammas, with a team including sailing coordinator Julien di Biase (SUI) as tactician, won the prestigious Bol d’Or Mirabaud sailing the Decision 35 catamaran Zebra 7 Girard- Perregaux. Following a June training session on the 60-foot Groupama 2, sailing team member Alberto Barovier (ITA) joined Cammas and crew as a bowman on the trimaran to win the ORMA class in the Trophy SNSM.