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" VALENCIA, Spain\u2014America&amp;#039;s Cup racing is a sport that&amp;#039;s won by tenths, even hundredths of a knot of boatspeed, so anything that makes a boat faster\u2014especially anything new and innovative that nobody else has\u2014is, to put it lightly, very closely guarded. These guys make the Pentagon look like a billboard. And so it was with great anticipation and fanfare (literally, there was a trumpeter), that BMW Oracle unveiled their new weapon in the battle for the America&amp;#039;s Cup: The at-the-very-least-$5-million USA 87\u2014or at least some of it. In typical hypercompetitive America&amp;#039;s Cup fashion, the &amp;quot;unveiling&amp;quot; only revealed the bow of the U.S. team&amp;#039;s boat, covering everything aft of the mid-bow (and, of course, everything under the waterline) to protect from the prying eyes of rival teams whatever bizarre hydrodynamic sculptures the engineers dreamed up. With the 32nd America&amp;#039;s Cup over a year away, teams are taking no chances of giving away their edge. Except for one: As the new boat emerged from behind an artificial waterfall it was immediately clear that the new boat&amp;#039;s bow is very, very different from every other AC class boat. USA 87 has a bowsprit. A really short bowsprit, and angled down, and structurally reinforced. And the whispers began. 3,000 gallons of Moet &amp;amp;amp; Chandon later, the details began to trickle out. Skipper Chris Dickson told me that, yes, the new boat would still use a spinnaker pole. But it was another\u2014and to remain unidentified\u2014member of the crew who clewed me in on the real significance of the sprit. &amp;quot;Look at the forestay,&amp;quot; he said. And that was just about the only thing that was in any way clear the next morning: With the new boat lined up next to USA 76, BMW Oracle&amp;#039;s boat from the last cup go-around, it was pretty obvious that 87&amp;#039;s forestay joined the deck far closer to the bow (less than a meter), than the old one, which is well over a meter behind the pointy end. [If I&amp;#039;ve lost you by now, I promise to explain all of in a subsequent post\u2026] Since the strict rules governing the AC class don&amp;#039;t permit extending the forestay that far forward, it could only mean one thing: USA 87 was, at least structurally, shorter than the old boat. But racing boats aren&amp;#039;t supposed to get shorter, because the longer the waterline the higher the hull speed (the fastest a displacement hull can move through the water without planning). What was this trickery the engineers were foisting on us?? American tactician Peter Isler cleared up some confusion this afternoon. Including the bowsprit, the boats are the same length, and because the hull slopes so gradually moving aft from the bow, the waterline of the boat is unaffected. And the only real purpose the extra long bow serves is to hold down an attachment point for the spinnaker. So why not get rid of the extra stuff, thought the engineers, and attach the kite to the bow sprit? And then Isler repeats the AC boat engineering credo: &amp;quot;Every pound you save in the boat is just another pound we can put on the keel bulb.&amp;quot; And every extra pound in the bulb becomes extra righting moment, which means less heeling, which means more speed, which means the America&amp;#039;s Cup is one step closer to coming home. But the brain trusts running Cup campaigns don&amp;#039;t just show off their tricks for the giggles of the foreign press \u2013 every revelation is a calculated move. Clearly, BMW Oracle isn&amp;#039;t too worried about more bow sprits showing up over the next year: The ceremony last night might as well have been themed &amp;quot;Hey Everybody, Come Look at Our Bowsprit!&amp;quot; And so when Peter Isler threw me this curveball: &amp;quot;We want everybody looking at that the bowsprit,&amp;quot; everything got cloudy again. BMW Oracle has more tricks up its sleeve, and I think it&amp;#039;s a fair assumption that USA 87 is hiding something very, very different under her skirt. --Benjamin Chertoff Update: A Photo Worth 1,000 Guesses: USA 87 Sails Previous Posts: Formula One, Meet H2O  USA 87, newly &amp;quot;unveiled,&amp;quot; with her bowsprit peeking out from her skirt. Notice that the forestay is much closer to the bow than on the older boat, USA 76, in the background. USA 76 under sail. Her water line is far aft of the bow. Photo courtesy BMW ORACLE Racing/Gilles Martin-Raget BMW Oracle&amp;#039;s new boat, USA 87, halfway out of the team shed as the previous boat, USA 76 has her mast stepped. The boats begin trials tomorrow, with the older boat serving as a performance benchmark. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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