ORACLE BMW buys SM 40s from Maxi Yachts

America's Cup syndicate ORACLE BMW Racing has recently purchased two of the specially developed match racing yachts Swedish Match 40 from Maxi Yachts to be sailed in training and preparations for the Swedish Match Tour. ORACLE BMW Racing CEO Chris DICKSON and his crew will be the first team to use the new SM 40s in their preparations for the Swedish Match Tour.

Prestigious order
At Maxi Yachts, in Långedrag on the Swedish west coast, people are really pleased with the prestigious order: - We are experiencing a solid and positive interest in our new yacht, from event organizers as well as from AC-teams, which makes this deal particularly satisfying. Given the addition of the recent deal with the Portugal Match Cup, I sense that we are gathering momentum in terms of sales. We are currently working on securing SM 40s for events on the 2005 Swedish Match Tour, managing director Pehr EDSTRÖM says, also stating that the SM 40 is adding strength to Maxi Yachts position in the high performance segment.

New match racer launched last summer
Last summer, the new match racer Swedish Match 40 was launched, created by designer and yachting legend Pelle PETTERSON and the development team at Maxi Yachts. The yacht is intended to be mass-produced as an advanced sports craft for the top teams in the world, primarily for use in the Swedish Match Tour events around the world. Already the event in Cascais, Portugal has bought six Swedish Match 40s to their recently started Match Race Centre, and several more events are interested to do the same. For ORACLE BMW Racing, the Swedish Match 40s offers evenly matched boats for crew training: - The SM 40s will provide a good training platform for our race crew to hone their match racing skills, Chris DICKSON said. ”We can train with the SM 40s for the many Swedish Match Tour events in Europe this year. The Tour events are part of our overall training for the America's Cup.”

Training starts in summer
Both the spectacular match racing boats have already been delivered to the Real Club Nautica de Valencia in the Spanish town Valencia, chosen to host the next America's Cup in 2007. It will still be some time before they go into the water. Awaiting the construction works on their base, the team is instead practising at the old base in New Zealand. ORACLE BMW Racing will start training with these yachts during the Northern Hemisphere summer months.

Short facts about the Swedish Match 40:

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