Sail No. 95 Allocated

This morning ACC Technical Director Ken McAlpine (AUS) informed the teams via email that he has allocated sail number 95, meaning that yet another team has "officially" commenced construction of a new yacht. The Technical Director only reports numbers allocated, not to which team.

The AC Class Rule that governs the allocation of sail numbers:

35.6 A new sail number shal be allotted by the Technical Director...when construction of the yacht is commenced. Construction is deemed to commence upon lamination of the first skin of the hull. The first skin shall be the inner skin of a hull constructed on a male mold or, alternatively, the outer skin on a female mold. Where the hull is built in sections it shall be the first skin on any hull component exceeding 25% of the hull area....

What is auspicious about number 95? Of course it is the atomic number of americium, an actinide.

A Google search reveals -- and Alinghi may be particularly interested in this tidbit -- that a familiar use of americium is in household smoke detectors.

We note, too, that "Windows 95" was the infamous initial version of Microsoft's graphical user interface operating system introduced in 1995. That also was the year an ACC yacht, One Australia, broke and sunk in the deep Pacific Ocean waters off San Diego during a race in the Louis Vuitton Cup -- a dubious Cup first if ever there was one.

Since no. 94 was allocated on 15 September, to our knowledge no team has fessed up to obtaining it. Teams which have publicized that they have yachts under construction include China Team (CHN), Desafio Espanol (ESP) and Victory Challenge (SWE).

Click here for our CC Blog post on 15 Sep when no. 94 was issued, which summarizes the numbers issued to date and expectations for reaching at least no. 100 during AC 32.



A vidcap from the TV footage of One Australia sinking on Sunday 5 March 1995 during Round Robin 4 of the AC 29 Louis Vuitton Cup. More....