BMW-Oracle Racing Team on Monday launched and commissioned their 90-foot trimaran that they’ve been building here in Anacortes for the past nine months. The boat was then towed to Lovric’s Sea-Craft marina on the Guemes Channel.
Melinda Erkelens, Golden Gate Yacht Club board member and BMW Oracle Racing Team member, broke a bottle of champagne as she commissioned the new BMW Oracle Racing 90.
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.
Russell Coutts, the boat's skipper and racing team CEO, was among those on hand. Coutts, who has won the America’s Cup three times, said "We have learned a lot in getting to this point and now we are looking forward to testing it on the water.”
Then Monday afternoon, the 165-foot mast was mounted on the boat and the boom attached to the mast. By mid-afternoon Monday, the boat was being towed to Lovric’s Sea-Craft marina along the Guemes Channel waterfront.
The BMW-Oracle Racing Team built the boat of state-of-the-art carbon-fiber material over the past nine months. It's the third America's Cup boat built in Anacortes.
The team expects sea trials to begin in early September once the fit-out is complete and structural load tests are conducted dockside.
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.