Conference unifix::sailing

    We sure was - Digital corporate sponsored Stars and Stripes.  Digital
    Australia sponsored Kookaburra.  Many a hilarious tale can be told
    about that.  Jack Shields was not amused when he found out that Digital
    was pouring money into both camps.  
    
    We made something of a publicity coup out of it by placing double page
    ads after the last race with the caption: "Congratulations to Stars and
    Stripes and Kookaburra, the two fastest 12 metres in the world, from
    the computer supplier to both."
    
    The Kiwi's of course disagreed mumbling something about New Zealand
    being faster than Kookaburra.  But we will never know, not following
    the San Diego farce and all the courtroom @#$#..
    
    How do you get sponsorship?  Basically by having a champion inside the
    company who can see the benefits, who is willing to stick his/her neck
    out, move bureaucratic mountains etc.  What happened in Australia was
    that the CSS marketing manager, who was interested in yachts and had
    contacts in the Kookaburra syndicate gave un-official assistance.  The
    payback at that point was just to show that CSS could do it.  The whole
    thing grew from there until it got too big to be ignored and had to be
    killed or made an official company program.
    
    I don't know the US end of the story but would be interested to hear
    it. 

    Digital did help Stars & Stripes in the Australia effort.  They had a
    MVII on their chase boat Betsy gathering real time data from many
    sensors on Stars & Stripes.  There is a VHS tape of Stars & Stripes
    flying the Digital spinnaker.  I am not sure where you can get a copy.
      
    As a side note, much of their hull design work was done on VAXES by
    naval architects at our customer S.A.I.C.
    
    I work out of the San Diego Digital office and there is a lot of local
    interest in this event.  I believe there will be four syndicates from
    the San Diego area.  Dennis Conners being one of those.
    
    The internal effort within Digital is very, very difficult to get
    sponsor monies.  Our current financial situation does not help your
    effort.  Digital will usually wait to the last minute if they are going
    to get envolved as they do not want to sponsor a "looser".
    
    

Jack Smith showed up in an actuality clip during ESPN's America's Cup program 
on the night of Apr 15.  He was officially signing over $500K worth of equipment
to the America^3 organization.  The package also includes time on the 9000
at MIT.  There was the usual statement about leading companies being associated
with leading teams.  

Sure hope we don't give America^3 our other "package"....

    Not that I disagree with the choice, but does anybody know how DEC
    decided to sponser America 3 and not Dennis?  The MIT connection is
    obvious, but was there any official investigation or decision as to who
    was more likely to be the winner?
    
    The show last night was thin on news.  Good info on the crew selection
    of A 3.  The boats sure are pretty.  Seeing them in a Fremantle type of
    wind would be real excitment!  Kolius is going to have a hard time
    coming out of this looking good.
    
    Dave

    The choice maybe by default, as HP is backing Dennis.  One of our large
    DEC customers, SAIC is helping Dennis with S/W programmers.  In
    previous Cups SAIC provided Dennis with design help on VAXES.  
    
    I work in the San Diego office and our customer service people have
    installed two LANs w/3100s for the Italian team.  One on shore with
    three 3100s and one on the chase boat with two 3100s.  Data is
    collected by the chase boat (large power boat) and when it returns to
    the dock they connect the boat to the shore LAN to analyze the data.  I
    do not think we will get any mileage on this as I believe the Italians
    have purchased this equipment as well as some MACs.
    
    There is a lot of local hype and mind games being played by all the
    teams.  Dennis is the last team to get a boat in the water so the least
    is known about his capability and he likes it that way.  You may
    remember in the Australian races he kept his team in Hawaii and did not
    participate in the World Cup.  He hinted last night on ESPN he may do
    this again.  I have noticed this last weekend he kept Stars & Stripes
    well away from the other teams practicing.  These are very very
    impressive boats!  With their 110 foot masts you can spot them miles
    away.  Dennis is NOT mister personality, but there is no one with his
    experence match racing in the America Cup.  I would be hard pressed to
    bet on anyone else at this time.
    
    As a side note, the California LOTTO this Wednesday is up to $100
    Million.  We should form a ticket pool and if we win enter our own
    boat. ;^}
    
    Chuck
         

                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     26-Nov-1991 11:44am EST
                                        From:     Elizabeth Reinhardt @PKO
                                                  REINHARDT.ELIZABETH AT a1 at POWDML at pko
                                        Dept:     Corporate Public Relations
                                        Tel No:   223-6060

TO: Long List Deleted

CC:  KENT ST. VRAIN@OGO

Subject: ABC SPORTS/AMERICA3 PR ALERT                                


         On Saturday, December 28th, Digital will be featured in a 
         segment during pre-game coverage of the NFL Playoffs.  The 
         one-minute "Science, Technology and Sports" piece is part of 
         a series being produced by ABC Sports and sponsored by AT&T.  
         This segment will showcase the work Digital is doing with the 
         America3 Foundation and will feature video of Digital 
         computers being used in boat design, computer modeling and 
         analysis, sail design, weather forecasting and on-board racing 
         calculations.  More than 15 million viewers are expected to be 
         tuned in when the piece airs. 
         
         America3 is defending the US title in the upcoming America's 
         Cup Trials set to begin in San Diego on January 14.  Digital 
         has made a significant commitment to the America3 Team in 
         research and equipment grants.  As the competition draws near,  
         publicity is likely to increase.  Please direct any calls on 
         this to Elizabeth Reinhardt DTN 223-6060 (broadcast) or Bob 
         Kucharavy (print) DTN 223-6827.
    

re .-1

>>> America3 is defending the US title in the upcoming America's Cup Trials

I thought the trials were to determine who was to defend the U.S. title, or
am I confused?

Mike H

    
    	I believe that at 7:40pm, last night, the Kennedy-Smith trial
    results interrupted the show.... did anybody see anything?
    
    	And where do I apply for my DEC logo spinnaker?