A MOD 70 at the America’s Cup

After Oracle’s AC72 flipped last October, we wrote a long and partially tongue-in-cheek editorial that the ultra-high-tech but untested AC72s should be immediately replaced — at Larry Ellison’s expense — with the much-less-expensive, ocean-tested, soft-sailed MOD 70 trimarans, which are darn near as fast as the AC72s.

We didn’t think anybody would take our advice, so we had a good chuckle about a month ago when we learned that somebody really was bringing a MOD 70 to San Francisco Bay. And not just anybody, but Thomas Siebel, who was a high-powered executive at Oracle from 1984 through 1990. It gets even better. After leaving Oracle, Siebel founded the very successful Siebel Systems — you may remember their large building by the East Bay maze — which Oracle ultimately purchased at great expense in 2006.

Our links to Siebel asked that we sit on the news, which we reluctantly did since we had no other confirmation for the story. But the news seems to be all over the waterfront in La Cruz and Banderas Bay, where Siebel’s MOD 70 will soon arrive for testing before being brought to San Francisco Bay.

We have no idea on the relationship between Siebel and Ellison, and if Siebel is trying to ‘stick it’ to his former boss. But it sure will be fun to watch the two multihulls sail side-by-side — which we have to believe it going to happen at some time or the other this summer.

In the meantime, check out this video of a French MOD70 match race.