SailBlast

Oracle's Tactician Happy To Be On Home Turf for AC34

2012-03-20T16:20:00.010-07:00

John Kostecki is the sole American on the American America’s Cup sailing team, in an event that is being held in America for the first time since 1995. Fortunately, the renown tactician’s career successes more than make up for the absence of fellow countrymen on the Oracle Racing team.

I recently caught up with JK in a café near his home in Marin County. He arrived on bike, one of the creature comforts he’s been enjoying since spending more time at his Bay Area home. JK grew up sailing his parents Lido 14 - the same boat, by coincidence, that his boss Larry Ellison grew up sailing on. When he was 8 years old he joined the Richmond Yacht Club and its junior program. It was a great program for JK, and the club/junior sailing became a big part of his life. Later his dad graduated to a Cal 20 and the young JK raced on that.

Like most America’s Cup sailors, JK’s humble beginnings proved to be the foundation essential for his future success in the sport. He says, “I wouldn’t be where I am today without dinghy sailing. Every time I go back to it I really enjoy it. It’s probably the best way to become a better sailor and a fast way to learn as they’re so sensitive.”

Fast forward more than a few years…JK’s focused on the next 15 months and his job as tactician for Oracle Racing.

What does it mean to you personally to have the Cup in SF?
JK: It’s great - it’s even a little surreal. It hasn’t happened yet but it’s great for me, being from here. Every once in a while I have to pinch myself, “Heck, is this really happening, you know?”

What’s changed in the role of tactician?
JK: With the AC45, there’s only 5 guys on the boat and it’s obviously quite demanding - we’d rather have 6 or 7 crew to do all the jobs. There isn’t a dedicated tactician per se - the helmsman is really the tactician and the rest of the crew contributes to the tactics - that’s how it’s mainly different to more traditional Cup boats.

What about equipment that you use to do your job?
JK: It all depends on what kind of racing you’re talking about - say Bay Racing - there really hasn’t been a whole lot of change - there’s a lot more access to weather information, tidal information - you can now download it to your phone - not huge changes.

But, you’re going to see a lot of exciting changes for this next Cup with equipment and electronics because of the way the boats have changed and the races have changed with the shorter courses. The last Cup with the trimaran and the catamaran were a stepping stone - there’s going to be big changes - stuff that’s being developed in-house. (Ed’s note: JK was clearly excited about some of this “stuff” that he couldn’t talk more about…)

How do you become a good tactician?
JK: Good question - sailing singlehanded boats on my own starting out - you really have to become your own. Growing up we weren’t a financially wealthy family so it was always hard for me to get even decent equipment - it was always below average so the equipment held me back so I had to make up for it in other ways. LOL! That’s probably the start of it all - how I learned to become a smarter sailor I guess.

What do you prefer - helming or being tactician?
JK: I enjoy both. The thing about being tactician that I like is that it’s a smaller area you can really focus on. Being the helmsman, a lot of the time you’re not only the helmsman but as the skipper you have ultimate responsibility for everybody on the boat. It’s a more demanding job.

How interesting is the tactical game in the AC45 for you?
JK: With multi hull sailing it’s just a lot different - there are a few really key moments especially with the way we have these new courses set up. You really have to focus at critical times to get it right otherwise you can lose a race. It’s still fun and challenging - just a different game.

You’ll see tacking duels at times, like we had a tacking duel with Team NZ in San Diego - it’s not a conventional type of tacking duel but we probably did 5 or 6 tacks on that short course. That’s a lot of work and it’s slow. In a match race you can do it, like in that particular race, Team NZ and ourselves wanted to stick close together and that ended up happen, especially as we all get more comfortable with the boats.

There’re a lot of young guys in the AC now - you must be seeing some great talent?
JK: I think it’s great. For sure there needed to be a change to get more young people involved in the sport, particularly in the America’s Cup. It was turning into an older guy’s sport. The change to the boats makes it quite obvious that young, stronger people need to get more involved. It’s going to bring the average age down a fair amount and it shows on all the teams.

Everybody has younger guys this time around - people coming out of the Olympics. We have three guys who are doing Olympic campaigns now and a few other guys who have just come out of the Olympics. It’s a great learning opportunity on both sides and it really pushes you too. It’s great to have that extra push. Just doing the A-Class stuff with Nathan (Outteridge) and a bunch of the younger guys in January in Australia - it makes you work harder trying to achieve another level.

Can you recall a time when you’ve been especially challenged as a tactician?
JK: Yeah - you always make errors! I’m a relatively conservative tactician. I always try to rely on other aspects - boat speed, crew work. I’d have to say some of the offshore sailing that I’ve done has been challenging. We had some races in the 01-02 Volvo when I was skipper on Illbruck where I would have to say at times we made some big mistakes. It really gets tricky because it’s a big team and stuff got spread out over the internet - we all had high expectations and so a few of those moments stand out. It was hard to swallow those mistakes sometimes. But that’s the Volvo - there’re some incredible highs and incredible lows - I remember both!

Are you following the current Volvo?
JK: Oh yeah. But, for whatever reason it seems that the Volvo is not as popular as it used to be. People really aren’t following it as much - generally seems like people have lost interest. I’m a little disappointed. The only thing I can really think of is the new course - less southern ocean and less traditional route. Could also be the worldwide economy. Seems like there’s less involvement and it’s still expensive.

Do you like ocean racing?
JK: I do - I’ve enjoyed that part of my career. I don’t see myself doing a whole lot more but I really enjoyed it. It’s just different. Just like multi hulls are different. I really enjoy learning new things - it’s how this game is now - I’m constantly learning, especially with the last Cup and the trimaran. In that sense I enjoy the offshore sailing. I didn’t think I would but ended up liking it. Every once in a while I think, ‘Man, I wish I was out there in the middle of a race,’ and other times I think, ‘God, I wouldn’t want to be out there in that race’

Do you like your job?
JK: Yeah! I really do.

What about the people you work with in this game, like Larry?
JK: Absolutely - like I said before, it’s great to meet different people and learn from others - I really enjoy that part of my work.

What’s been the pinnacle of your career - pick one!
JK: For sure the Olympic sailing is a lot of fun. That really developed my sailing level. I think it really got me into professional so I’d have to say Olympic sailing. It really develops more of a routine on how you go about sailboat races.

What does your day-to-day routine look like?
JK: It’s always in the gym in the morning whether it’s a race day or not. Either a big day in the gym or a race day training routine in the gym which gets you physically ready. Then we’re into planning meetings or debrief meetings on racing or training. That’s normally a big chunk of the mornings then normally sailing or racing in the afternoons. We have Phillipe Presti who used to work with Jimmy at Luna Rossa - we have him working with us on tactics, strategy and starting - now he’s a full gambit coach - he’s like a Rod Davis for us.

Do you do any other kind of sailing?
JK: I’m actually pretty busy - it’s always a balance with family - my kids are 4 and 1 ½. It’s challenging. In this day and age I’m trying to stay with multi hulls as well because the mono hulls are a lot different to the multi hull. I don’t want to be going back and forth and try to relearn habits - you relearn everything that you’ve forgotten then go off and sail another boat. It’s nice to stay with multi hulls at this stage of the game. I’m a little wary of doing too much mono hull sailing. You can go out and do a race or two or a regatta or two, but you can’t really do a lot of sailing just because the timing and everything is just so different.

Plus, the AC45 are really cool boats. I’m going to have to say there aren’t too many better boats than an AC45 out there to sail right now. They’re really nice boats, well designed.

What’s your favorite part of a campaign?
JK: Pretty simple for me - my favorite part is the racing. Racing’s fun and I really enjoy it. I also enjoy the training side. It can still be tedious - when you’re trying to develop speed you still have to go out and test equipment etc. - that part of it really hasn’t changed too much. As long as you’re involved and understand what’s being tested then it’s still pretty fun. You’re learning how to make the boat go faster.

If you weren’t sailing what else would you be doing?
JK: LOL! Riding (his bikes). I don’t know - I enjoy the financial markets - always keep a close eye on that. It’s similar to my role in sailing because it’s quite tactical there’s a lot of strategy involved. I enjoy that and would probably be involved in some aspect of that. Right now it’s very busy, it’s only going to get busier. It’s only just around the corner.

When are you going to throw your 4-year old on a boat?
JK: She’s been on a boat - not here but my wife is from a sailing family - Anne Marie - Dirk De Ridder is her brother. They’re a big sailing family from Holland so our daughter every summer goes back they go back to sail with the grand parents. Eventually we hope to move back to Marin and get a boat and have more of a normal family sailing atmosphere. LOL!

* John Kostecki is the only person in sailing to hold a “trifecta” of the sport’s most elite events: an Olympic medal (Silver in the Soling class, Seoul 1988), a Volvo Ocean Race win (skipper and helmsman of German yacht Illbruck in 2001/2002), and victory in the 33rd America’s Cup (tactician BMW Oracle Racing).

Outteridge Looking Good for Gold

2012-03-14T11:49:00.007-07:00

Aussie skiff sailor and new helmsman in the America’s Cup, Nathan Outteridge is spending a lot of time on the water and in airports as he juggles his new role with Team Korea and the push for a medal in the 2012 Olympics with 49er crew Iain Jensen. Read on for part two of an interview with Outteridge:

Your bio says you live in Wangi Wangi - where the heck is Wangi Wangi?
OUTTERIDGE: (laughs…) It’s pronounced ‘Wonggee Wonggee’- it’s a little bay on Lake McQuarrie which is about a 1:45 minute drive north of Sydney. It’s near Newcastle - a big inland lake that’s actually a lot bigger than Sydney Harbor but with hardly any traffic on it and lots of dinghy and skiff sailing. Chris Nicholson - the driver on Camper in the current Volvo and also an Olympic 49er sailor lives in the same area. It’s a bit of a skiff breeding ground. I grew up there and once I got older I’d make the drive to Sydney every weekend where the competition and coaches are.

Who do you consider your competition out there?
OUTTERIDGE: Good question - there’s so many out there in sailing and it’s such a diverse sport. I used to really look up to Chris Nicholson when I was a younger kid because he was so close to what I was wanting to do - he was unreal on the 18-footers and three times World champion in the 49er - he was the guy I was always trying to chase - I was almost a generation ahead of myself. I thought if I could get to be as good as him I’d do pretty well in the world of sailing.

In terms of people who I race against - there’s obviously the Spanish guys Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez. They’ve been the benchmark for me over the past few years in 49er racing - when they came back at the recent test event it was very impressive to see how well they did with very little training on the boat. Tom Slingsby is one of my best mates and an unreal sailor and he’s really only sailed Lasers for the past 15 years but he’s been ratcheting up recently - whenever I get to race with him whether it’s in the Moth or the A, it’s always a good race - it’s fun competition between the two of us and I think you’ll see him go a long way in the Cup now with Oracle.

You’re working hard on your Olympic campaign?
OUTTERIDGE: Yes, I’m back home in Australia at the moment. We’ve been training the last couple of months in the 49er and are in the process of getting our equipment selected and sent over to England because the first major event will be Weymouth in mid June. In between the AC45 events, I’ll be doing the lead up events in the 49er as well.

Have you spending a lot of time in the 49er?
OUTTERIDGE: Yeah, I’ve been doing a fair amount but we train in blocks, we don’t train consistently months on end. We had a rest after the Olympic test event back in August and in November we did some training to the lead up to the Worlds in Perth in December. I took January off from 49ers and did the A-Class Nationals and a little bit of other yacht sailing. We did a small amount of 49er training in Feb and only just getting back into it now but once the boats get sent away next week I’ll be shifting gears again into the A-Class to remember how to sail a cat before I fly to Naples. Going sailing in a lot of boats which I’ve been doing over the past three-four years, and even with the Games coming up this year, I don’t really want to change that too much because I think that is what gives me an edge when it comes to racing the 49er. You get so much experience managing different types of boats that the 49er becomes more simple and easy when you get back to it.

What do you think your chances are for London?
OUTTERIDGE: We’re looking pretty good - we’ve been pretty solid in Weymouth over the last four events we’ve done and we’ve won all four events. We’re hoping we can carry that form through this year. We finished last year well winning the Worlds and we’ve only ever placed once outside the top three. The results speak for themselves and they build a lot of confidence for us but at the same time sailing is such a sport where nothing is certain and there’re so many variables. We’re just trying to make sure that every other little avenue that could go wrong wont go wrong. We’ve got a really good coach in Emmett Lazich who is overseeing our whole program and making sure I don’t compromise my 49er campaign with the Cup work.

* Weymouth is Outteridge’s second Olympics in the 49er - the first was Beijing where he led the event for about four days but missed out when they capsized in the medal race just before the line, dropping to fifth overall.

How have you developed as a sailor since then - you must really want that medal?
OUTTERIDGE: Yes, definitely. I think with your first Olympics you can get caught up in the moment - now I’ve been through that and I know how different the racing is. With the 49er we typically race in fleets - like 80 boats in all the events we do. At the Olympics with only about 20 boats the racing changes - you lose half of the good boats as you only get one per country. You have some boats who have never been in Gold Fleet suddenly there racing around you, so you need to be prepared for a different style of racing.

The test event this year in Weymouth was quite interesting. We only had 20 boats racing but the risk levels and everything all change a bit. We’ve accounted for what the changes are going to be and hopefully when we begin racing we’ll be ready for whatever the Olympics has to throw at us this time whereas last time we started our Olympics with a DQ in the first race and it was a very up and down event. We’re more experienced and prepared for what may come now.

The conditions will be very different from Beijing…?
OUTTERIDGE: Oh yeah - in China we sailed in hardly any wind - I was weighing 63 kilos to help the boat’s performance. I’m now a good 15 kilos heavier so that’s a big change in itself. I think the Games in Weymouth will be more like a normal sailing event than China. We’ll get a range of conditions and everyone has to prepare for that.

Who do you consider your mentor?
OUTTERIDGE: My parents (Tony and Jasmine) - they paid for everything I was doing as a kid - my dad was quite involved - he did what he could to get me where I am today. Since I’ve been in the 49er class I’ve had Emmett Lazich coaching me - he’s a great guy to work with and I’ve learned so much from him.

What’s been your biggest achievement in sailing?
OUTTERIDGE: What I’m most proud of is winning three youth Worlds back to back. It was a very difficult thing to do and you’re at such a young age being on an international stage. Winning three 49er Worlds is a big highlight as well. It’s also a very exciting thing to be offered the position to drive an America’s Cup boat at the age of 26. Even if it goes nowhere I feel like that’s an achievement in itself.

What’s your favorite boat to sail?
OUTTERIDGE: The Moth - it’s an amazing boat, it doesn’t matter what boat you’re sailing the Moth will probably always win.

Your favorite place to sail?
OUTTERIDGE: I’d have to say - I’ve sailed all around the world but every time I come home, wake up and look out the window it always seems to be the nicest place, even in winter, so much warmer than most places. I’m always surprised that there’re not more people sailing here.

*Outteridge’s hometown is Wangi Wangi, New South Wales, Australia. He started sailing at age 3 and began racing at age 5 on a Sabot. He had his first win at the Sabot Nationals, Yeppon, in 2000. He holds three World 49er titles, three ISAF World Youth titles, and a World Moth title.

AMERICA'S CUP FOR AUSSIE SKIFF SAILOR

2012-03-13T10:20:00.005-07:00

Nathan Outteridge has his dance card packed for 2012, with an Olympic campaign to see through (and hopefully pick up a gold in the 49er), as well as jumping on board an AC45 for the first time as the new helmsman for Team Korea. The 26-year old Aussie skiff sailor is realistically confident about his new “job”, although scaling up from the 49er to the AC72 may take some work…

The following is the first of a two-part interview about joining Team Korea and Outteridge's current Olympic campaign.

Was the America’s Cup something that you were looking to do?
OUTTERIDGE: I wanted to move into the Cup and the fact that it’s moved into fast, exciting boats interested me a lot more than it probably did when it was in the older boats. The timing with the way that the circuit is with the Olympic stuff isn’t ideal but the opportunity presented itself at the right moment.

What do you think of the opportunity?
OUTTERIDGE: I’m really excited - we had our really first big Skype meeting last night with the whole crew. It was insightful to find out where they’re out, how their progression has been and what their plans are for Naples and the events past that. It’s very different to what I’ve been doing. I’ve done a bit of A-class sailing now but I’ll be sailing with more people, furling gennakers, using different types of sailing procedures etc.

Have you sailed the AC45 yet?
OUTTERIDGE: Never been on the boat. I get to Naples on April 1 and might get 4-5 days in the boat if all goes well. I’m very excited about it as it’s finally about to happen - the boats look amazing. I’ve been spending every spare minute I have at home watching the footage to work out what to do as I think it’s going to be a very steep learning curve for me.

What’s your training schedule with Team Korea look like?
OUTTERIDGE: The plan is to finish out this season in the AC45. It depends on how things pan out and how things are going with the build of the 72 but once the Games are over, the intention is to fly straight into full-time on TK. The team will be a bit behind the main 3 or 4 teams but they sounded very confident last night that the 72’s going to happen. They’re trying to shift focus a bit to get that prepared so when it comes to the Louis Vuitton they’ll be ready to go.

Do you think Team Korea is going to have enough time on the water to be competitive?
OUTTERIDGE: I wouldn’t be joining the team if I didn’t think that the team had a good foundation already and we didn’t have the potential to get results. I think the results that came in Plymouth and San Diego, were good results. Hopefully I can slot into the role that Chris has been doing quite nicely. I think the key for myself is to try to learn the key points to racing the boat very quickly. The guys should be able to cover the full boat handling maneuvers - just got to make sure I’m up to speed with time on distance when it comes to pulling the trigger at the start because that looks pretty key. General positioning, laylines, things like that - are going to be critical in the tight boundary races. The other thing is getting my head around the new rules - calling for water on the boundaries, the gate at the top mark etc. I think the concept of the racing and the way it works is right up my alley - it’s what I like, I like things that happen fast and making critical decisions. But I’m sure making those decisions on the boat is going to be different from the helicopter view!

I’m sure you’ll see some errors on my part in the first few races (LOL) but the error rate will come down and results will get better. It was interesting watching Darren Bundock and Tom Slingsby as tactician in San Diego - they were very up and down but when they got it right they were all over it, and every now and then there would be those key errors I was talking about which are going to cost you badly. Hopefully I can learn as much from the other teams as possible and hopefully they’ll feel a little sympathetic toward me and give me a few tips before we start racing - I highly doubt that though!

Do you have any problem stepping into Chris Draper’s shoes?
OUTTERIDGE: I haven’t really thought about it really. I know him from 49er sailing and know he’s done quite a bit of Extreme 40 sailing as well. He has that leg up on me in that sense but we’ve pretty much got the same crew as TK had for the past few events so hopefully they can do all the hard stuff and I’ll just hang at the back keeping it upright and going fast and avoid any issues! With the race format, it seems like you really need to think ahead to avoid a bad situation. Hopefully from my 49er and Moth experience I can use those skills to help predict what will happen on the AC45 - trying to plan that in a 45 cat is going to be a little different to what I’m used to though.

Being involved in all aspects of an A-Cup team including design is new for you - thoughts?
OUTTERIDGE: We’ve been trying to get quite technical about our approach to the 49er and one of the things I like most about the Moth is how design oriented it is. You’re always tweaking, trying to get the foils set up right, trying to get the most out of the boat. That’s one of the things I like most about sailing. You can find all these avenues to make the boat go faster without having to actually do anything physically. I don’t have a whole lot of design experience but that’s one of the things that interests me most about the Cup but I have a pretty good feel for a boat and can tell what works and what doesn’t so can give good feedback to the design team on how things may need to change. It’s going to depend a lot on how much time, money and resources we’ll have to throw at things.

Re the athletic nature of the 45 - will you’ll have to scale up to helm the 45?
OUTTERIDGE: From watching the footage it seems like the helmsman is in the best seat - looks like the four guys up the front have so much on that they couldn’t be fit enough to do their job. I’m pretty excited to be sitting at the back to be honest and let all them to do the hard work!

From all reports, helming the 72 will be a massive step up…?
Yeah - it seems a little scary to me. The 45s looked a little scary last year - I was trying to picture a 72 capsizing - if you get it wrong it looks like you’ll be in all sorts of trouble so hopefully the design team does a good job of making the boat nice and easy to sail otherwise you could have a bit on at times.

What about working with a crew? How’s that going to go for you?
OUTTERIDGE: I’ve done quite a bit of sailing on Farr 40s over the last four or five years in either a strategy role or tactician so I’ve been trying to develop those skills of managing a team - understanding what people’s jobs are and making sure I give them enough time to do it. As much as it’s a race of tactics and strategy, it’s a lot about managing crew capabilities and not putting them under too much pressure and having good clear communication. From what I’ve seen of the AC45s, it seems that’s where the problems occur, when communications break down and I know I need to be aware of that.

The Cup is fast becoming a Made-for-TV event - does that bother you?
OUTTERIDGE: I don’t think it changes the way we race the event. Sailing should become more media friendly - we’ve tried to adopt that more in the Moth and 49er but this is taking it to a whole new level. Every little thing you do will be picked up by TV both on and off the boat. I think it’s great and what sailing should be about. It’s an exciting time to be involved in the sport. I think Oracle is doing a great job of pushing it in that direction. Half the attraction for me is getting involved in something so exciting. Hopefully the constraints of trying to make it media friendly don’t destroy the best parts of our sport.

*Outteridge’s hometown is Wangi Wangi, New South Wales, Australia. He started sailing at age 3 and began racing at age 5 on a Sabot. He had his first win at the Sabot Nationals, Yeppon, in 2000. He holds three World 49er titles, three ISAF World Youth titles, and a World Moth title.

Stay tuned for Part Two - Outteridge on the Olympics

Bay Area Sailors Training Up for AC34

2012-02-16T17:04:00.000-08:00

Enthusiastic sailors and boaters around the Bay Area have finally been able to get their feet - and more - wet with the America’s Cup, as a group of yacht club volunteers take on specific training that will certify them to become on-water volunteer marshals for the 2012-2013 events.

This weekend is the second training course for Cup volunteers from Bay Area yacht clubs to take a US Sailing safe power boat handling course and get recognized by the US Coast Guard and certified by NASBLA (National Association of State Boating Law Administrators), a license that volunteers maybe required to have to marshal on the water for AC34 events.

“We ultimately need to about 200 marshals we can use for 2013 - those people will help us in conjunction with groups like the Coast Guard and the Neptune Coalition,” said John Craig, Principal Race Officer for the 34th America’s Cup.

The training course has been promoted through the America’s Cup Yacht Club Alliance - a group of yacht clubs in the Bay Area located on the water around the Bay who have come together to support the America’s Cup events with the provision of volunteers and other assets such as marshal boats.

Last weekend was the first training course, held at Cal Maritime in Vallejo, and Craig expects that a few more will be held later this year to ensure he can pull together a group of 200. “We wont expect those people to be out every day during events,” Craig said, “but we need a pool because we think we need to run 60 people a day.”

As part of the weekend-long course, the Coast Guard Auxiliary makes a presentation on how communications will work from their end, to the police/authorized enforcement boats, and from there into AC marshal boats which will help maintain the race-course.

There’s also an environmental session to ensure AC adheres to best boating practices with a speaker on endangered species and how to identify those as well as discussion on best practices when fueling etc.

The final component of the course is learning how the ‘box’ is defined and the different areas the marshals will be to maintain the course, or the ‘box’, where the boats will be etc., which Craig delivers himself.

“Last weekend went great,” Craig said. “We’re excited about this and the Coast Guard’s really been supportive. A lot of the people have some really good skills already so it’ll be interesting to get feedback to see if people learned a lot or a little.”

Aaron DeZafra, a former Commodore of the Corinthian Yacht Club who attended last weekend’s course thought it was really worthwhile.

“Spending a lot of time on boats as a lot of us do, I was hoping not to be bored out of my skull and I have to say I was really, really pleased with the course. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of stuff that I actually didn’t know or used to know (LOL). We learned some good techniques for boat handling that I had not put to use before.”

A high point of the weekend for DeZafra was Craig’s presentation, “It was great to hear first-hand what the course was going to look like, what to expect from commercial boats, how we’re going to operate, and how we’re going to be scheduled at a high level.”

Roxanne Fairbairn, also a CYC member and on the Race Council, also attended last weekend’s course and commented that it felt like things were really beginning to happen. “We had over 40 volunteers from clubs all around the Bay so it was really fun to meet new people and a great way to start building this Cup community here.”

This coming weekend there is another course planned which is sold out with 50 participants and a waiting list of 27. Volunteers are paying their way - it’s a $50 fee for the two-day course. If they bring their own boat there’s a 50% discount - some yacht clubs have people taking the course using their respective club boats.

Craig thinks that if the volunteer training is a success, hopefully it could be used for things other than the Cup such as clubs using the training for their own race committees. Either way, the Bay Area will have a well qualified pool of on-water volunteers to draw from for all kinds of future on-water events. Not a bad thing at all.

For more info, contact Melanie Roberts: Melanie.roberts@americascup.com

AC34’s Sustainability Plan - It's Good...

2012-02-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

The final version of the America’s Cup Event Authority’s (ACEA) Sustainability Plan published today, all 51 pages (http://www.americascup.com/en/Latest/News/2012/2/AC34-Sustainability-Plan-released/). It’s just one of the ELEVEN implementation plans that are part of the Host City Agreement with the City and County of San Francisco. Like most everything else AC34 it’s aggressive but one that looks certain to leave a positive legacy for San Francisco, as well as for sporting events in general.

Jill Savery, ACEA’s head of sustainability, is leading this relatively new area of sports and sustainability for AC34. Her bio’s impressive.

The 39-year old Olympic gold medalist (synchronized swimming, 1996, Atlanta), 8-time World Champion and International Hall of Fame Inductee, has a Masters Degree in Environmental Management from Yale and recently returned to the US after leading the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games sustainability work program of a London-based NGO. She has served as a co-opted Expert to the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012.

Savery explains that what ACEA decided to do was to narrow the broad scope of what was feasible to work on into five themes. The Plan demonstrates how AC34 delivery organizations intend to achieve sustainability objectives via these five themes:

Energy and emissions - optimizing use of energy and minimizing associated air emissions

Resource efficiency - maximizing natural resources and land use

Natural Habitats and Wildlife - Protecting and supporting biodiversity

Inclusion: providing an inclusive and welcoming event experience plus maximizing legacy benefits for the City

Engagement: raise sustainability awareness

“This process is becoming international best practice for major events and hopefully allows people to get their hands around what it means to be sustainable with an event,” Savery says.

And she knows tangible results are key.

“It’s easy to have lofty goals and make commitments, but how do you follow through? On a basic level, we begin by working in areas that are in our direct control, for example, any vendors we contract with, we let them know what our guidelines are.”

The most tangible of these guidelines is a no brainer for a city already known for its stringent environmental policies and procedures - AC34 will be the first event in San Francisco to prohibit single-use plastic bags and plastic water bottles at its event sites throughout the City.

“We can influence and communicate to spectators that things are different in San Francisco and to bring their own bottle for water because they certainly wont be able to buy water in plastic bottles at the venues we control.”

Instead, the event will offer up a water refilling station like at the America’s Cup World Series event in San Diego. According to that vendor, he poured 1300L of water into reusable containers - for free.

“That's equivalent to saving 2600 single use 500mL plastic water bottles,” Savery says.

An example of projects being pursued on a more complex level under the Plan, her team is working with a group of City departments to foster electric vehicle infrastructure and to figure out how AC34 supports the City’s objectives there.

For cynics of accountability, Savery plans to develop a suite of KPIs - Key Performance Indicators - to measure, for example, energy use and gas emissions but also items like the number of activities used to engage the public, all which will be reported publicly. It’s a new model of reporting for events that she’ll use in tangent with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), another new tool for sustainability reporting to an event.

“There’s not a day goes by that there isn’t an event of some sort in San Francisco and we’re hoping what we learn we can leave for future events,” she says.

When it comes to the reality of sailing as a ‘green’ sport, between looking at how modern boats are produced and the amount of energy burned on the racecourse with support boats etc., sailing events are hardly green.

Savery doesn’t disagree but says it’s true of sports across the board.

“As an industry we’re starting to look at how equipment is produced, events themselves, spectators traveling, the waste, etc. It’ll take a long time before you’ll be able to say the entire industry is sustainable, but the exciting thing is that we’re making a start,” Savery concludes.

***

NB: AC34’s Sustainability Plan is the product of public input and partnerships with many agencies including the City, the Department of Environment, SFMTA (San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency), SFPUC (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission), the Port, ACOC (America’s Cup Organizing Committee) experts like David Lewis from Save the Bay, the OEWD (Office of Economic & Workforce Development), and the Mayor’s Office.

Jill Savery is from Concord in the Bay Area. She started her work in sports and sustainability about 10 years ago thanks to her passion for sports which will “never go away”, and passion for the environment and sustainability. After the past few years living and working in London, she’s thrilled to be working on these initiatives with the America’s Cup 34.**

Candidly Cayard

2011-12-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

As CEO of a Swedish America's Cup team that's currently based in Valencia, Spain, because that's where its critical mass of designers live along with primary designer Juan K., Paul Cayard, CEO Artemis Racing (SWE) isn't spending too much time on his home shores of San Francisco Bay. He cites having a team scattered around the world as just one challenge of the next America's Cup, but probably less so than the ultimate challenge - racing AC72s on San Francisco Bay:

"It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that the handle-ability of this seriously over-powered boat which is under-crewed on an extremely short course in the windiest venue in the world - you multiply all that together and you have a fight on your hands."

Meanwhile, he's upbeat after the first of the America's Cup World Series events.

What was your take home after these past three events?

If you look at the skill level and the speed, Artemis Racing has it - they just need to work on the consistency a little bit. What separates Oracle and Team NZ right now is that they’re a little more consistent with their performances and we need to strive to attain that level of consistency.

To be fair to Terry and the guys, strategically as a team we decided to rotate the crew and that’s something ETNZ absolutely doesn’t do and Oracle hadn’t much but for example, in San Diego when Darren Bundock steered - he’s a very accomplished multi hull sailor - and had trouble also. It’s not that easy to move people around. That maybe something we don’t do as much of next year. We do now have a second AC45, which is a different way to get the crew the exposure so we can have 10 guys sailing without having to rotate crew and we’ll start doing that in January. But we now have eight people with experience and in some ways we'll be a little wealthier for that experience.

* Artemis has 13 sailors on the Team, including new hire Chris Brittle who came over from Team Korea. Cayard plans to steer their new AC45 for a bit in February before turning it over to alternate helmsman Santiago Lange. They’re on schedule to launch an AC72 July 1, 2012, with molds built and soon ready for lamination.

Has the investment in the World Series been worthwhile?

The events are very useful for promoting the America’s Cup. The teams need a road show - what’s the road to the America’s Cup? Where are the teams? What’s the visibility? How do they get the sponsors? So, having a circuit that’s identified that the teams and sponsors can count on and that the public can watch on the internet, on TV or in person, all that is part of building the fan base and creating a bigger value in 2013.

To walk into 2013 cold especially after the 33^rd America’s Cup which wasn’t particularly glorious in our history, I’m not sure spending any amount of money on the finals would have done as good a job as the World Series will do. It’s a difficult time. The economy is what it is but the America’s Cup was handed over in a pretty difficult state between the lawsuit and the boats racing two races - that was fairly pitiful - it was a low point in our sport and this event. To build on that and to create a product that can really win the fans back to sailing is a big challenge.

Anything you’d improve?

There’s been some money that didn’t need to be spent but things are going to be trimmed back. But the concept of a road show to help all the teams and the event build value and get fans and sponsors therefore interested again in the America’s Cup is necessary. I think they’ve been top-shelf events, from the hospitality to the event side with lots of activities at night. It’s a lot more than just the racing. The television product is very enhanced over anything we’ve ever seen before. The races are shorter and the 25-30 minute format is great. Exactly what detail and level of expenditure should be consumed is what is being fine tuned right now but to say we’d be better off without it at all is not true.

Anything on the racecourse you’d improve?

For the racers, they’re pretty happy with things. There could be a few questions from a marketing standpoint as to the blend of match racing versus fleet racing - I think the public really likes the fleet racing, it’s really exciting - it’s a little more NASCAR-ish - you have more passing so you may find a bigger blend of fleet racing than match racing but obviously the America’s Cup in the end is a match race so there’ll be an element of match racing that stays with the event. Just tweaking like that. Artemis is happy with the racing and looks forward to 2012.

Shifting gears, what’re your thoughts on the current status of the Volvo?

They’re doing a good job within the reality of what we’re living in right now, same thing with the America’s Cup. It’s having trouble with entries too. The world economy is what it is and I’m sure all sports sponsorships are getting squeezed. The Volvo’s had its teething problems on the first leg, we had the exact same thing when we did Pirates when everybody was thinking the world was going to end because on the first two legs keels broke and then everybody was basically good until Telefonica sank. They’ll have a good race, the boats are closer than they ever have been in competitiveness so hopefully they’ll have some great battles. The in-shore races are good - I watched that myself the other day on the internet and I think there’s good value there.

You were recently inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame - what’s been your most personally satisfying achievement?

Probably Pirates of the Caribbean (Volvo Ocean Race 2005-6) because the hill was the steepest. Talk about being under the gun. I met with the organizers just six months before the race started and it takes eight months to build one of those boats, not to mention that the keel almost fell off on the first night and that we had to finish building the boat in Cape Town. I know the meaning of that and the uphill battle it was, I lived it and I’ve lived the other achievements as well but outwardly it’s probably hard for other people to see that.

What would you do differently if could have your career over again?

I’m sure there are things but I haven’t really dwelled on that. Looking forward though, I’d like to win the America’s Cup. I’ve been in the finals twice, I’ve won the Louis Vuitton Cup and have pretty much knocked on the highest door without winning the Cup so that’s what I’m looking forward to now, that’s my project and my passion, that’s where I’m investing myself. I’ve still got plenty I can achieve in the sport and I’m working on it.

From Freo - Iain Murray Updates on America's Cup

2011-12-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

America’s Cup Race Management CEO and Race Director Iain Murray can’t seem to get enough of international yacht racing, it seems. He’s racing in the Star class at the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championship in Perth but took time out early on Day 5 of the World Championship to fill us in on some on some of the events that have transpired in the America’s Cup since San Diego a few weeks back. He's realistic about his chances this week...and going forward.

“It’s nice to come against a lot of the old foes - get the Star out and dust it off. I’ve done absolutely no training so there’s no real expectations but nice to go for a sail here in Fremantle where I lived for three years.”

Commenting on how he perceived the third World Series event recently held in San Diego, Murray said his major concern going into San Diego was going to be the light breezes and holding the races on time given the early sunset that they wouldn’t run over time. But, fortunately that situation didn’t transpire.

“We probably had better breeze than we anticipated - for a number of days the breeze came out of the south and was actually quite strong - we had 16 knots of wind on the final day with two speed trials and set a new speed trial record for ourselves of 26.9 knots over 500 meters which is something I don’t think we would have ever expected to do.”

Numbers were disappointing especially on the final Sunday, with a count of 9-10,000, according to Murray, compared to some 17,000 the previous Sunday, probably attributable to the crappy weather for a good part of the week.

He pointed out how noticeably stronger the competition was, particularly with Energy Team (FRA), who did well in all their racing and Aleph (FRA), with different, younger guys on board were also very strong.

“It was noticeable when teams like NZ were recalled. Keep in mind the recall procedure in San Diego was tiny compared to what it had been where you did have to completely return to the start and go back, effectively putting you out of the race. In Cascais, NZ did that and still went on to win a race.

Now, by taking just a small penalty to go to the back of the fleet, by the first mark NZ struggled to sail through to 4^th or 5^th place. We saw that with a number of teams - they really struggled to get through the fleet - the way people sail their boats and the level of competition has really come up between those who’ve had time on their boats.”

Murray used Darren Bundock (Oracle Racing) sailing Russell’s boat for the first time as an example, “When he got his nose in front and could sail the boat the way that he wanted to which was to typically a bit lower and faster, he sailed away from the fleet but when he got behind he sailed backwards through the fleet - indicative of him not having to the time that others have had in the boats.”

But, what we all really want to know, with the recent resignation of America’s Cup Event Authority CEO Craig Thompson, has the Event Authority imploded, or if not, what the heck is going on?

“What’s happened is that we’ve become more efficient and understand what it is we actually need at these events, how we deliver and spend less money. There’s probably been a duplicity of resources in the logistics of what we do and it’s been decided that we probably have some spare capacity and therefore rather than have effectively two event teams, we’ll have one. There’s just been a change in direction," Murray explained.

ACRM’s role will expand to include more event logistics such as the layout of the Club 45 and any of the other hospitality pieces, while Event Authority has been rekindled “to get their head around the commercial matters of ACTV, the America’s Cup, sponsors and WS events,” Murray said.

There’s no update on who the new challengers will be but Murray said there’ll definitely be more teams/boats at the next event in Naples, with 15 AC45s now having been spoken for. Artemis have got themselves a second boat which they will be happy to use for training.

The outstanding protest by Artemis and Oracle Racing regarding the (brilliant) partnership between NZ/Luna Rossa is still unresolved although the jury has sought submissions, which have been made to the jury. Murray expects a response sometime in the next few weeks.

Dates for the ACWS events in San Francisco in 2012 are August 11-19, and August 27-Sept 2. It was disappointing to learn that the teams will be based miles away down at Pier 80, currently home to Oracle Racing, as the team bases are clearly a huge draw for spectators and a big part of the thrill of the event.

“It was hoped to have the teams at Piers 30-32 but there’s no way that work will be done. We will try to keep the boats in the water down by the Marina Green, and for the teams to have a presence in the Marina Green area.”

The racecourse will be right off St Francis Yacht Club and the Golden Gate Yacht Club. “We’ll have a cross-the-wind start that will put the first mark square in the middle of the St Francis and the GGYC. We will try to finish races close to the shore near the mouth of where you come into the marina by the GGYC.”

The CEQA documents call for the event village to be at the Marina Green and area adjoining the two clubs where there’ll be hospitality. All of those documents are detailed in the CEQA master plan expected to be approved before Xmas.

Murray did not have news on details concerning the proposed Youth America’s Cup other than it’s high on the priority list and that there’s been a lot of discussion on the subject.

“We want to hold it in 2013 and we're trying to hold it in 2012 in the 45s in SF between the other events but it’s not for sure. We need the buy in of all the teams and the use of the 45s. Logistically there’re also plenty of other associated issues,” Murray said.

The wing sail extension (not a permanent fixture but to be used in the light breezes expected in Naples and Venice) is in production and Murray’s hoping that Emirates Team NZ will be able to do some trialing with it soon.

“If the boats can power up out of tacks and jibes and fly hulls, the TV pictures are happier and the crews are certainly happier. There’ll hopefully be a simple and efficient way to bolt onto the existing rig without making any major structural changes or having to take any TV equipment off. We’re also working on a few other modifications while we’ve got things apart up there like how the wind trolleys mount on the front of the mast.”

Overall, the big part of Murray’s equation that still needs solving is reducing the cost of the World Series events. “We’re aiming for a balanced budget in Naples,” Murray said. “Commercially that hasn’t been the case to date, there’s been changes made and going forward we’ll be doing our very best to be as efficient as we can.”

While some staff have been let go between events, Murray expects core numbers wont be significantly different to what they have been come Naples in April. Other areas where efficiencies will be improved will be the number and mix of boats on the water. ACRM tried out its first new course boat in San Diego and expect to have five of those in Naples, which will change the look of the course with fewer boats.

Stay tuned.

Pic: Iain Murray, by Gilles Martin Raget, America's Cup

Chemistry On & Off the Course for America's Cup Team Korea

2011-11-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

I have to say Team Korea has piqued my interest this past few months and it’s not just because the average crew age is 30. Chatting with skipper Chris Draper (GBR) reminded me of conversations I’ve had in the past with Grant Dalton, the drive behind Emirates Team NZ - the most successful team in the America’s Cup. Like Dalton, Draper leans into the conversation fully engaged and straight to the point. And like Dalton, Draper is massively driven by competition.

I was curious to learn how this first-ever Korean entry have put together a first class team who are doing really well holding their own - mid-fleet - in the inaugural America's Cup World Series competition.

Cliché or not, the phrase, “there’s no ‘I’ in team”, comes instantly to mind when talking to Draper. It’s clear that he’s hand-picked his guys - he wanted skilled, hard-working sailors with a winning chemistry, and he’s pretty sure he’s headed in the right direction.

Currently on board, starting at the front, is Matt Cornwell “Catflap” who has worked with Areva Challenge and GBR Challenge and more recently, Team Origin. He was Ben Ainslie’s bowman on Ben’s match racing tour winning team last year. “Matt brings a lot of Cup racing experience with him as well as a lot of match racing experience,” Draper said. “He’s very relaxed and great to spend time with.”

Next up is Mark Bulkeley, a silver medalist at the Tornado world championships and a representative in the Tornado for GBR at the Olympics. He was also Draper’s mainsheet trimmer in the Extreme 40 series when they won in 2009. Bulkeley was also Draper’s best man and is a very close friend. Bulkeley’s taken on the trimming role and doing an excellent role, Draper said. “He’s got a good physical presence at about 95kilos is very strong and fit.”

Next back is Chris Brittle who’s the float, 110 kilo aerobic machine - he can do 2000 reps on the ergo in 6 minutes flat. Draper says he’s an absolute weapon but that sadly Team Korea is about to lose Brittle as he’s moving to Artemis (Team Korea weren’t on fixed contracts so he made the decision to move to them). “With Cup experience on +39 and Team Origin, he has a huge work ethic and physical presence plus he’s a really nice guy to spend time with, Draper said.”

Team Korea’s wing trimmer is Troy Tindill who has been working with the AC 45s from day 1. It was suggested to Draper that it would be a good idea to have Tindill involved with the team. “It was quickly apparent that he knew a huge amount the boats, plus he’s also great to be around. He’s been a huge asset - without him we wouldn’t have picked up the boat as quickly as we have. He’s a young guy learning all the time, and helping us learn as well,” Draper said.

33-year old Draper knows all too well how important chemistry is to success on the water. He’s sailed Olympic classes for the past 10 years, and before that came up through the classic youth sailing program - Optis, 420s, then sailed the 49er for 10 years, going back and forth between being 1st and 2nd in the world. He took a break from that after missing selection for Beijing, and started doing Extreme 40s in ’08-09.

“I then gave the 49er another shot with a different team mate for the London Olympics which didn’t really go to plan, as we just never quite jelled as a team - the chemistry wasn’t quite perfect, although we had some good success, winning the Europeans last year, he said”

As that plan didn’t work out, Draper started looking for opportunities he knew existed in the Cup because of his background. Enter Team Korea.

Like himself, Draper says there’s a new wave of people coming into America’s Cup sailing who have been Olympic campaigning full-time for the last 10 years and who are used to working with a team-mate who they’re with everyday perhaps spending 200+ days a year with training etc. and who have come to understand the importance of good relationships.

“From the brief glimpses I have had of past America’s Cup teams, personalities can be quite abrasive and I think we’re trying very hard at Team Korea to make sure we have people who get on well and who will work hard and give it their all, and feel good that the person sitting next to you is watching your back, or if you make a mistake, they’ll back you up - that’s an ethos we’ve started for this campaign and we’ll try to maintain that all the way through.”

Draper knows that he’s got some good youth, enthusiasm and talent now but wants to make sure he backs that up with experienced Cup winners. “There’re plenty of those guys out there, a lot of them are people I’ve sailed with who are not involved just yet. We’re also very aware that the design and production of an AC 72 is a huge project and we need as much help as possible with that. We still want to maintain the youth & fitness but make sure we have the balance.”

Although this is his first Cup campaign, Draper thinks while there’s a lot less time to build and plan a strategy for AC 34, nonetheless, the boat-handling is still a massive part of it. “With these one design classes is it’s about refining and getting the most out of the boats sailing as quickly as possible but it’s also about doing the maneuvers well enough that you’ve got tactical options.

We took the approach that we wanted to have the top tactical options but that we might be a little bit on the back with the input to make those tactical decisions. We’ve had a few times where that’s fallen down. But, it’s exciting racing, quick decisions, you have to be thinking fast and I think more and more it’s those that can make those quick gut instinct decisions who are doing well.”

And, Draper likes to think he’s in that category.

“It’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years and that’s what I love about the sport - I love the physical aspect of the boat handling, steering the boat to make the boat handling easier and I love the communication to make everyone’s life easier to be able to make good decisions that can be executed quickly.”

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t know Draper but just in talking to him I guessed he was extremely competitive…

“Yes, I’d say that!” Draper laughed. “I think if you look at any of our races when we have a bad race we’re seriously upset when we’ve made a mistake and managing that passion is also hard but being young and enthusiastic sometimes doesn’t help that. We’re trying to develop maturity and be unflustered but what I see that people I’ve always thought don’t seem to be flustered can get pretty wound up at times! But yes, we are very competitive, I’m hugely competitive . I really like to win, whatever it is!”

For this regatta, the top three things on Draper’s to-do list have been to work on starts, try out some new sails, and further develop the Team’s strategy for the future.

“We’ve been trying to improve our boat speed but haven’t had a huge amount of time to get used to the new sails but they seem like an improvement - they’re a little bit different to use. We’re also working on where the Team is headed which I have to admit has made it a harder to focus on what we’re trying to achieve here on the race course. But that’s just part of the Cup and the territory.”

Draper expects that after San Diego the Team will probably go to Valencia, which is where other teams are headed. Down the road he’s hoping they’ll have some additional training boats to work with also, citing that a few more AC 45s would be nice but a cheaper alternative is most likely.

“There’ll be a good group to sail with in Valencia so we’ll all develop and move forward. I think if we step away from that and let that happen without us we could potentially lose ground,” he said.

Great Commentary Makes a Difference in the America's Cup

2011-11-15T16:37:00.000-08:00

Peter Isler needs little introduction in sailing circles. Internationally renowned sailor, motivational speaker and author, he’s been inextricable from the America's Cup since winning it as navigator aboard Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes in Australia in 1987. He’s sailed in five Cup campaigns (most recently with the BMW Oracle Racing Team in Valencia, Spain), winning it twice.

He was an analyst for ESPN's Emmy Award winning coverage of the America's Cup in '92 & '95. For the '03 and '07 Cups Peter both sailed and announced on TV. In my books, he's one of the best commentators in the sport and it’s great to have him in the role as racing in the America’s Cup World Series gets underway on Wednesday in San Diego. SailBlast chatted to Peter about the differences working as a commentator under the new Cup format...

What’s different about the way commentating is happening now?

I just got three days in Plymouth, and I’m here in San Diego now so I’ve had just a taste of it. I’m actually not out on the water working but in a little booth - I’m really watching television watching the same video image that the viewers are watching. Sometimes we have two shots in our announcement booth but usually just the feed - so we’re watching the feed, we’re not watching the whole race. But we have a monitor that’s linked to race management and the umpires - (referred to as STOWE, name of the manufacturer) - it’s like watching an instant messaging screen - it gives us all the race data, all the mark rounding is recorded, every protest flag - every time a button is pushed for protest, every umpire decision - all on this official screen. We’re relying on our directors who have all the different camera shots to choose from to pick the right one to tell the story and that’s part of the fun, you’re really part of a team.

Does it make your job easier or more difficult?

Put it this way, I’d say it’s absolutely essential when you’re a commentator for television broadcast to talk to the picture. One of the things that is risky for an expert sailor coming in and doing the job is the tendency to talk about the important thing that’s going on in the race that may not be in the picture so having that image is great.

That said, it’s also very helpful to have a 2-dimensional overhead view of the entire racecourse which we will also ultimately have so that you can follow the racing and you know what’s going on outside of the visual range of the camera shot. But the great thing is that there are sailors in the directors’ chairs calling the shot changes etc., so normally the story that’s on the ACTV is the story a sailor would want to be following anyway.

Talk about the equipment and tech now involved in the sport of commentating?

Stan Honey, my college room-mate, is running the LiveLine technology and those guys have wired the racecourse and the boats technologically for sound so that they can do their graphical images on live video, which is their expertise That was their mandate from day one and is different to what we have previously enjoyed in America’s Cup TV coverage which is the computer animation with the information on it.

Now we have the actual real video with the technical information, like the three boat lengths, the wind direction, the protest status etc. For the commentator like me, it’s just amazing, it’s unlike anything ever been done before. While too much info can be dangerous, but information does allow you to make better decisions. I think we’re really just using how to use it to its full potential.

Is it challenging keeping up given how quickly everything happens now?

Because the races and the legs are shorter there really isn’t a lot of time to go off talking about a random subject. You really have to stay, as a commentator, on topic and basically call the race. It makes it a lot of fun. Those of us who enjoy other sports, for example tennis, there’s drama in every shot, or every play in football there’s another exciting thing to watch.

In sailing, it’s been, ‘now they’re on a 25 minute leg and they’re going to tack once or twice’ - there’s a lot of time to ramble on or listen in on board which has been fun. But here, like those other fast-paced sports, there’s a technical sports move happening - like just deciding positions - every few instances.

What do you think about the AC45s for the A-Cup in general?

I’m a big fan of the America’s Cup s - I’m a Cuphead and I take the broad picture of not only appreciating the America’s Cup for the spectacle it is here in San Diego this week and the great sailboat racing it is but also its historical place in international sport. So, for me it’s great to have been a part of it and to continue being part of telling the Cup story but I’m in awe of the America’s Cup and it keeps changing and it continues to evolve. It’s unlike any other event anywhere and that’s the thing about the Cup. It’s not just about a sailboat race, it’s not just a race about boat design and technology - it’s more than all of that. It’s bigger than all of us.

* A former Collegiate Sailor of the Year at Yale University, Peter resides in Southern California. He co-authored the best-selling book, Sailing for Dummies (Wiley) and wrote the acclaimed business book, At the Helm: Business Lessons for Navigating Rough Waters (Doubleday) with Peter Economy. His most recent title, Peter Isler’s Little Blue Book of Sailing Secrets (Wiley) was published in 2011.

He is president of Isler Sailing International, Inc. When at home in San Diego, Peter enjoys time with his two daughters and playing guitar and keyboard in a variety of bands.

Photo Credit: Bob Grieser/America's Cup

Pic 1/2: Peter at work in the booth

Pic 3: Peter & former pro basketballer Bill Walton, at the ACWS opening press conference today.

If You're Coming To San Diego...

2011-11-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt editor and publisher, has compiled the following VERY USEFUl guide to getting around next week during the World Series San Diego...

Attending sporting events is risky business. When to get there? Where to park? Where to sit? So what do you do with an event that has never been held before?

You wing it, which is what spectators will be doing in San Diego for the third stop in the inaugural America's Cup World Series (ACWS) on November 12-20, 2011.

Here are some tips to help enjoy the experience:

Schedule:
The first weekend has mandatory practice races. No races are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, but expect the teams to either be on the bay for practice or in the pit for prep. The planned competition is Wednesday through Sunday, so expect bigger crowds those days too. Click here for details.

Transportation:
For car parking, a pay lot is a block away from the Event Village and there are coin meter spaces on the adjacent street. However, get there early to avoid getting shut out. Safer options could be to use bikes, pedicabs or taxis, or drive to a San Diego Trolley station and take the train to the downtown station a couple of blocks away. Click here for details.

Viewing:
Watching the races by boat will be limited due to course boundaries and the speed of the AC45s. Watching the races from the Midway Museum, Navy and Broadway piers are closest to the course, but there may not be bleachers so prepare to stand in crowds (or buy a VIP package). The ends of the race course are adjacent to G Street Marina and Harbor Island, which both have limited parking and space to sit.

Hot tip is to have lunch at The Fish Market (nice) and Top of the Market (nicer) at the leeward marks (SE of Navy Pier), or at C Level (nice) and Island Prime (nicer) near the windward marks on Harbor Island. Click here for details. Another hot tip is to listen to race commentary from the broadcast on your phone (see below).

Entertainment:
The AC Village has closed Harbor Drive at Broadway and Navy Piers, and will be hosting live music, DJ's and local California cuisine and shops and specialty stands. The village will have a large screen for race viewing, plus host interactive entertainment such as the America's Cup Experience, a racing simulator that offers a taste of what it's like to sail on a high-speed catamaran. Prize giving and team interviews will be on the village stage. Hours are 10a-6p on Nov. 12-15 and 10a-10p on Nov. 16-20. To enter the AC Village, there is a requested $10 donation to support the AC Healthy Ocean Project. Click here for details.

Weather:
Despite the propaganda from San Diego Convention and Tourism Bureau, it does begin to get colder and wetter in November. And winter winds are hit or miss. The forecast currently calls for rain and big breeze on the first weekend, with clearing skies and calmer winds expected through the week.

Broadcast:
The America’s Cup YouTube channel will be streaming the event live online Nov. 16-20. Look for the broadcast schedule to begin 30 minutes before racing begins each day (see schedule above). And for the first time, there will be live streaming to mobile devices through the AC YouTube channel. Also, a recap of the event will be broadcast on the Versus cable channel on November 22 at 5:00 P.M. ET. Streaming live here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup.

Preview:
Teams began training on Tuesday, and the America's Cup World Series Event Village will be open to the public on Wednesday, Nov 9th. Get an insider's look of the village after 3:30 pm and you'll also get to see the AMERICA'S CUP TROPHY. Unveiling the trophy will be Tom Ehman, Vice Commodore of Golden Gate Yacht Club, who will be joined by Ian Murray, Bruno Trouble, and Terry Hutchinson for 'Cupdates' at 4:00 pm (youth sailors) and 5:30 pm (open). No RSVP necessary.

* Scuttlebutt blogpost: http://sailingscuttlebutt.blogspot.com/2011/11/if-you-were-coming-to-san-diego.html

Photo credit: Gilles Martin Raget/America's Cup

Pic 1 - ACWS San Diego - skippers

Pic 2/3 - Training Day 1, San Diego

PRADA'S ENTRY UPS ANTE FOR 34TH AMERICA'S CUP

2011-11-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

In a media call today, America’s Cup Regatta Director Iain Murray and CEO Craig Thompson commented on the exciting confirmation that indeed, long time Cup favorite Prada/Luna Rossa is back, this time collaborating on boats and such with Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ).

Said Murray: “For those with a keen eye who spotted Luna Rossa in and out of the ETNZ team base in Plymouth have been adding two and two to get four, the answer is obvious today and presents a very strong group of people who I think will have enhanced chances in the America’s Cup going forward. It seems like a positive, strong move for the America’s Cup.

Luna Rossa will take delivery of their AC45 in early December subject to branding and hull painting etc. The destination of it is unknown at this stage and where they’ll actually sail it the first time. They will be competing in events for 2012 and sure, they won’t be scored for the AC World Series round 1 which concludes in Newport, RI, next June but I don’t think that’s their highest priority. I think they’re keen to get their boat and get out there and start to learn about sailing wing-sailed catamarans."

Murray also confirmed that there’s no limits on where Prada can take its AC45 to train, however the team'll be seriously considering where it’ll get the best bang for buck, “Probably the biggest thing with taking an AC45 for any AC team anywhere is generally in most countries you will incur taxes. NZ presents an opportunity for them but there’s taxes to pay when you go to train for certain periods of time which is a discussion Luna Rossa will have to have with the various authorities of that country. Other than the taxes, they can go wherever they like until the first event.”

Thompson added that today’s news from Italy may not be the last with regards to more teams joining.

“Today we have another major competitor coming into the competition and this has got to be good. I hope it’s going to put a lot of pressure on Oracle and that they’re going to have to make some response to this. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens when Luna Rossa gets on the water. From a story telling and competitive aspect, it’s great for the Cup. And, we are still in discussion with some very serious parties who are still trying to come in.”

While on the subject of new teams entering and timing, there’s still a big void in events between San Diego (November 12-20, 2011) and Napoli (April 7-15, 2012), which AC has yet to resolve.

Said Thompson, “We are in discussions for still having an event in late Jan early Feb but honestly it looks doubtful right now before Napoli in April. We are disappointed about this because we will take a hit to frequency/regularity. The good news is that we’re going through the winter months where it’s a downtime for sailing but nevertheless we would have liked to have an event during that time. We’re still hoping something may materialize. We do need to figure out what the teams will be doing during this time.

Hmmm - I think the winter months are a great time in the Southern Hemisphere for sailing, and discussions have in fact been going on in Australia and New Zealand as possible World Series venues, according to Murray.

“The discussions with Australia have broken off with both sides agreeing that what we were trying to achieve wasn’t attainable. New Zealand has been in discussion for some time and there are further discussions going on. Whether today’s news adds some enthusiasm to those discussions, we’ll wait and see."

Either way, teams will have access to their boats for training, Murray confirmed. “We will designate a place that we will deliver the boats to. It’s our responsibility to take them out of America and if we are going directly to Naples we will probably make arrangements to take the boats directly there. If the teams wish to make alternative arrangements they will be allowed to do so as long as they’re brought back to Naples,” he said.

BTW, the protocol lays out different times for the event schedule relative to where the AC is at now because it was envisaged a series in 2011 and a series in 2012 and it was considered that the boats would be going to the 72s in the second season. But the protocol did say there would be a minimum of three regattas in the first series and five in the second.

There is no written deadline by which teams may be denied entry to AC34, just obviously a practical deadline with the requirement to have a 72 and a valid challenge, said Murray. Teams must have an AC72 by July 4, beginning of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Murray reviewed the estimated build time for an AC72 which involves multi-element construction. He figures that with a breakdown of all of those components, the boats could be built quite quickly, probably not in less than six months but eight months would be about right. In the case of Prada, Murray said that he read today that they planned to build their center sections and structural pieces in New Zealand and other components in Italy.

“It’s obviously probably more efficient. Oracle is doing a similar thing I would suggest.”

* Prada announcement: http://media.americascup.com/pressreleases/?id=393

OBSERVATIONS FROM THE GUYS CHANGING THE 34th AMERICA’S CUP

2011-10-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Stan Honey, Director of Technology for the 34^th America’s Cup (AC34) and John Craig, Principal Race Officer (PRO) for AC34 talked to members of the San Francisco Yacht Club last week, reviewing the World Series events in Cascais and Plymouth and explaining the technology they’re using in their jobs - technology which is changing the way that races are being run and facilitating better than ever accuracy in umpiring, and for the viewer of the sport, making races easier and more interesting to watch across different platforms.

Craig also talked about the logistics of course building under the new regime and gave an overview of the different boats used in race management, from jet skis to rad camera boats

The following excerpts from their presentation were both entertaining (yes, there is stuff that perhaps wasn’t funny a few months ago but in hindsight…) and informational.

Bringing it HOW close to the beach?

JC: 117,000 people went through the viewing area in Plymouth during the course of racing there. My best memory is of Spithill saying: “This is the first time at any event I could hear the roar of the people cheering.” And this was on a day when it was rainy, cold & miserable - you could hear it going on from the committee boat.

That goal is something we keep trying to do and the venues we keep getting ourselves into we have to keep in mind that it needs to be on the beach, as Russell likes to say. One of the ways in which we do that is to set the course with the virtual boundaries or the limits within which the competitors must sail. Outside of those limits, the sailors get penalized. We can control the box that they sail in.

What changes will we see for the World Series in San Diego (Nov 12-20)?

JC: All activities will occur between Midway and Broadway Piers. It’s a very tight area and there’ll be a hub of activity there for sure.”

One of the things we’ve been looking at changing is OCS. With a reaching start at 35 kms, when the boats take off and you’re over, really your race is over. To come back to the other side of the line and re-cross the line, the rest of the guys are in a different time zone. The reality is that we’re looking at ways to look at maybe having a penalty for OCS - perhaps slow down to ¾ of your VMG and let everybody catch up.

Additionally, the format changes so much its pretty entertaining…it’s almost a daily thing, i.e. ‘We’re doing match racing today and this is how it’ll work out,’ - I think in Plymouth we ended up with version 60 by the time we were all done, so that’ll definitely change.

People like the speed trials so we’ll try to keep those in but that being said, a speed trial in 6-8 knots isn’t much of a speed trial so we’ll have wait to see what happens in San Diego.

Other observations of the new format?

JC: The ability to move around the course quickly is a critical requirement under the new format (ie, boats going 30 knots over a race that’s less than 20 minutes long), as well as being able to move the limits and everything else, like in a dropping breeze. All of the marks are boats. We don’t anchor them which gives us the ability to move them quickly. We have very skilled drivers that have a Garmin chart plotter in front of them and they can see all of these points that I have placed on the chart plotter. Mike Martin our rules guy decided it’d actually be okay if racers hit the marks…(LOL). Not only do you make sure that you keep that boat in place, but when someone is coming at you at 30 knots you can’t flinch!

The beauty of it all is that it’s really flexible. No matter what happens, if we have a boat break down (course boat) we can put another in its place and everybody that’s on those mark set boats can see what’s going on. The teams have a (computer) display so know what I’ve done to them, how I’ve committed the boundaries, whether I’ve made them tight for a specific race which means there’ll be a lot more tacking & jibing, or whether I’ve opened it up a little so it’s not as much of a physical fest for them.

About the new course boats?

JC: The camera boat is a first generation boat that will change but it is basically two Extreme 40 (carbon) hulls that make it a catamaran with very small, highly maneuverable engines. It’s allowed in the middle of the racecourse and with a sailor sitting on the back calling moves, has done a very good job of staying out of harm’s way so far.

The first of the new mark set boats has just done sea trials. 45 foot catamarans, these will be some of the best seats in the house with a VIP area with a bar, TV and seats for 12. The boats are run on Volvo IPS drives that can spin 360 degrees. Once they are engaged they will keep the boat on position, rather than the guys having to work to keep the boat in position. The first one will be delivered in San Diego - it wont be quite ready to work but it will be there. We expect delivery of one every month until we have our full complement of 8.

Is the AC45 just a one-dimensional crash and burn form of entertainment?

SH: The real question is, “How can we turn this into a sport with real intrigue and competition and unpredictability and the rivalries that you get in sport." The answer is, it’s a huge challenge. We know we have to do that but we can’t sort of coast this kind of thrills and chills although it’s a good head start! The good thing about it is that Russell had the sense to involve early on folks who have a really strong background in the business of sport - Richard Worth and Craig Thompson. They’re not sailors and that has pluses and minuses but they’re some of the most knowledgeable businessmen in the field of sports. If we’re going to make this work, one of the signs will be that the sailing athletes will be recognizable on the street - we’ll turn them into personalities then sailing will have the same sort of attraction that other sports do in terms of the rivalries between teams and individuals, the unpredictability and all of that.

Will there be broadcast quality improvements?

SH: There’s been a lot of improvement in the TV production between Cascais and Plymouth and we hope there’s a lot of continued improvement - in the directing and producing and commentating etc. The TV compound is really an astonishing set of equipment - 23 shipping containers and a total of 60 cameras and 120 audio feeds - it’s on the same level as an A-level football game. But what you have here is a TV crew that had never worked together before Cascais so it was pretty challenging to begin with. It’ll get better with time.

How do penalties do work?

SH: Once a penalty has been assigned, whether it's a limit penalty or whether its S-P tack penalty, the computer assigns a penalty line which is two boat lengths behind your boat and that penalty line is moving at ¾ the theoretical speed of your boat and you have to slow down until that penalty line overtakes you. The reason that penalty line is moving at ¾ of your speed is to give you an incentive to pay it off quickly. The idea is to keep you in the race so if a penalty hurts you, you’re still in the hunt, which keeps the race exciting and interesting. Plus, to have these boats do circles if it’s windy is just too frightening!

JC: It’s taken the teams a long time to get used to the penalty system incurred by the new electronic boundaries. “They would, say, it’s saying 80 meters then two seconds later I was done,” - yeah, you were doing 30 knots! It’s been a process and I’m happy to report there are very few limit penalties anymore. We really are able to keep the guys in the box.

Will the AC technology trickle down to REAL sailing?

SH: We have actually responded to an inquiry from ISAF to see if our tracking technology (tracks to two cm versus two meters as do inexpensive tracking devices often used in dinghy regattas) could be repackaged into a smaller device and the answer is yes but it’d be pretty pricey. You could package the device in a package the size of a paperback book that weighs less than a pound - we’ve done it for horse racing. It’d take a major sponsor to make it affordable in sailing.

When is it too much data?

SH: That’s really the determination that gets made by the professional story tellers - the director, the producer and the commentators. We build tools and they have the availability of these tools to tell the story - which is the key thing to sports, the story.

But what’s the most interesting thing about this whole project is what happens in the morning just after the skippers’ meeting (as an example of how the data is used). Mike Martin (Director Umpiring and Rules Administration for AC34) replays the previous day’s penalties on a screen and all the teams talk about them. What’s fascinating is it’s completely non-confrontational because there’s never an argument about the facts - the discussion is about the rules. Someone puts their hand up and says, “Yeah, I own it,” and in some cases it’s the umpire who’ll say, “Yeah, I called that wrong.” It’s fascinating how friendly everything is and there’s never a dispute about the facts.

What happens to the data?

SH: In other sports I’ve worked in, it’s been a very slow process for the sports to realize the best use for this data is to make it open. In sailing we’ve managed to persuade the Event Authority to allow us to publish the data so at the end of every race we post the log of all of the data and that’s all the positions of all the mark and race boats, all the wind measurements etc. By streaming the live data for free so people can access all that precision data from all the race and mark boats, our hope is that innovative technical folks and companies will come up with interesting ways of viewing this data - multi player games, automatic reality viewers - come up with things we haven’t thought of to make the Cup more accessible to more people. I think it’s a brilliant decision.

What info do the competitor’s have?

SH: The competitors don’t get anything during the race. The idea is to keep the competitors in the same test of skill that we all are at - they have to judge when they’re in the 3-boat length circle, they have to judge the starting line, when they do or don’t have an overlap etc. And they know whatever they do, whether they get it right or wrong, the umpires are going to make the right call so it’s a better test of skill. That was Russell’s vision and he’s been batting very high on those kinds of decisions.

How does this all scale up as far as the 72s go?

JC: That’s the million dollar - the multi million dollar question (LOL) - the 72s - take 3 of the 45s and stack ‘em beam to beam and that’s a 72, then take 4 of the mainsails from the 45 and that’s a 72 mainsail. There’re a lot of people spending a lot of time in design rooms right now trying to figure it out.

Pic 1: Stan Honey
Pic 2: John Craig
Pic 3 World Series Layout San Diego Nov 2011 (pic credit Paige Brooks)
Pic 4 World Series Course Area San Diego 2011 (pic credit PB)
Pics 5 & 6 - SH & JC at SFYC Wed Oct 19 (pic credit PB

Dean Barker: "We're about winning the America's Cup"

2011-10-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

38-year old skipper Dean Barker and his team Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) currently sit at the top of the leaderboard of the America’s Cup World Series Championship with 38 points (19 scored in match racing, 19 in fleet racing), just four points ahead of Oracle Racing Spithill. With the third and final World Series event for 2011 just around the corner, Barker updated Sailblast on ETNZs training progress…as well as shared some thoughts on the new AC game…

What was one thing that you took away from racing AC45s in the recent in events in Cascais & Plymouth?

The biggest eye opener is the maneuverability and how the racecourse and boundaries operate. It makes the racing just so much tighter and more emphasis on crew work and boat handling than ever before.

Emirates Team NZ (ETNZ) did extremely well - what do you attribute your strength to this early in the game?

We were really happy with our performance. We know we can sail a hell of a lot better but I’m sure like all the teams you make a lot of mistakes around the course but it’s a challenge with these boats in tough conditions and close quarters with other teams. It’s going to be hard to sail at a high level.

We’ve put a lot of effort into our crew work and boat handling and that’s paid dividends. I think during the period in Auckland we’re a bit off the pace. At our first crack at the soft sails, they were good but not good enough so we’ve developed our sails - we're into our second generation and that’s been a big improvement in our speed. We feel like we’re a lot more competitive now against Oracle who in Auckland who had quite a big jump it felt over the rest of us. We’ve made some good gains there. But we’ve worked really hard on things like getting around the corners and being able to react in all different situations around the course. That’s been a big strength.

How are you preparing for San Diego?

To be honest we’ve been pretty full on working with boat design for the 72. San Diego is rolling around pretty quickly so we will need to get our heads back in the game for racing but we have a few practice days there before racing proper starts so that’ll give us an opportunity to get back into it all. We’ve been doing a bit of sailing back here in Auckland on the 33s as obviously like everyone else, except Oracle who have a couple of extras, our 45 is en route to San Diego.

How’s the transition to the multihull been for you?

I’ve been sailing multis now for a year and it’s amazing. It feels like the progress that we’ve made since we came last in Almeria in the Extreme Series last year. It feels like we’re making some really good progress. I’d say it’s still not necessarily instinctive like monohull sailing was. There’re times when you know what you want to do but you can’t quite make it happen instinctively. But it’s coming - it just takes time to reprogram yourself to adjust to different situations where things happen very very quickly. You have to be able to make decisions a lot quicker than in the monos. But it’s all a really good challenge.

Who is your back-up skipper?

We’re a pretty small sailing team at the moment. We really don’t have a lot of back-ups in any position to be honest! Depending on who is injured at any time we’ve got cover by three grinders and a few others who aren’t sailing on the boat.

When will ETNZ expand its sailing team?

That’s about it really. We’re not going to have two 72s. We just don't have the resources to do it. It’s too expensive to take two 72s off the dock and go two-boat testing. It’s an expensive game we’re in and to take two 72s sailing, you’d need an army of people. There’s probably only one team that’s in that position right now.

Where are you at in the 72 design/build process?

We’re in the final stages of our design. What we’re learning pretty quickly is that the more you learn the more you don’t know! You just have to try to narrow in on the first design. The good thing is that we’re making good progress, the hard thing to know is what is the level you’ll need to be at in 2013. The learning curve makes it seem like we’ve got a long way to go but we’re at a level where we think we’ll be competitive enough. We have a design group of about 30 people we draw from including Pete Melvin, Scott Graham, Luc Du Bois - there’s a bunch of guys who are contributing. Cookson’s will build the hull and structures, and Southern will build a lot of our wing and wing components.

Who is developing your sails/sailplan?

We’ve done most of sail development in-house so far. We get a lot of input off the chase (boat) and evaluate our sails against where the opposition is. Oracle is by far the most experienced in these boats and have sailed them more than everybody else and have probably built more sails than the rest of us. You’re always looking to measure yourself against where they’re at and the direction they’re going. But, we’re pretty happy with the choices and development we’ve made.

What are some things you can see from the 45 that will translate to the 72?

The 45 is a nicely balanced boat, it’s fun to sail, it’s relatively easy to sail compared to the more traditional X-40 type designs, it’s quite a robust boat and seems to perform well across a variety of conditions. We’ve learned a lot just from sailing that but it is limited in a lot of ways. It’s got straight boards, it doesn’t have any real lifting component, it gets limited by wind speed, it’s a bit hard to push up the range but it’s a fantastic boat for learning about multi hull and sailing with a wing.

The 72 is a hugely more powerful boat. When you scale the 45 up to a 72 boat, it’s quite underpowered. The challenges that are going to go with the size of the 72 are pretty daunting. The boats in a strong breeze are going to be animals. They’ll be very hard to sail in SF conditions and you’ll certainly have to have your wits about you to get around the course. They’ll have capability of very high speed and you’re going to have to be really in tune to sail with them well.

What’s different about this Cup Campaign for ETNZ?

Apart from the obvious, lifestyle and scenery, it’s adapting to a different world. We’ve moved from a world of detailing and fine tuning to one of complete new world of open book, fresh paper design. Any ideas are certainly worth consideration. There are no stupid questions or ideas right now. With this multihull world, we’re just scratching the surface of a huge unchartered territory. It’s not even like a new design rule within the monohull environment.

Do you think it was entirely necessary to move up to the 72 for the real deal in 2013, or do you think a successful Cup could be staged in the 45?

Well, the 45 would really detract from what the essence of what the America’s Cup is about. It has always been a design race. I think to take away that aspect of the Cup would be a tragedy. It’s about managing so many different aspects of a campaign for a successful America’s Cup. When you get it right, then rightfully you deserve to win the America’s Cup. From a sailor’s point of view, one design racing is great because in the end the best team wins. There’s no argument about who had the better boat. It comes down to who sailed the best. So, there’s two schools of thought but in some ways I still believe in the traditional values of the Cup. It’s about managing a whole lot of different aspects: design, sailing team, campaign management and just getting to the start line. I still think it’s the right move that we’re racing in a development boat in the America’s Cup.

If Oracle was so committed to keeping costs down for AC34, how could they then go buy four AC45s while the other teams have only one? What’s ETNZ’s position on this?

There’s no way Oracle is committed to keeping costs down. It’s a complete fallacy that they’re trying to keep costs down. It’s absolute bullshit. The whole idea of this next America’s Cup was to try to make it more affordable for the teams. I can tell you right now that the budget for doing this campaign is at least what we spent last time and you can do it for less but you just don’t have a chance to perform. It’s a complete joke if they can sit back and say it costs less money, it’s not. It’s way more expensive. But that’s the game we’re in. If you want a crack at winning the America’s Cup you have to play by the rules and these rules are more expensive.

* Ed's note: America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM) does not limit the teams' training outside of World Series events, for instance, some teams will sail as soon as boats are off the ship in San Diego and others will opt not to sail until closer to the start of racing. And, any team can purchase an additional AC45 for training…assuming that they can afford to.

If ETNZ knew what it knows now before you signed up, do you think you guys may have given this next one a miss?

Definitely not. Emirates Team NZ exists for the America’s Cup and we’ve weathered the storm since 2007 to give ourselves the opportunity to compete in the 2013 event. You can’t afford to sit out, it’s just too hard to come in green and expect to get straight on the pace. If you miss a cycle, with all the development you’ll never catch it back up. It’s too much time. We decided that whatever the direction the Cup took that we’d contemplate it seriously, evaluate whether we could raise the money and give it a really good go at winning it. We're not it in to make up the numbers, we’ve only entered because we think we can put up a challenge with a team that’s good enough to win. Time will tell if that’s the case. But, we’re a team that’s about winning the America’s Cup.

Much of the excitement over the 45, particularly for the non-sailing fan, is thanks to the crash factor. We wont (hopefully) see that with the 72. Without the crashes do you think the event will remain interesting for the non-sailor?

There’ll be an element who tune in to just watch the crashes, looking for the capsize or the collision. Those people you’ll try to capture - you have to accept that there’ll be that element. Hopefully people will be interested in watching the racing for what it is as well and we’ll be able to capture a new interested audience. In the short-term while there’s still a lot of spectacular action that’s going to motivate people to watch. It’s no different to the X-40s - the biggest hits come with the best action.

Do you think a nationality rule would help the AC grow as a fan sport?

I think it helps countries identify with their teams. We’ve got other nationalities involved in our team but it’s still pretty much all NZ, which certainly helps our fan base within NZ and the support we get as opposed to some of the other teams. Even though they may represent the US, Sweden and so on, they’re not true national teams to the degree we are.

How does your family take your busy lifestyle?

Fortunately my wife Mandy is really good with it all because I’m a bit of an absentee dad at times. I have four kids - 3 girls and a boy between six and one. It’s a lot of fun, never a dull moment. You feel like you leave one circus and go home to another one!

What’s your other business and how do you find time for that while still running a top AC team?

My primary focus is with the team so I spend the majority of my time sailing and working with the design group when I’m not traveling to events. When I do have a little down time I try to keep up to speed with Kiwi Yachting Consultants, a company I’m involved with in NZ, and also Nexus Marine which marine electronics company in Sweden.

When do you expect to be moving full-time to SF?

As a team we wont go up to San Francisco - mainly because of cost - until April/May 2013 full-time. We’ll be there next year for the events in August and September which will be great. I’m absolutely looking forward to sailing on the Bay, I’ve done a little bit of sailing there but not much. It’ll be an amazing spectacle for sure.

Pic Credit: ETNZ

One Million Dollars Saves Lives

2011-10-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

The sad news this afternoon of Steve Jobs’ death at the way-too-young age of 56 of a rare form of pancreatic cancer got me off my butt to write up my notes on the fabulously successful 6^th annual Leukemia Cup, hosted by the San Francisco Yacht Club, raising a massive one million dollars for cancer research.

In fact, I may not be writing this today if it weren’t for my MacBook, iPhone, iPod and multiple other iAccessories, and I extend my gratitude to Jobs for his ingenuity, creativity and courage to continue his incredible contribution to life as we know it today, especially in the light of multiple misfortunes he encountered in his own life.

I like a quote that Jobs made six years ago, talking about how a sense of his mortality was a major driver behind his vision:

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Jobs’ words lend meaning to the all-around success of last weekend’s Leukemia Cup.

It was one filled with stories of local sailors who have survived the disease and live to continue their passion - racing sailboats.

Guest speaker at Saturday night’s VIP dinner was no less than John Doerr, of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the world’s most famous venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley.

Doerr’s first words Saturday night?

“Cancer sucks!”

Any thoughts I initially had that Doerr’s speech may be on the dry side were quelled pretty much instantly. He held a spellbound audience for a good 45 minutes and they/I would have happily let him continue.

In 2008 he and Jobs announced the Kleiner Perkins $100 million iFund, declaring the iPhone "more important than the personal computer" because " it knows who you are" and "where you are," stated Doerr, reminding a captive Leukemia Cup audience that mobile media began with Apple’s resurrection in the late 1990’s, and combined with other incredibly innovative Apple products are worth $88 billion a year in new biz for Apple.

“Apple makes you lust for its products,” Doerr categorically stated.

Oh yeah! Do they ever. I fondly remember my first desktop computer - an Apple. I was in love.

Doerr focused his speech on “the tsunami of social media” - So, Lo and Mo - Social, Local and Mobile, and how Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter have transformed the way we live today.

“Our teens have 500 Facebook friends," he said. "If Facebook was a country, it’d be the third largest in the world.”

Doerr’s sincerely inspiring words followed the audience out on the Bay on Sunday where some 100 boats enjoyed perfect fall racing conditions as a steady westerly breeze of 10-12 knots came in for a noon start.

A challenging regatta to get off the line, with 9 divisions catering to boats ranging in size from 20 to 50 feet, PRO Bartz Schneider sent racers on a “Bay Tour” with almost as many courses as divisions.

“My target was to have all of them finish in about 2 hours,” Schneider said. “The range of ratings and the range of speeds was tremendous. The lowest rated boat was a Farr 400 with a rating of -21 seconds and the slowest a Cal 20 with a rating of about 250. That’s one big difference. The other difference is that for most regattas today we use inflatable marks so we can control the course. For this regatta we use all government marks so I don’t have a choice. And, 90-100 boats is a lot of traffic when they’re all milling about in the starting area!"

First place in Division A (spinnaker boats with a PHRF rating of 54 & under) went to Skip and Jody McCormack racing their Farr 30 Trunk Monkey, beating the Farr 400 Team Premier by 24.6 seconds on corrected time over a course of 13.6 NM.

Pro sailor Dee Smith skippered Team Premier, a brand new boat just built in Dubai that Smith brought over to race in last month’s Big Boat Series and kept it around just for this regatta. Smith is a cancer survivor and sailed with fellow cancer survivor Paul Erickson (grinder), and leukemia survivor Dave Wilhite (grinder).Third in Div A was Farr 40 Astra skippered by Mary Coleman.

“The event’s got a lot of great support even from the really good sailors in other yacht clubs. It’s not just exclusively a SFYC event by any means,” Schneider acknowledged.

A great weekend of fun…and most importantly, hope.

Photo Credit: Ellen Hoke

Pic 1: Tom Perkins & John Doerr (Perkins is a perennial support of the Leukemia Cup)

Pic 2: Team Premier

Pic 3. Winner Div A Trunk Monkey: Matt Noble, Will Paxton, Skip McCormack

Pic 4. Team Premier: Norm Davant, Paul Erickson, Dee Smith, Doug Holm, Russ Silvestri, Dave Wilhite, David Blanchfield, Peter Cameron, and Katie Pettibone

Pic 5. Div 4 Winner Yucca skippered by Hank Easom

Full results at: https://event-manager.compete-at.com/Manager/event/results.do?eid=3690

Update From Cascais: America's Cup PRO John Craig

2011-08-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

SailBlast chatted today with America’s Cup PRO John Craig just after he’d come in off the water after Day 4 in Cascais, Portugal at the inaugural AC World Series event. Unusually light conditions have been a bit of a surprise for all involved but Craig and his team are doing their best to keep the racing interesting. “We’re learning more as we keep going along but all in all the racing’s proved to be pretty exciting with the nine boats and short racing, little reaches.”

SB: How are the bottom tiered teams faring against the better teams?

Craig: They’re actually doing really well. They’re probably not as consistent yet but they’re all having flashes of brilliance and in all honesty, at any given race, somebody could take it on and I’ve been impressed. I figured some of them would be a lot further behind and they’re speed in catching up has been really good. Both Team Korea and China have had some good races. Team NZ and Oracle and Artemis definitely have more players on the ground here and are more advanced but I think the speed with which these other teams will come up is probably a lot better than I thought it would be.

SB: How are the starts working out?

Craig: It’s good - we originally figured that they would approach the line all at speed and it appears now that they’re fighting a little bit more for position and then they turn the speed on but we actually had to increase the side of the virtual boundary below the starting line because they all gone into there and go into point mode up towards the pin and the committee boat then when they get on the line they turn and let it rip. That’s been a little different to work out. But it’s so critical to what end you pick with respect to how windy you think it’s going to be and what your apparent wind is going to do because sometimes guys start at the leeward end and think, ‘ok, I can kind of live here and beat’ and there’s other times if you’re up in the top end you can get over and get a little bit of speed and bear off. So there’s definite tactics and people are picking ends. It’s not a line up and go, so that’s good.

SB: Having to adjust the boundaries - will that become necessary at each venue?

Craig: Yeah. Some venues are going to have boundary restrictions that are enforced by the land. One of the things here that we’ve had is we’ve ended up drawing boundaries on land just so that they get out the way for the sailors because it’s not something we need them to be worried about with respect to their lights and alarms etc. Yet, the graphics people look at that when they put it down on the chart and all of a sudden it looks like we’ve drawn it on the ground so they’re not thrilled about that either. We’re trying to figure all that out on the technical side but additionally each venue will dictate where we are.

SB: Is there the sense that teams are still figuring out where to position themselves and the learning curve is still pretty high?

Craig: For sure. Some teams have really good speed and are going well, others are still trying to figure the tactical side of the game out. We have skippers briefings every morning at 9 and we’re all learning from each other. It’s good, it’s not the committee against the competitors, it’s more that we’re all here together so let’s figure out what we’re trying to do.

SB: Wind conditions seem unusually light?

Craig: It was light today and we had to go outside and find some breeze. We weren’t able to tuck into the bay for a while. Historically they’ll tell you that it’s never like this but…this morning we started a race at 2pm and had huge wind shifts, couldn’t get them around the track properly so we had to abandon that race which was fine. Outside was better breeze so we went out there which was great - got some good racing in there. It wasn’t inside like sometimes you wish it would be so sometimes it’s just a balance and ensuring everyone’s fully engaged and also that you’ve got quality racing going on.

SB: Still lots of crowds and people enjoying the scene?

Craig: Yeah, it’s actually really cool. Some of the things we’ve had to - we were originally worried about the boats living on the moorings at night and teams supported that. We even had a few nights when we had teams say that they’d prefer to stay at the mooring than come out. We’ve had to go back and look at that and give teams the opportunity to pull their rigs and hulls out because it’s such a spectacle and draws so many people to be here for the launch and the retrieval of the boats with the wings. There’s a lot of interest and I think people who don’t have a clue what’s going on get a feeling that they’re at pit alley at a car racing event - they can look into the tents and see the hulls and the teams.

Photo Credit:
Pic 1: Gilles Martin-Raget
Pic 2: Emirates Team New Zealand

America's Cup Umpire Explains

2011-08-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) simply followed the rules when they continued racing after a crew member flew off the back off their AC45 during Day 1 of the America’s Cup World Series which kicked off last Saturday in Cascais, Portugal. And, they didn’t get disqualified.

Why?

Because the America’s Cup has its own rules, of course (available on the Cup website).

Mike Martin, ACs Director of Umpiring and Rules, explained, “We have our own rules that say, ‘A yacht shall not permit any person on board to intentionally leave unless ill or injured.’ It was pretty clear it wasn’t intentional so there was no penalty assessed. If in the event of a capsize, it says, ‘A person leaving shall not be accepted on board nor replaced during a race.’ Team NZ did exactly what they were supposed to do according to the rules which is you leave the person in the water for the team rib to come pick them up.”

Martin also set the record straight on the DQ hit that Oracle Racing’s Spithill took over the weekend. Spithill was originally penalized for sailing outside the course limits - their purpose being is that in the past AC boats would sail on the same tack for 15 minutes during which time everyone leaves or changes the channel.

“We want them tacking and interfacing each other across the tack so we have relatively narrow course limits,” Martin said. “We also have course limits around the starting area so people don’t go sailing off in or near the spectator fleet then come back in.”

Jimmy sailed outside of the course limits prior between the prep signal which is at two minutes and the start and was assessed a penalty at that time. You can’t take your penalty until after starting, and according to Martin, Spithill started and didn’t take his penalty at which time he was assessed s second penalty - an umpire can do that for breaking the rule of failure to take a penalty.

“The equipment was working (contrary to what has been said), and all video shows the indicator light on - you’ll have to ask him what went on,” Martin said.

The speed trial, which ETNZ won, was reported by spectators and online viewers to be difficult to figure out, perhaps due to the commentary. According to Martin it was set up like a regular speed trial with a start line and approximately 500 meters away a finish like. Boats had a one minute time slot and they’re supposed to start in the first 30 seconds of that time slot and come full speed across the start.

“I think everyone’s kind of scratching their head on the time trial and figuring it out,” Martin said. “It’s funny because I watched the TV feed of it and it all looks like it’s highly organized but it was tough to figure out and tough for the sailors to figure it out where the course was and there were spectator boats on the course but we got it all straightened out in the nick of time. “

The speed trial will continue to be an element of the World Series events, Martin confirmed. “I think everyone enjoyed it, it was good to watch. It was kind of cool, even though the conditions weren’t ideal - it was the lightest wind of the day.”

Other than that, Martin’s pleased with the way things are going. “So, so far so good. The first day was a little bit of a bummer because it was light air and rainy and of course today, the lay day, is perfect…blowing 25 and sunny…will probably be the same tomorrow (another lay day).

In the week up to it there were plenty of little problems we were working through and we were concerned. We had some software crashes during a race but everyone’s been working super hard here to get everything going. It was GO day on Saturday and everything came together.”

Photo credit: Emirates Team New Zealand

IN LOVE WITH THE 29ERXX

2011-08-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

This summer the Columbia Gorge (Oregon) has played host to a number of high profile sailing events (ICSA Collegiate Nationals, 2011 US Sailing Singlehanded Championship to name a few) and this past weekend, hosted the Zhik Skiff Regatta - the 49er and 29erXX US National Championships. It’s fast becoming reputed as the best place to sail a skiff in the US, says 29erXX class president, Kristen Lane. Especially if you like big wind.

Lane does.

SailBlast chatted to Lane this morning as she was headed north to Cork, Canada for an Olympic class regatta. Lane and tactician Charlie McKee easily prevailed in this past weekend’s 29erXX National Championship, taking nine of eleven races. Lane explains how they won, and why she likes, excuse me - LOVES - the 29erXX:

The bottom line is that it was a very windy event and we spent a lot of time practicing our boat handling in the big air - staying in the wind was a big reason we were able to get ahead and stay ahead. The Gorge is unrelenting in that little mistakes cost you big. It was surprisingly shift and Charlie did an amazing job of keeping us going in the right lane all the time. He had the confidence to sail where it was the windiest and we knew we had solid boat handling - we knew we could tack and gybe anywhere we wanted to.

Racing the XX is totally different to the standard rig 29er. This was the first US National Championship and it was the class’s opportunity to prove that the boat is able to handle really big winds and a variety of crew weight.

For example, the team that finished second place was a kiwi team - Alex and Molly - they only weighed about 260 pounds total. That’s the remarkable difference of weight range between them and us (we were in just over 310 pounds) and still be competitive in really windy conditions.

We also sailed an entire practice week over and above this past week - all of us did - at the Gorge and nobody experienced a major breakdown other than preventative maintenance. It was remarkable and a great test event for the boat. It’s quite exciting to see the XX be viewed not only as a potential Olympic class for two women but also as an adult co-ed dinghy - high performance, durable, and very moderately priced.

One thing to note that I was the only person at the regatta sailing a Melges 29erXX. Melges is now building the boat in North America and I have the first production boat and I’ve been sailing it since about May. It’s fantastic. Most boats are competitive but the construction and rigidity of the Melges boat was I think key to our success in those conditions - the stiffness of your boat is a big factor in how well it performs.

I was first led to the 29erXX because I wanted to be a better Melges 24 sailor but what I didn’t expect to happen was to become completely engrossed and addicted to the small boat, high performance format. The rewards for all my other sailing has been unimaginable. I feel like the experience on the 29erXX have not only made me a little better as a Melges 24 sailor but a lot better. Discovering a place like the Gorge and making it a point to go there every summer to get tossed around and beaten up in the big wind (LOL!) has been extremely rewarding. The Gorge is the best place in America to sail skiffs and I know the class wants to go back. I'm looking forward to that!

One of Lane's Melges 24 crew mates, Johnny Goldsberry, won the 49er Nationals this past weekend which she was totally psyched about, "It's such a big accomplishment for Johnny. He's been working for so many years and loves the sport and is super generous with his time toward other competitors."

Commenting on the light number of entries in both fleets this past weekend, Lane said she suspected it was because it was a tough year to rally because of the Olympic activity, not to mention some people are afraid of racing in the Gorge...

PETER SHOPE CROWNED LASER SLALOM 2011 CHAMPION

2011-08-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

FINAL DAY LASER SLALOM 2011

With 25 knots registering on the committee boat the Laser Slalom 2011 fleet hit the water for the wildest ride on the Bay, the St Francis Yacht Club’s Heavy Weather Slalom event, presented by Laser Performance and Maclaren. Racing began about 1pm in a flood tide and white caps. Not quite perfect but good enough, noted Don Trask, event founder.

Of the final four, Peter Shope and Ben Richardson (both USA) went head to head, with Shope prevailing and taking the overall first place trophy after four exhausting races. “I don’t know where that came from,’ said an elated Shope. “I tried to stay in the moment and not to look forward too much. I made sure that the vang was in the right position for the run at the beginning of each reach because I didn’t have time to deal with it going into the reach. That really helped me.”

Scott Ferguson (USA) took third prevailing against Mike Matan (GBR). This year's top three in the competition are incidentally all from Laser District 7.

This regatta is all about the spills and Ferguson took first prize for a phenomenal crash in his last race that catapulted him some two boat lengths off his stern. “I needed to jibe, I got a huge puff and was just not going to make the gybe. I got pretty zapped especially after I crashed in the third race. Making the gybe is the difference between staying in the race - or not! It was a lot of fun.”

The talent-stacked fleet included international competitors from 18 years to 70-something, with anything from 40 years Laser sailing experience to six years. An elimination ladder saw yesterday’s winners advance and for those who lost two races, it was game over. With no room for error, spectacular - and frequent - crashes throughout the fleet made for tense moments on and off the course.

LaserPerformance Ambassador and Team Maclaren skipper Anna Tunnicliffe made it through to the final six. She said she was a little nervous going into the event as it’s been a while since she’s sailed a Laser (she’s been busy campaigning the Elliot 6m for the 2012 Olympics). “The upwinds were hard because I’m a good 30 pounds lighter than the others racing but I liked the downwind.”

The Laser Slalom proves wrong beyond doubt anyone who argues that sailing’s not a sport because it’s not a workout. Watching competitors’ rapid fire maneuvering and hiking in the bigger breeze today demonstrated just how intense the job is in the Slalom to make it around the course unscathed (even the top guys - and gals - capsized). Racers cited gym workouts and aerobic exercise as a key part of their training for the event, and on the water, competitive drill sessions. “I usually finish my race training with a 20 tack/20 gybe drill,” Ferguson said.

And that’s what Laser sailors love about it. Said Tunnicliffe, “I really like the physical aspect of the boat and how you have to work really hard to make the boat do what you want to do it. I had to consider every move I had to make and I had a great time.”

That’s the end of the Laser Slalom for 2011. When it’ll next take place, no-one really knows. It worked out well to hold the event at St FYC this year because it slotted in between the Laser Youth and Master World Championships. Ideally it’s the perfect event to hold on a weekend to encourage greater spectatorship and most definitely when at a time when a howling breeze is guaranteed. Maybe it can become a stand-alone event going forward - there’s certainly no shortage of enthusiasm:

Said Ryan Nelson (USA), “It was a blast, I can’t wait to do it again, I was just so bummed to go over when I did.”

* John Bertrand was the winner of the first Laser Slalom event held in 1974.

As Promised: Day 1 Laser Slalom 2011 Brings Spills A-Plenty

2011-08-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

Day 1 of the Laser Slalom 2011 threw contenders a relatively easy time, starting in a breeze in the high teens, a flood tide and flat water - conditions that prevailed for the first part of racing. But by late afternoon the usual San Francisco breeze was back hitting the low to mid-20s.

While over half the fleet crashed at least once, a handful made the trek around the course look like a walk in the park, including two-time Laser World Masters Champion Scott Ferguson (USA) who ripped through in just five minutes, executing smooth maneuvers that earned him two wins, easily putting him in the winners bracket where he’ll go up against Anna Tunnicliffe, Olympic gold medalist, tomorrow, who also won the one race she sailed today (she also had a bye). Tunnicliffe is the hot contender to win this event.

“It was good, I got around the course smoothly, it wasn't as difficult as I thought out there. I got the lighter air, it was fun, I could have done with more breeze though," Ferguson said.

Tunnicliffe, Laser Performance Ambassador and Team Maclaren skipper, blew spectators away with her flawless action and boat handling skills as she really demonstrated just what a work out these boats are. “I had to, I was behind,” she laughed.

No-one agrees more that the big breeze is what the event’s all about than the event’s founding fathers, Don Trask and Bill Kreysler (who also hold the distinction of being responsible for the successful construction of 11,000 Lasers in ten years, 30 Star boats and 300 J24s during their career in the business)

Trask cites the perfect conditions for the event as an ebb tide where the waves are really big and the wind is blowing hard. “The old guys are saying they hope it blows like hell because they know there’s no way these guys are going to get down the course! We were fairly good sailors back then but I’m sure these guys are way better than we were. You can’t reef these boats but you can sail them in any condition so I hope we give them a real ride for their money this event,” Trask said.

Trask’s inspiration for the event was a no-brainer. “I was watching some ski slalom races and thought, “that could be fun”, particularly in a breeze and particularly if we kept it really short.”

The rest is history. Even Warren Miller of skiing fame filmed the windiest event Trask recalls. “It was blowing a good solid 25, maybe 30. We were reefing then - we were using the beach up here west of the club and we’d come in and wrap the sail around - there was no way you could get downwind with the big sails! It was good times and the best of the best were here that time - Bertrand, Silvestri, Keefe, Van Dyne to name a few.”

Trask noted that while the Laser hasn’t changed in design or weight, a few mechanical changes such as the outhaul and boom vang have been improved greatly providing more options.

“Techniques have changed a bit and being in shape is a really important factor with a Laser,” Trask said. “Technique going downwind is the really critical part of sailing Lasers and they’ve perfected a new technique of getting downwind which has made it a whole new game. These sailors blow the old school right out of the water downwind. We would pull everything down as tight as we possibly could and that’s how we’d sail. Now they adjust all that downwind.”

Results at http://www.sflaserworlds.com/page/Slalom

Pic 1. Anna & St FYC PRO Robbie Dean wait for wind

Pic 2. Event founding fathers Don Trask & Bill Krysler

Pic 3. Crashes a-plenty

LASER SLALOM HITS SAN FRANCISCO CITY FRONT

2011-08-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday August 3rd, the Laser Slalom returns to San Francisco's St Francis Yacht Club for two days of action right off Crissy Field. An invitation-only fleet of 32 competitors will face off on a course close to the beach configured to force hurry-up maneuvers.

EXPECT SPILLS AND THRILLS UNDER BLUE SKIES AND BIG BREEZE!

A talent-stacked fleet includes LaserPerformance Ambassador and Team Maclaren skipper Anna Tunnicliffe, Olympic Gold Medalist and US SAILING’s 2010 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year. Also competing is America’s Cup defender Oracle Racing’s Scott Ferguson, the ‘09 and ’10 Laser Masters World Champion.

WHERE: Racing will be conducted right off Crissy Field adjacent to St Francis Yacht Club, event host. Be prepared for awesome beachfront viewing.

WHO: An international fleet including top racers from Australia, Italy, Germany, Canada, Dominican Republic and the US will compete. Full competitor list & photos at event website: http://www.sflaserworlds.com/page/Slalom

HOW: Two parallel rows of buoys are laid to windward of the starting area. Two sailors start one-on-one, each luffing nose-to a left side or right side bottom-most inflatable mark. It is the sailors' job to hold position as best they can until the race committee sees that both are nosed-up evenly (enough). Then a start is signaled. The challenge is to tack up through your row of buoys, cross sides at the top (no hunting allowed), gybe down through the buoys, beat back to weather, cross again, and hurry-up gybe to a finish at the bottom. It's an eliminations ladder, so winner advances.

WHAT they’re saying about the Laser Slalom…

Anna Tunnicliffe, 28, from Plantation, FL: I think its great that this event has being going on for so long. It is a side of the sport we don't often see, but a side that it is just as physical and tactical, but also fun!

Scott Ferguson, 50, Jamestown, RI: I’ll just take what I’m given, try not to capsize, and make the maneuvers as smooth as possible. You have a fairly small window within which to jibe and if you hit the waves not quite right you could get into trouble!

Ari Barshi, 49, owner Laser Training Center (www.caribwind.com), Cabarete, Domincan Republic: All Lasers are made to be fast, it’s the sailor that makes it slower. In the Slalom event we will see very clearly which sailor is most in sync with his boat!

Laura Carter, 16, Alameda, California: The Laser is the first boat that I sailed that I really enjoyed and I've been racing it since I was 12. It’s the best boat for the Slalom because it’s so physical and allows the racers to showcase their boat handling abilities.

Peter Seidenberg, 70-something, Portsmouth, RI, sailing his 28th Laser Master Worlds (he’s won 8 events) and now doing his first Laser Slalom: This couldn't be done in any other boat and be as exciting to do and to watch. It is a truly one-design boat in which racing comes down to "man against man", not boat against boat. And, this could be my last chance to do it!

Stephen Orosz: 45, El Cerrito, California: It’s a great boat for the Slalom because it is so maneuverable and makes for some exciting wipeouts. I have been trying to practice gybing in strong wind and waves, with a lot of wishful that I’ll be able to pull off eight gybes in short order in breeze and waves. . .

Andrea Cosentino, 51, Venice, Italy: All my family is here with me to attend the Slalom and Master Worlds. My daughter Laura , the 2010 Italian Female Laser Champion, is my coach here. I hope to limit my capsizing during the Slalom, otherwise she will laugh too much !

Christina Neville, 31, Oakland, California: The Laser is affordable, tons of people sail it, easy to travel with, you can race anywhere, good competition, wide age range, high performance, athletic to sail, the best of everything. Of course you can spend tons of time upside down - which is why it is good for the Slalom!

Drake Jensen, 18, El Sobrante, California, in 2010, was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma, and acquired a blood clot complication which took him off the water until just a few months ago: The Laser is perfect for the Slalom because of it's highly challenging characteristics, making for exciting action and close call maneuvers.

Luke Parker, 45, Sydney, Australia, is in it for the thrills and spills: Simple one design. Huge numbers of boats. Close, competive sailing. Money can't buy speed.

Peter Vessella, 56, Burlingame, California, even after two knee operations, one neck fusion, and several back injuries concurs: The Laser’s a physical boat that rewards fitness and purity of competition in strict one-design. For the Slalom I’ve been practicing tacks and gybes in quick succession in big breeze!

Martin White, 53, Sydney, Australia: A Laser is so damn honest! Where else do you find so much competition in so many parts of the world?

Colin Dibb, 55, Fremantle, Australia, just scored a 1970's Laser 42000ish, yellow and called Pumpkin that he plans to rig “exactly how we used to do it back then” to show the young bucks how hard it was in the old days, 3:1 vang, etc: It’s the purest form of sailing - just me and a boat.

Peter Shope: 51, Portsmouth, RI, sailing Lasers again after a 26 year hiatus (!):This is an event that I used to dream about participating in when I was a kid. Now I can cross it off my bucket list!

Rob Muru, 53, Toronto, Canada, 2011 Great Lakes Masters Laser Champion, former Canadian National Team (Star and Soling crew) and America’s Cup sailor (Canada 1, 1983): It’ll be crazy breeze and waves, good crowd at the yacht club, racing in the Pacific by the Golden Gate Bridge, the odd seal swimming by. Everything about it is cool.

Nick Burke, 49, globalized - no fixed abode: I like the athleticism required to compete. It’s a great boat for the Slalom because it is tricky to gybe.

ABOUT THE LASER: The Laser is a single-handed racing dinghy with a waterline length of 12.5 feet. The biggest attraction of the Laser dinghy is that is protected by the One Design class rules, which means that no changes are allowed to the boat unless they are specifically permitted in the rules. So in theory all Laser boats are the same whether they are new or 10 years old, making it the sailor who wins the race, not the boat. The Laser is a challenging boat that rewards athleticism, subtle steering and trimming techniques, as well as tactical excellence. It is a singlehanded Olympic class boat, also sailed at club, national and international levels. With nearly 200,000 boats in 140 countries, it is clearly the world’s most popular adult and youth racing sailboat. www.laserperformance.com

ABOUT THE ST FRANCIS YACHT CLUB: Founded in 1927, the St. Francis Yacht Club is steeped in over 80 years of yachting and racing traditions. From the beginning, the St. Francis Yacht Club’s membership roster has included many of the Bay Area’s most prominent citizens and greatest sailors. Early racers for the St. Francis included such champions as L.A. Norris, Mark Fontana, Myron Spaulding, Arthur Rousseau, Painless Parker and Lester Stone. Today, it is names such as Paul Cayard, John Kostecki, John Bertrand, Stan Honey, Morgan Larson, John Heineken, Genny Tulluch and Russ Silvestri who continue to keep the St. Francis name in the forefront of world-class sailing.

The annual regatta schedule at the St. Francis is one of the most active regatta calendars in the world. Part of the attraction of racing at St. Francis Yacht Club is the excellent and challenging racing conditions unique to San Francisco Bay. Both physically beautiful and naturally demanding, the Bay provides a racer with the ultimate in wind, current and weather conditions for truly competitive, exciting sailing. The St. Francis Yacht Club prides itself on being able to provide members and guests to the Club with every comfort and amenity while dazzling them with its surroundings. www.stfyc.com

Pic 1: Anna Tunnicliffe

Pic 2: Scott Ferguson

Pic 3: Laser Youth Worlds concludes Tues, St FYC

AMERICA’S CUP DESIGNER PREPS FOR ACTION-PACKED LASER SLALOM

2011-07-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

The Laser Slalom returns to the St FYC for two days of action right off San Francisco's Crissy Field on Wednesday August 3rd, turning up the heat between the Laser 4.7 World Championship and the Laser Masters World Championship.

An invitation-only fleet of 32 competitors will face off on a course close to the beach designed to force quick decisions.... as the event touts, “good people go bad in conditions that would never otherwise trip them up.”

The fleet is stacked with talent including LaserPerformance Ambassador and Team Maclaren skipper Anna Tunnicliffe, Olympic Gold Medalist and US SAILING’s 2010 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year.

Also competing is Oracle Racing’s Scott Ferguson, winner of the ‘09 and ’10 Laser Masters World Championship. SailBlast caught up with Ferguson as he was getting ready to hit the water on Saturday afternoon at St FYC to spar with fellow Oracle design team member Dimitri Despierres.

Ferguson, from Jamestown, RI, has just this month moved to the Bay Area with his wife Kim to be closer to the Team’s HQ. He’s been involved in Cup campaigns since first working with Dennis Conner in 1995, as well as Italian teams Luna Rossa and Prada. He managed the mast and wing design on USA-17, followed by the AC45 wing, and is now working on Oracle’s AC72 wing program. Ferguson's also worked on numerous other big boat programs including TP52s and the Volvo Ocean Race.

But this week he has his sights set on the Laser 4.7 and getting around the slalom course without crashing...

SB: Why the Laser Slalom?

Ferguson: The Slalom is something I’ve heard about forever - 30 years ago I remember hearing about San Francisco and this event that goes on out here, it being really windy and people used to wrap their sails twice around the main spar to reduce sail area and stuff like that (LOL) and so it’s always had this lure. I heard about it, timing is good because I’m now here so so I have to do it just because it’s such a unique regatta. I like the boat handling - a lot of tacks, a lot of jibes - I hope I’m pretty good at that (LOL).

SB: What are your expectations?

Ferguson: As far as the event itself goes, I don’t really know what to expect. I know the format - that we’ll be right up alongside the beach here. I guess I’ll just take what I’m given, try not to capsize, and make the maneuvers as smooth as possible. The scary part is that you normally get to pick your points to jibe but with the slalom you’re kind of forced at times - you have a fairly small window within which to jibe and if you hit the waves not quite right you could get into trouble!

SB: You’re okay with lots of crashes?

Ferguson: LOL! It’s all good! I am surprised at how cold the water is here but you get the right gear and it’s fine. It’s kind of refreshing.

SB: How long have you been sailing Lasers?

Ferguson: I sailed Lasers a lot when I was in my late teens early 20s, then got out of it for 25 years or so, sailed J24s and big boats but mainly just for work. Then got back into it in 2003 with my old boat, my 1983 old white squishy deck water logged boat and got into some larger events on the east coast and realized I needed to get a new boat. I bought the new boat in 2004 and steadily ramped up. I’ve done five Master Worlds since, winning the past two years (England 2010, and Nova Scotia 2009).

SB: You can’t be too shabby at this then?

Ferguson: I’m alright…just a little creaky!

SB: What do you like about the Laser?

Ferguson: I love the Laser, it’s just good exercise for me, I love going out on the boat, it’s like going for a bike ride. The events themselves force me to stay healthy and lose weight so I really like it from that perspective. It’s also a very challenging boat tactically and it’s athletic so it’s fun to sail. It’s a great boat to learn on, plus it’s great to have the ability to be able to get on a boat alone and not be dependent upon anybody else. And - they’re doing this with the 4.7s - you put a smaller rig on the same boat and it’s a great one design, as long as you have a lot of other boats to sail against. It’s fun and hopefully gets more kids involved in sailing.

SB: How often do you get in the boat?

Ferguson: Leading up to the events I try to get out every other day but with work - I’m pretty busy with what I’m doing - so I’ve been getting out perhaps twice a week or so, and more and more as this event gets closer (he’s rearranged a few meetings to be able to race this week…).

I’ve been sailing out of here (St FYC), I’ve been trying to get used to the area. Obviously the venue is here (for the America’s Cup 34), so I want to get used to the waters right off here…

SB: Double duty?

Ferguson: It is double duty! It’s interesting because it’s such a unique place to sail. I thought it was going to be a lot more of being really windy the whole time and straightforward but it’s very puffy and the current is very different all the way across from here to the other side. It’s a challenging area to sail I think.

Scott Ferguson's website: http://www.scottfergusonllc.com

ABOUT THE LASER SLALOM:
Bill Kreysler, PRO for the event explains: “The Slalom works this way. Two parallel rows of buoys are laid to windward of the starting area. Two sailors start one-on-one, each luffing nose-to a left side or right side bottom-most inflatable mark. It is the sailors' job to hold position as best they can until the race committee sees that both are nosed-up evenly (enough). Then a start is signaled. The challenge is to tack up through your row of buoys, cross sides at the top (no hunting allowed), gybe down through the buoys, beat back to weather, cross again, and hurry-up gybe to a finish at the bottom. It's an eliminations ladder, so winner advances.”

More info and competitor list at: http://www.sflaserworlds.com/page/Slalom

America's Cup In the Community

2011-07-07T09:14:00.001-07:00

As part of the Host City Agreement (HCA) with the City of San Francisco, the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) has a responsibility to develop a Youth Involvement Plan to be implemented in the City, as follows:

The Youth Involvement Plan shall set forth the means by which, before and during the Event, the Authority shall: (a) incorporate and support sailing related programs and activities for the City’s children, youth, and families; (b) conduct outreach to children, youth, and families through the San Francisco Unified School District and the City’s existing programs for children, youth, and families to provide youth sailing courses and Event passes at no cost; (c) commit to hiring and providing internships to young people for the Event; (d) create friendly open spaces in which children and youth will engage in various Event-related activities; and (e) create exciting learning spaces in which children, youth, and families will have access to experiential and project-based learning related to the Event.

The Bay Area’s sailing advocacy group, GoSailingSF.org, recently invited Ariel Ungerleider, ACEA’s community outreach manager, to translate for its membership exactly what this all means, and to give an update on where her team is at in fulfilling this commitment to the City. Ungerleider, who is from San Francisco, is new to the sport of sailing but comes from the world of sports marketing, non-profits, sports non profit and has worked youth programs in other sports.

The good news for local youth and community sailing groups is that Ungerleider and her group are still in the early stages of defining what the City would like to see happen and what the Cup can bring to youth/community sailing. “The conversation is just getting started and we’re absolutely open to suggestions - we’re still creating our program,” Ungerleider said. “I would like to be able to offer more concrete ideas but I think it’s also a great starting point to say we don’t have an event in San Francisco for a year so we have a lot of time to plan and work with the community.”

She added that partnering with existing organizations is a goal, “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we know there are already great existing programs all around the Bay Area.”

While the Youth America’s Cup will be focused on older “kids” using the AC 45s as a pathway for the 18-21 years + age group to higher level sailing, Ungerleider hopes the Cup will provide access and opportunities for all kids from all walks of life to see the actual America’s Cup boats as well as meeting some of the athletes and learning about the event.

She’s been meeting with the San Francisco Mayor’s Office to better understand what education outreach means to them per the HCA, and how the America’s Cup can work with schools or after school programs like the Treasure Island Sailing center and the Sea Scouts as well as adult education - teaching adults how to sail, about the history of the maritime industry in San Francisco for example.

“We’re letting the city drive the conversation right now,” Ungerleider explained. “Once there’s a direction we’ll look to the programs that exist and the conversations we’ve been having such as this and offer a platform to help people find some of the organizations that are out there.”

Ungerleider said initially programs will be limited to the City because that’s whom ACEA is responsible to under the HCA. “Once that’s fulfilled, we’ll eventually include the greater Bay Area. In some cases there may be an opportunity to have a national footprint with classroom curriculum.”

She’s guessing she’ll have a solid plan in place later this fall, perhaps early November. Meanwhile, as we know, there’s no money at ACEA to offer up to local youth sailing/community groups but Ungerleider said on a basic level she’s able to offer assistance with merchandise or “guest” sailor opportunities to help drive fundraising efforts. She can be contacted at ariel.ungerleider@americascup.com.

* World-class sailor and philanthropist Dawn Riley, Executive Director at the Oakcliff Sailing center in Oyster Bay, NY, reminded Cup fans at the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s Cup Chat event that it works both ways when it comes to leveraging the opportunity that - hopefully - AC34 will bring to sailing:

“There’s a huge opportunity here that can not be missed and you guys all have to stand up and fight for this. There’s an opportunity to take what we were trying to do with America True to make sailing more accessible. With the America’s Cup you can have a program from K through 12 where everyone learns about the America’s Cup at their age level, from pirates in second grade to biology in 9th grade. The sailors are more than happy to go into the schools and do outreach and talk to the public and to these kids. You can’t let the Cup be here then go away and have everybody say, ‘Oh yeah, that thing.’ It has to be something that has a legacy a facility down at India basin, it’s a huge opportunity and this is the group that has to fight for that.”

Pic 1: Ariel Ungerleider at GoSailingSF membership meeting June 14, South Beach Yacht Club (credit Bob Naber)
Pic 2: Dawn Riley at GGYC Cup Chat event June24 (credit Chuck Lantz)

Dream Job for America's Cup Engineer

2011-06-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

Riding his bike to work across the Golden Gate Bridge from his home in Mill Valley some 20 miles to the Oracle Racing base at Pier 80 in San Francisco is a commute that Kurt Jordan is ready for. The long-time America’s Cup designer is thrilled to be living back in the Bay Area doing what he loves to do best - designing not just high performance sailboats but the fastest sailboats in the world - after spending much of his 20-year career traveling to all four corners for his work. SailBlast caught up with Kurt to chat about working in the top design shop out there today:

What America’s Cup campaigns have you worked?

KJ: 1992 (designing spars for Dennis/Stars & Strips, Bill Koch/America 3, and Il Moro di Venezia); 1995, Young America ( PACT95); 2000, America True, 2003, OneWorld; 2007, Alinghi; and in 2010, Alinghi.

How did you get into the Cup arena?

KJ: I graduated from Cal (Berkeley) where I studied engineering and composite materials. When they wrote the new rule for the ’92 Cup they allowed extensive use of composites. I was right place, right time with my education and a few years of industry experience with composite material training. In the Cup there’s a lot of “old guard”, a lot of nepotism and it’s hard to get “in”. The new rule opened the door, as a lot of the old guys didn’t understand composites. I was hired in 1990 by Tom Omohundro as a consultant for carbon rigs. His company was up in Minden, NV. They built all the carbon rigs for Dennis, some for the Italians, some for Bill Koch for the ’92 Cup. So I got into the ’92 Cup through mast design, I worked with Bruce Nelson a lot back then and ultimately stayed with the Cup - this will be the seventh Cup I have worked. I still don’t admit that it’s a career really but it’s been 20 years!

How has what you do changed in that time?

KJ: Some of the materials have changed but not in huge ways. The techniques, understanding and analyzing them - the computer based simulation has grown enormously. That’s one of the big roles I play is managing that computer simulation infrastructure and the software that allows you to do that is so much better than 20 years ago.

What’s been the most interesting project you’ve worked on in the Cup?

KJ: I’m a little afraid to answer that because I’d have to say the last match - the dogfight, while I was still with Alinghi. It was much more interesting than version 3 or version 5 IACC boats. They were all fun and exciting but as far as the stuff goes that blows my skirt up, that was a high point - we just weren’t constrained by resources. There was a budget, sort of, which is why we didn’t go to a wing, we just got to the end and it was like, we need another six engineers and another ten million dollars and so it went on.

What’s your specific focus?

KJ: The stuff I do rarely has anything to do with what the boat looks like - the shape - but all the engineering - the types of materials and how to use them. With these boats, the carbon fiber construction - the number of layers you put on and how they’re lined up is all very critical. What I try to do is optimize the layout of the carbon fiber - to make it light, make it stiff.

What does the Oracle design team currently look like?

KJ: Right now, it’s roughly 20, probably about half of what I worked with at Alinghi in 07. On the engineering side there’s a group that deals with the sails, another group that’s dealing with the aerodynamics of the sails and the wing, another group that focuses on performance - shape of the hull, balance of the boat, and then another group of 7-8 of us that does the “nuts and bolts” - the design work that creates drawings that get built.

The AC 45 seems the perfect boat for the job. How could you improve on it?

KJ: Yes, we’re all pretty happy with it. There’s a lot of things you could do differently if you weren’t trying to control the cost of it even though they’re hugely expensive boats, it’s a one design fleet meant to get all the teams sailing in a hurry and to get everyone to the same level of understanding with the wing. You could make a much more complicated wing - more flaps, more twist control. Probably one of the biggest compromises is that it has just simple straight dagger boards. Everybody knows at this stage that state of the art would be curved foils that give you a lot of lift, particularly downwind, and foils that can’t rotate - that’ll be mainstay on the 72s. But for the one design its complicated and expensive and not the purpose of it. The protocol allows people to now modify the 45s with these foils if they want but they have to put it back to one design to race. But between races you can use it as a Frankenstein boat if you want to start to learn more about these things.

So you’re constantly designing/building new things and trying them out when you're not racing, like you've been doing here on the Bay?

KJ: Yeah, we have been actually (LOL). Everyone will be. I wont go into any details but with these boats there’s so much to learn. Even not messing with anything technological, just how to sail them. It’s kind of like the ’92 Cup. All of a sudden you have this big new animal and the gains are big. Unlike the version 5 boats where everyone was tweaking little things just to get a little bit more, the gains will be a lot bigger with these boats.

What’s going to be venue-specific as you work on the 72?

KJ: We don’t have ocean swells that we will be racing into so that changes how you view the design. Statistically, the wind that we’ll have when we race the Cup will be pretty strong. So there’ll be very little compromise for lights winds on these boats. If you had to race them in lighter wind places and it mattered, you might make compromises. An example is the pitch pole issue - it exists in catamarans, it’s part of it. Ocean swells make it worse. In the 45 on SF Bay, the waves are high enough that it kind of matters. The 72 is a much bigger boat. So everybody will be faced with trying to balance how much they put into the boat to resist pitch poling - there are features you can do to the boat - like more volume in the bow - that give you more resistance to pitch poling but will make the boat go slower of course. You can make the boat slower kinda straight line fundamentally but they do make the boats so they can push them harder so you don’t know which one pays off in the end - what kind of a fine line everybody’s going to have to walk, how safe do you make the boat from pitch-poling on the Bay - that’s very venue specific. You could really hurt somebody for sure, even on the 45.

Do you see some interesting (design) competition coming from the other teams?

KJ: Oh, absolutely. The cool thing about a new rule is that you don’t know what people are going to come up with. In version 4 or 5 in the America’s Cup, you knew what the boats were going to look like, pretty much. There’s kind of a traditional path given the rules that you kind of expect everybody will be in or near but there’s always the surprises, like the Be Happy boat with two keels, always someone who will come up with something different. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the teams with the smaller budgets who come through like that, they may decide it’s their only opportunity.

Where are you now in the design phase?

KJ: With the change in the Protocol which now sets the date to launch a 72 as July 2012 - it was previously January 2012 makes a big difference because it’s the period of time leading up producing drawings - things that we build - that’s really interesting - configuration studies - the honeymoon period. As time gets closer the pressure goes up, you really have to get down to the nitty gritty, you need drawings for the builders. That goal post has now moved six months so a lot of ideas that had got struck off the list because we were out of time are back in again. So, we now have more time for the fun part.

What are you looking for when you’re on the water testing?

KJ: When you’re out on the water testing you usually watch the parts that you design, the things that you’re responsible for, so to me what’s interesting is really the platform, the hulls, the beams and the dynamics of how they behave, like when the bow starts to stuff in and how the boat torques up - you can physically see it. And, just watching the wing is really interesting because you’re just not used to looking at it - what’s it really doing - it’s still somewhat of an enigma. It’s fun to watch.

Do you see the wing trickling down to mainstream boats anytime soon?

KJ: I’m a little afraid that it wont trickle down that much because the logistics (getting it in and out, docking it, leaving it tied up at night because it’s a sail that’s always up which can be a problem) of it are just hard compared to soft sails and most people wont want to deal with that. It’ll trickle down to the Moths and A-Cats, the top level of smaller boats but as far as bigger boats, I think it’ll be more of a fringe thing, not a mainstream deal. There are people building wings for small cats and it seems like its ramping up and you’ll see it a lot more.

From one team to the next, do you yak about what happened with the previous team?

KJ: With your contract with a team you sign non-disclosure agreements but I think it’s fair and legal to bring what’s in your head. You can’t bring your computer files and all that, but we wouldn’t have much value if you couldn’t bring your experience with you. It’s so interesting particularly after a time like the dogfight to hear what some of the other designers had to say - we all had our different view not only on the politics of the whole thing but on the design - both were very different - so yes, it’s really fun to talk to the guys.

* Kurt, 50, grew up in Berkeley, Calif., sailing on the Bay. He’s married to Jaydee and lives in Mill Valley, Calif., with their two sons Cole (12), and Bo (9). He’s currently teaching his kids to sail a Bongo (know what that is?) and he’s happy to be home. “I love being back here - honestly, I get all giddy when I think that I get to do this job and live here.”

The View From Spithill's Office

2011-06-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Spithill’s version of getting up and heading to the office is just a little different to most. He starts in the gym about 7, heads home for a shower and breakfast, then hits the ORACLE Racing HQ at San Francisco’s Pier 80 for an operations meeting which sets the team’s agenda for the day. This week the focus has been on trialing equipment with Race Committee and umpires. A sailing team debrief follows where the team discusses what happened the previous day on the water, analyzing video footage and working with coaches Philippe Presti and Darren Bundock (aka Bundy). Meetings over, it’s time to crank up the pace and get out on the water. “It's a full day,” says Jimmy. SailBlast editor Michelle Slade chatted to the skipper of America's Cup defender, ORACLE Racing about his first week sailing the AC45 in San Francisco.

SB: What have you learned this past week in San Francisco?

Spithill: The way the weather works here on the Bay is perfect - from midday on you can be sailing. On these boats you don’t need more than a few hours because it’s so physical for the crew. You get to the point where you start to get diminishing returns because everyone’s starting to get tired. These boats are just physically draining and it takes its toll - you never get a break really. By the time the end of the week comes around you can definitely see everyone needs a couple of days off to recharge.

Another thing we’ve learned here is to split the week up, like we’ll do a Mon/Tues sail, take Wed as a maintenance catch up day, then sail Thurs/Fri. You could sail six days a week but you wouldn’t be any better for it. On the old boats, 2-boat testing was draining but more mentally concentration-wise for the drivers and the trimmers.

SB: There’s a lot of talk about the athleticism required on the 45?

Spithill: It’s definitely a different game - the huge emphasis now is on the athletic side, which I think is good. I have friends who are professional rugby players and they don’t see the athletic side of sailing - they instantly think of guys in a blazer sitting on the side, swanning around the bay. Once people see the 45s, with the cameras and mikes onboard, they see the amount of effort going into it.

SB: Has this had a big part in determining who is on the sailing team?

Spithill: Definitely. You can’t carry anyone. If you’re on these boats or the 72, you’ve got to be fit and you have to be able to perform, and that can only be a good thing. When you look at it, on the 45, there’s only 4 guys doing all the work as the helmsman can’t do a lot - he can help out with the wing trim here and there. On the 72 it’s the same thing - take the helmsman out and you have 10 guys - you have a wing trimmer, and a front sail trimmer, so you have 8 guys to physically do all the work. They have to be all-around sailors. If you make a mistake or if you’re pushing the edge, everyone’s got to be thinking, “Will I need to ease that sheet if we do a big nose dive , or vice versa.” You never had that on the old boats - you’d be thinking ahead for the maneuver but the consequence of getting it wrong was never a capsize, the consequence, was that we mess a maneuver up or break a pole, tear a spinnaker - now the consequences are serious.

SB: What have you been focusing on here training in the conditions that you’ll need to get used to?

Spithill: Everyday we’ve been here it’s been windy and we’ve used our heavy jibs every single day. The other thing is learning the race track. It’s a real challenging place to sail - every day is different with the tides and it doesn’t matter what tide mile you look at, there always seems to be some small variation. And, just getting to the lifestyle, the daily routine, thinking about the long term - it’s just been fantastic for the whole team, not just the sailors but the shore guys too.

SB: How are you liking the breeze out there?

Spithill: It’s just fantastic, it’s soooo good. That Bay has got to be one of the best places to sail in the world - it’s reliable wind, the current makes it challenging and it really is a natural amphitheater - on the 45s you feel like there are some boundaries - it’s very cool. Honestly, you look really look forward to getting up and out there each day. You need weather for sailing - of course there are skills associated with light air sailing but let’s face it, it’s not much fun when you can be blasting around at 30 knots all day.

SB: Talking about the speed of the boats - what have you had to do to step up your game at the helm?

Spithill: I got into multihulls because of the last campaign so I had a head start but these boats are completely different. The trimaran had an engine and it was a big boat so it was more about keeping the thing in one piece whereas with these boats you really have to sail them as hard as you can. We’re just putting the hours in as with any class of new boat.

SB: Your job is to push it…?

Spithill: Well, I think it’s everyone’s job, no matter if you’re coaching or sailing the boat. With any good sporting team you’ve always got to be trying to take another step up because at the end of the day you’re always looking for a small advantage. It’s an attitude I think.

SB: You’re playing with the edge everytime you’re out there?

Spithill: Sure! You’ve seen us capsize these things. That’s a good thing, I reckon it’s great. The whole purpose of these boats is to be able to get out there on a small scale and understand what the 72 is going to be about around the track but also to be able to push. The best way to learn is to make mistakes and I think capsizing is all part of it.

SB: What’s going through your mind when you capsize?

Spithill: S…T, I’d better find something to hold onto! It goes from us all working together to every man for himself! We have a procedure in place though - you want to get the boat back up as quick as possible. I think capsizing is fantastic for the racing - it’s great for TV, it’s great for the sport. It’s like crashing or spinning out in auto racing. You gotta have it - otherwise it’d be like restricting the Formula 1 guys to first gear. No-one would watch it. The good thing with these boats is that you get rewarded for pushing hard but then you are going to go too far. What we want is if you have a capsize in a race, the chase boats are allowed to come and pick you up and you can keep racing, like a pit crew. That’s something for the commentators/TV to focus on. We want to make these wings bullet proof enough so we can capsize them - just the top needs to be bullet proof as that’s the part that sits in the water.

SB: How do you think a capsize in the 72 will compare?

Spithill: A lot more dramatic. You’ll never want to capsize a big one. But, these 45s are a different story. You want to go out there and show you are pushing hard, and if you do make a mistake, it’ll be great to be able to pull them up, just like a small boat, and carry on. Most of the teams have capsized now and they just pick them up and sail back to the dock. You don’t have to get towed in. Like yesterday, we broke a few frames during a maneuver because we left the runner on. But we sailed the rest of the day no problem and that’s the key - keeping the boats out on the water.

SB: Cascais, Portugal is the next stop - has the Bay been good prep for that?

Spithill: Any sailing is good. We have our entire sailing team here right now - all the grinders, so we’re putting them through the experience on the 45 to give them a better understanding of what the 72 is going to be about. Obviously we need to make some decisions for the big boat, at some point so we can start building it - that’s important. We only had a small crew in NZ to keep costs down.

SB: Given you’ve had more time on the water than the other teams, how competitive do you think the first World Series event will be for ORACLE?

Spithill: I’m not sure we’ve had more time - I think Team NZ’s been sailing a lot. It depends on what you call - if you call it more time in multihulls I’d say the other teams have had more time this year - they’ve been doing Extreme 40s, A-class, they’re doing more than us. We’ve been providing stuff for the teams, we’ve come up with the 45, which is good but takes time and energy away from what we want to do. But for the sport and to make this work, we have to do it. We’ve come up with a concept that we think is going to give the sport the best chance commercially and some people forget this, but if you want to get paid, then you need a good TV/commercial product to sell. Having said that, you saw, even in NZ, the Chinese team - they’ve got some good multihull in Charlie Ogletree and Mitch Booth - they were pretty much up to speed on the last day of racing and won a race. So with all the multihull sailing going on, the good guys will get up to speed straight away. We’ve seen it.

SB: This lifestyle is a huge commitment to team and ultimate goal. How do you fit your personal life in that?

Spithill: It’s difficult. My wife Jen (Jennifer) and two boys (4 and 10 months) live in San Diego but up here now visiting. It’s tough on everyone - we all do a lot of travel and obviously the older your kids get with school etc., it gets more difficult. But having said that it’s also a good education for the kids because they get to experience different cultures and a lot of the kids in campaigns learn different languages etc. It makes them more independent and let’s face it, kids today want to travel. I think there’s lots of positives which is what you have to take from it. We’ve spent most of our time in Valencia or New Zealand with the different campaigns. It’s a tough lifestyle but tell you what, I just love it!

Still Pinching Myself...

2011-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent some 45 minutes sailing around the future racecourse area for the 34th America’s Cup on an AC45.

Yes, it happened, I was there, and I’m still reeling from the combination of incredible good fortunate to have had the opportunity and the adrenalin rush of pure unadulterated speed. My head is overcrowded with clichés as I try to relive that once in a lifetime experience (see, there I go).

Oh, and did I mention that it was all the more sweet with Russell helming for the first time since his spectacular capsize on Monday, although, I’ll admit to a moment of anxiety when Philippe Presti switched out and Russell jumped on board - the old adage about getting back on the horse came to mind as did Russell’s comments at the earlier press conference that it could take a few more bad decisions to get it right…

When the new Cup regime talked about accessibility, it never occurred to me that would include a Guest Racer Program that actually got folks with a huge range of sailing - or not - experience out on the actual boats that the teams race, particularly this early on in the action. It's almost unprecedented in Cup history, with the exception of the previous highly coveted 17th man position which was as rare to come by as hen’s teeth. For the average punter like myself, one could have perhaps won a 17th seat at a charity auction for thousands of dollars, but…probably not.

Swathed in oversized team foulies, I was delivered by volunteer RIB from the Golden Gate Yacht Club dock out to an ORACLE RIB, as it’s an maneuver unto itself to bring a RIB alongside an AC45 which even in “rest” mode feels like it's dying to cut loose - just pure energy.

On the ORACLE RIB, I chatted it up with bowman Simeon Tienpont, who at 29 is the youngest sailor on the Team. Simeon pointed out a few of the obvious differences between the AC45 and the version 5 Cup boats he's used to. Life on the AC45 is lean and simple, gone are the massive weighty blocks and lines, for example.But, as Tienpont who was onboard for Monday’s capsize pointed out, while the 45 is a reputedly wild and potentially dangerous machine, the case can be made that the sheer loads carried aboard the V-5 boats also did not respond well to bad crew decisions. That’s just what it is at this level.

Another related trade off is that the hefty trimmers required to man the V-5 boats are gone. Agility is the answer to getting quickly and efficiently around the 45. Point in case, after seeing Terry Hutchinson at the presser earlier in the day, he looked like he’d dropped a bunch of weight, not that he needed to, but the guys are getting a massive aerobic workout on the 45.

It was my turn to clamber aboard the 45, I got a quick introduction to the guys on Coutts 5 - Dirk “Cheese” de Ridder, Matt Mason, Phillipe Presti, Simon Daubney and Jonno Macbeth - before being shown my spot behind the aft crossbeam. The only instruction: hold onto to the piece of yellow rubber hosing fixed on the crossbeam. And we shot off on a reach toward the Golden Gate Bridge. I did my own mental safety check, recalling that the only thing to do in the event of a capsize is to hang on. I can’t say there was ever a moment where I was white-knuckled because the sheer excitement was the more overwhelming feeling.

The breeze settled in around 20 knots, it was warm and sunny and Coutts 5 was skimming along like nothing I’ve ever been on - it’s hard to come up with a suitable analogy simply because I’ve never been on the water on anything as fast. In some respects the speed element for me was the feeling of speed I got while getting launched learning to kite surf - that torpedo effect from the water through the air but without the subsequent pain - and kind of like windsurfing more than a being on a sailboat, where you feel the speed more because of your physical proximity to the water. And although it’s incredibly fast, it’s different to being on a powerboat because it’s not a powerboat! It’s just a friggin’ fast sailboat. There’s got to be a huge temptation to play these boats to their edge because the speed is highly addictive.

I didn’t get the feeling that the guys were taking it easy on my account, focused on wind angle and speed as they were. There wasn’t a lot of chat back and forth, going through a tack was business as usual, with the helmsman counting down and the bowman making the first move over to secure the new side and the rest of the guys following with a kind of a bouncing momentum to skip over lines laying on the trampoline and to absorb the spring of the tramp. On the first upwinder a quick glance at the knot meter confirmed we were doing 17.8 and with the breeze pretty consistent, that was about the max upwind speed I saw in my short time on board. The amazing maneuver was turning into the jibe and heading downwind. It happened so fast, so quietly. Within seconds we were hurtling down at 24.5 knots. So fast.

Stan Honey came aboard to make some electronics adjustments - I am sure it was more than just the few squirts of WD40 he applied to something at the bottom of the mast but he did point out the small rectangular shaped box sitting on the starboard side of the fore crossbeam that flashed small red lights - the piece of equipment that communicates with the umpire booth operating back at the club.

The guys began to prepare for the race training session against the other ORACLE AC45 named Spithill. I thought for a moment that perhaps they’d forgotten I was still on board as I tried to make myself invisible. I did not want to get off. I think that kinda says it all.

In reflection, it was an amazing, unforgettable experience, but it brought home that AC45 racing is not sailing 101. In fact, it’s not sailing for probably 90% of the sport’s population. As my friend Craig Leweck said, it’s for those kids who had to take their skateboards to the highest hill and scream down. Good on them, wish I had their guts.

Team pics credit: Gilles Martin-Raget

Author pic: Joan Garrett

Let's Get It On

2011-06-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps better stated, let’s get on it, as there were no real surprises at Wednesday’s “unveiling” of the official entries for the 34th America’s Cup - the eight contenders including defender ORACLE Racing are: Emirates Team New Zealand, Artemis Racing (SWE), China Team, Team Korea, Aleph-Equipe de France, Venezia Challenge (ITA) and Team Energy (FRA). A 9th entry will be announced on June 23, and it’s rumored to be a Spanish team.
Other “unveilings” included the new brand of the America’s Cup 34, “America’s Cup 2.0”. As described by Richard Worth, Chairman of AC34, “It’s sleek, it’s modern, it’s sophisticated - it’s everything our competition now stands for. Visually this evolution sees the logo take prominence representing elements of the next generation of the racing boats in the shape of the ‘A’s as well as the host city of San Francisco - you can see the subtle, maybe not so subtle reference to the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge represented in the ‘A’s. Finally the Cup itself has been streamlined to simplify the form while also retaining the beauty of the oldest trophy in sports.”

Worth also presented the new Louis Vuitton Cup branding- a new logo that defers to the shape of the hulls and sails of the new boats, with the deep blue referring to the yachting universe and the America’s Cup, and the brick red signifies the more traditional look of Louis Vuitton mimicking the interior color of Louis Vuitton leather goods.

In other news announced, the dates for the third World Series event for 2011 will take place in San Diego, California, November 12-20. Worth stated that to date, just five of the proposed 16 World Series event venues have been confirmed but that bidding continues to fill the remaining 11 sites.

Quotes of interest from the press conference:

Iain Murray, Race Director, America's Cup Race Management (ACRM):
“Here we are today with ten boats - there’s been a tremendous effort to design, build and manufacture, trial and transport and get them to Portugal - it’s been 9 months to this day - truly remarkable. What’s more remarkable about it, is when you try to do something new you often make mistakes but these boats and teams and what we’ve seen from the speed of the sailing to spectacular capsizes, these boats are proving to be the business for what they’re designed to be.

The AC45s are really just the training wheels for the AC72s - a rig that’s double the size, a boat that’s substantially longer, a boat that’s nearly three times the beam and a boat that’s going to go substantially faster. It’s a boat that’s on steroids.”

Kevin Shoebridge, EmiratesTeam NZ: “I think we’ve got a fantastic group. The quality of the teams will reflect the quality of the event in the end - we’ve got a nice mixture of evolving new teams here - it’s a good number of competitors and I think it’ll be fantastic.”

Dario Valenza, Venezia Challenge: “I think the America’s Cup is big in Italy because of the tradition and drama that it represents and there has been a history of successful Italian teams. I think this time this time it offers extra dimensions with the format being more exciting, the accessibility to the racing being better than before. Our aim is to promote the new format social media marketing and doing as much as possible to showcase Italy and Italian-made around the world.”

Terry Hutchinson, Artemis Racing: “Having spent the majority of my life going through at 9 knots, the AC45 is quite a different beast. The boats are very physical, they’re demanding on the sailors, the shore crews and pretty much everyone involved gets a full whipping from the start of the day to the end of the day. I take my hat off to Russell and the Defender for giving us this opportunity because I think we’re going to see something quite new and quite spectacular just through the awesome power that these boats create. I guess the good news, depending on how you look at it, this is the small version, with the 72s, it’s only going to be magnified by 100%.”

Russell Coutts, ORACLE Racing (on the difference between “on the edge and over the edge”): “I think I’ve become a little more qualified to speak on the subject in the last few days. But really, I think that’s one of the challenges I’m going to face over the next years is recognizing where that point is. I think it’s a matter of experience, and the experience I’ve had over the last few days sailing in San Francisco’s strong conditions, I’m starting to recognize when that limit is reached - it’s probably going to take a few more bad decisions to cement that in my brain but I’m trying!

San Francisco’s Mayor Lee: “A competitive phrase that we use here in the Bay Area for when you start a competition ... ‘let’s get it on!’”

So, what did you do on Monday?

2011-06-13T17:56:00.001-07:00

If you were San Francisco’s Mayor Lee you were driving - for the very first time - a 140 foot sailboat called America, a true replica of the boat that won the first America’s Cup event back in 1851. In fact, it was the very first time that Mayor Lee had been on a sailboat and he was clearly having a good time, even taking America through a jibe after driving her back under the Golden Gate Bridge in a stiff 20 plus knots. No sweat.

“I’m excited to see it from the racer’s point of view out on the water today and how we can visualize this race for the coming years,” Lee said, talking to a crowd of some 80 media and guests aboard America this afternoon prior to heading out to watch the AC45s fire it up on the Bay.

While there’s still no major sponsorship to speak of with the exception of Louis Vuitton, or at least none that’s been spoken of, Lee is positive it’ll happen.
“I’m very optimistic they (the organizers) will raise all the funds they need to hold the America’s Cup here in San Francisco…they’re even talking about repeating the event here…

All the stuff we want to hear, right?

Especially the bit about the event remaining in San Francisco which seemed a given from where I sat at the press conference held at the Golden Gate Yacht Club prior to this afternoon’s media sail. There’s no two ways about it, ORACLE Racing is one shiny, polished machine and they are on the fast track. It difficult to imagine that the challengers can get up to speed in just a few years with all that ORACLE has into it’s program this early on in the game, particularly coming off an experience like AC33 and the Big Cat.

Media were flown in from overseas as well as from across the US to attend today’s media shindig. Someone asked if it was typical to see this many media at a sailing press conference in San Francisco. Absolutely not.

Bay Area local Jonny Mosely, former Olympic freestyle skier MC’d the event and drew a pretty decent analogy from the skiing world - the transition in that sport which occurred when downhill skiing got intercepted by snowboarding - that helped the mostly non sailing journos in the room better understand what the hype is all about, the transition from monohull to multihull for the 34^th America’s Cup.

For sailing media there wasn’t much new to report but it was great to hear it all again - LIVE - in San Francisco. The event was completely transparent, with ORACLE crew on hand to chat, a warm, casual affair. Nice.

Quotes:

Jimmy Spithill: We came back to the dock on Friday after our first time out on the Bay and you could see everyone just smiling and thinking ahead to the 72s. These boats (catamarans) are the complete opposite to boats that have been raced in the Cup in the past. Everyone is wearing a helmet for a reason, there’s a significant amount of risk, they’re very athletic, they’re probably one of the most athletic boats I’ve seen for the crew to sail. But there’s a huge reward for sailing them well - they’re the fastest boats out there at the moment. To get the best of these boats you have to push.

Russell Coutts: That’s the thing about this campaign, it’s about speed, like never before. The racing’s much closer to shore than ever before in the America’s Cup and that’s what I think is going to challenge the sailors - maneuvering these boats. The difference in the crews in being able to maneuver these boats and the skill in being able to maneuver them is going to be more telling than ever. If you screw up on a maneuver out there and the other guys in an AC72 are doing something like 50 mph and you’re stopped for even 10 seconds, you’re going to be a long way behind. That’s going to put a premium on crew work probably like it’s never been seen before in the Cup on these short course on San Francisco Bay.

* Speaking of screwing up a maneuver, RC did pitchpole his AC45 today after the media event whilst racing against Spithill’s boat. Grinder Shannon Falcone was examined by paramedics on the dock and taken for precautionary X-rays. Coutts' boat went head-over-heels and came to rest on its side.

John Kostecki (JK): "Being here in San Francisco gives us a chance to tune up for the first World Series event coming up in Cascais, Portugal - the conditions are similar, breezy and exciting racing. We’re looking forward to getting out here over the next 3-4 weeks and getting pushed around by the big breeze and try to get tuned up. We’re going to be running practice races out here everyday from 1:30 to 3:30pm. The other reason is to get to know San Francisco Bay. We have our team together, our design team working with our sailors, and we need to make important decisions on how our boat is going to be developed so hopefully we can defend the America’s Cup in 2013.”

Kurt Jordan: The AC45 is an opportunity for all the teams to get to the same place with the technology early on in the cycle. They’re a bit slower than the AC72 so they’re quite a cost effective package compared to the actual race boats so they’ll allow the teams to do a lot of sailing, training, testing for the next two seasons - 2011 and 2012 - at a much reduced cost for their campaigns.

Dirk Kramers: The first AC72 will probably be launched in about a year for now so between now and then there’ll be a lot of speculation and intrigue on your part and a lot of hard work on our part to see what these boats will be like. Imagine the AC45 spectacle but with rigs about twice as high and five times as powerful. We’re just really lucky we get to play with them - they’re really exciting boats.

2500 CVs & Still Counting

2011-06-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

It’s beginning to feel like the America’s Cup. Sailblast just received an official press release with an invitation to attend a media event next week when - finally - we’ll learn who the teams are that have made the cut into the next edition of this crazy event. With still two years ago, there’s time for the dust to settle…and maybe....for the craziness to abate.

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at 160 Pacific Ave, downtown San Francisco, home to the 40-50 employees of the America’s Cup - both ACEA and ACRM. Still running on a somewhat “skeleton” staff and in “start-up” mode, finding qualified individuals willing to risk the security of their current comfy job for the wild waters of the America’s Cup is the least of the challenges facing the administration of this next Cup event.

So, why do people leave a perfectly good job to come work for the Cup?

A perfectly good question, says Ron Coverson, ACEA’s energetic and engaging Director, Human Resources.

“There’s two answers, the first is, there really isn’t such a thing as a secure job in America anymore, it’s mythical, the second is there is a huge number of people who love sports and they’re the ones who address that up front in their cover letters to ACEA,” Coverson explained. “We get, ‘My dad was a sailor, I was a junior sailor, I want to get involved,’ that’s at least 60% of the conversation right there.”

Coverson, a HR professional for the past 18 years in various capacities, had no qualms in leaving his perfectly great job as HR Director at Stanford University’s Athletic Department to jump on the Cup ride.

“When I heard about the position with the Cup, I enquired, we went back and forth, and they made me an offer. This is a perfect segue to being a general manager in the sports management world or pro sports or going back into athletics as an athletic director. I love sports, there’s nothing like the excitement people have when they’re around any kind of sporting event.”

Others clearly feel the same way as Coverson, as he’s had some 2500 resumes cross his desk since he was hired three months ago. “It’s a phenomenal amount of CVs. We're getting some amazing talent - even when it’s a 2-3 year job with the Cup, max. I hate to say to someone you didn’t get the job because we’ve really talked to so many great people,” Coverson said.

Coverson said they’ve built the organization out from the top down, starting with Craig Thompson, CEO, Tom Husom COO, and Scott Smith CFO. Supporting top-level management is Richard Worth, Chairman and from the UK, and Sam Hollis, General Counsel, also from the UK. The next focus has been the sales and marketing organization. Coverson has 12 people sales/marketing people already in San Francisco and will be relocating another 12 this summer from the UK who are a part of ACEA’s client service organization.

Why the UK?

“Well, there’s nepotism involved in this,” Coverson laughed. “But really, in many cases the best hires are people that you know -we always look for people who know people who have been successful in a certain area. That’s the best reference there is.”

Coverson said that while most of ACEA's initial hires came from Europe to fill areas requiring “specialist” skills, down the road he anticipates that most hires will be from the San Francisco Bay Area and California. Ultimately, he expects that the organization will be about 140-strong by the time the big event rolls around in 2013.

But, the big challenge is still ahead: making sure the right people are on board who can deputize the duty of telling the new America’s Cup story.

“We’ve got to gain necessary sponsorships and we need high level experienced business development professionals to go out there, hit the pavement, build the relationships, network, be ambassadors, tell our story and tell the sailing story in a way that reaches a very diverse audience and not necessarily a sophisticated audience when it comes to sailing. There are lots of people who don’t understand what the America’s Cup is all about. Especially when we go to pitch sponsors, like the Fortune 100 & Fortune 500 kind of companies,” Coverson said.

Coverson and his wife Elizabeth live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and have three children ages 15, 18 and 21, all of whom love sports. He’s looking forward to becoming an empty nester in the not too distant future so that he and Elizabeth can travel. Meanwhile, he loves his new job.

Having spent the first two weeks of his tenure with ACEA working out of the local Starbucks and using his personal credit card to buy office supplies, Coverson's sage advice to anyone eager to join the ACEA ranks:

“You have to be somewhat of an entrepreneur, understand your area of discipline, and understand that it’s all hands on deck. If you’ve had small company/start-up experience, you’ll do well in this environment.”

Great Ports Make Great Cities

2011-05-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

As I’ve alluded to more than once, the City of San Francisco is not losing time in checking off the boxes when it comes to the infrastructure work that’s required to put on an America’s Cup event in 2013. It’s well recorded by former AC cities (Perth, Auckland, Valencia) that the Cup leaves behind a legacy that continues to be enjoyed - and continues to provide financial benefit - for everyone. The City is proving to be the rock amongst the ever changing tides of Cup chaos (who really knows how many teams will show come Judgment Day?) but then it’s really never been any different. And, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that there’s still two years to go…

At the Port of San Francisco, Jonathan Stern, Asst. Deputy Director, Waterfront Development , filled SailBlast in on what's happening in his domain. Most of that which he and his team are focusing on right now is related to the entitlement process (the People Plan is the public part of that) and working on drafting the EIR to get the environmental clearance. Stern says there’s a lot of technical analysis that has to be done about the event and understanding better what the event is. He’s also working with the America’s Cup Environmental Coalition - a local stakeholder group which has been following the Cup and generally has a stake in the waterfront, being concerned with waterfront development and other related issues.

Stern says that the Port continues to communicate with tenants so that they know as much as the Port does about plans for the Cup and when things will happen etc. According to Stern, some tenants remain concerned about how they are going to fit into the City or the waterfront in the long term. “We’re doing as much as we can to communicate with those people, let them know what our plans are,” Stern said. “Anyone who is interested in proactively looking for a new space, we’re working with them. It’s going pretty well, I can’t say everyone is perfectly happy to move their businesses because they’ve been there for a long time but I think everyone recognizes it’s kind of an evolution along the waterfront.”

The Port is working with America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) to understand what their plans are vis a vis using the facilities. “We have an obligation to work with them to understand how they’re going to use the airspace, the waterways - we’re working with the FAA and the Coast Guard - most of these administrative things that are happening are things that have to happen to get an event like this organized. It’s not new territory - it’s amazing how much precedence there is for this actually - like maritime events of national significance like Fleet Week - there’s a structure already in place with the “rules” covered and most of the challenges we’re finding fall under those rules. I’ve been very pleased with the way we’ve been able to work through these issues.”

The new cruise ship terminal plans are well underway, with the Port currently finishing up the schematic design; the next phase is design development. For the Port, the cruise ship terminal project is probably the most complicated part related to the America’s Cup development as it’s the only building they’re responsible for constructing for the Cup. The other two big public works projects that are associated with the Cup that require facilities for the event are the Brannan Street Wharf which is a project the Port’s already working on, and Piers 30-32 on which ACEA is require do some structural repair.

Much has to happen on the cruise ship site other than the entitlement process. The new terminal is being built in the footprint of one of the cruise terminals right now - the Pier 27 shed, which is about 220, 000 square feet. “It’s very big - the first thing that has to happen is that shed has to be demolished which is particularly challenging because it’s physically connected to Pier 29 shed which is a historic shed. So, to do the demolition you have to have plans in place for the improvements you’re going to make to Pier 29, that’s complicated. It’s an old building so there are normal concerns about the paint and asbestos etc.,” Stern described.

The demolition of Pier 27 shed is an obligation of ACEA, who then hand over that cleared site to a city team led by the Port and the Dept. Public Works to start construction of the Cruise Terminal. Stern said that should all happen in early 2012. “We then have an obligation to hand it back to ACEA in early 2013. It will be a constructed building, what we call “core and shell” - it won’t yet be a cruise terminal, it won’t have the maritime structure like bumpers, gangways etc. which is good because the initial thing that’s going to happen there is preparation for the America’s Cup.”

But first things first - look forward to a public draft EIR on the street this summer.

* Check out the Port's website http://www.sfport.com/ - lots of good Cup info that's regularly updated.

Peter Albert Hustles The AC "People Plan"

2011-05-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

San Francisco’s South Beach Yacht Club is another of the enviable San Francisco clubs that will have front row seats to AC34 action, located as it is adjacent to Pier 40 and just a few blocks south of where the Teams will be based at Piers 30-32. At the club’s membership meeting last Friday night, David Perry (David Perry and Associates), who is assisting with community relations for the 34th America's Cup on behalf of the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development facilitated an evening on the “People Plan”, with Peter Albert, Manager, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), Urban Planning Initiatives.

While the usual kind of AC chaos continues to whip around, like the latest news that Mascalzone Latino, Challenger of Record, is defecting due to lack of financial wherewithal, one thing that continues to impress me is the integrity and smarts behind those whom the City has put in place to make AC34 happen. Peter Albert is no exception.

Peter is the guy charged with the job of figuring out how to move people around the city during the next few years of Cup events. David Perry has been organizing many opportunities to get Peter and Mike Martin (Manger, Special Projects for America’s Cup at the City) in front of the public to share the People Plan and keep the public regularly informed of what’s happening.

Peter gave SBYC members an update on the People Plan - the directive that will guide how the City will manage the massive influx of people to San Francisco for the months during next year’s World Cup events on the Bay, and specifically, the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America’s Cup events between July and September 2013. While the details of the parking, transit and bike network are preliminary and important to those who live/work near the areas that will be most affected, the Plan is to be applauded more for the way in which it has been quickly and efficiently pulled together by the City and the specific attention that is being given to how the legacy effect will continue to benefit the City long after the Cup.

Peter, who turned 50 in March loves his new job. Working 12 hours plus a day doesn’t bother him although it may do his wife Libby who is a child nutrition expert with the USDA. They have two grown kids and have lived in San Francisco for 27 years.

SailBlast: What makes you qualified for this (huge) job?

Peter: I’m an architect but very interested in city planning. I quickly realized that transportation is what makes a city great. Before this position, I worked in the planning department and the transportation authority, and with BART for 7 years helping the region with transit oriented development. I’ve worked on projects like the shipyard at Hunter’s Point and Treasure Island - big projects that could either be terrible or we could use transportation to mitigate any negative affects with clearing up those areas. My associate Kyri McClellan asked me if I’d like to help me out with the America’s Cup. It’s very different from your typical development project but in a way it’s similar because we’re developing the waterfront. It’s all been happening so fast and I’ve really only been working on this since March but it needs someone who can navigate through the process, who can start an initiative with the community. I feel I can help do that.

SailBlast: How many people do you think will be required to execute the People Plan?

Peter Albert: We’ve got a huge and growing volunteer population who want to help with this. People are so excited about this event. I’m getting calls from people who say, “How can I submit my resume so I can be chosen to volunteer?” ACEA’s already getting volunteers with a variety of skills - sports business, traffic management, docents. This has really hit San Francisco on a particular nerve in a really positive way. We can’t charge those people with law enforcement or security, we need the fire department, police etc., so we don’t have a head count yet because it all has to be coordinated with the number of people that we expect the event will draw. But what we have is a good sense of numbers from Fleet Week, which is more intense but much a much shorter event than the Cup. These events have taught us a lot about what it takes to move people or close a lane on the Embarcadero and steer traffic away so it’s not a totally uneducated guess.

SailBlast: What commercial ventures may be associated with the People Plan?

Peter Albert: Transportation is a little limited from that perspective but I have small limited focus on commercial aspects. If we’re using real time information, and we're giving people smart information about parking, traffic, transit, bike availability - that’s also the kind of information that could be underwritten by people who may want to support it but they also get the opportunity to do public service announcements or advertisements - something like that. We are in the center of technology and it might be that we get vendors who just want to showcase their work and they may consider it pro bono. It could be Cisco, Google - people who just want to help out and not necessarily worry about making money but they just want exposure. I’ve met with a couple of people who market bikes - specialty bikes - and they want to be associated with a particular team so they may offer their bikes gratis just to have people use their bikes. They know it’s going to be a photogenic event and they know there’ll be a lot of media focus. We do want to manage ambush marketing and protect people who want to help and support us financially for the right to market.

SailBlast: Where’s the money coming from to pay for this?

Peter Albert: As is well documented, the City’s fundraising target is $32 million/$12 million a year. The budget for transportation plan might fall under those monies - at the end of the day I’ll know I’ll know how much it costs to run the transit service based on the modeling we can do. We’re still looking at how much will be absorbed by the fund-raising and how much we’ll look to leverage grants. For example, we may be able to borrow vehicles from other cities - light rail vehicles, buses, maintenance - clearly the fund-raising is a piece of it but it is supposed to leverage other fund-raising. If we have long-term programs like bike sharing - we want to bike sharing anyway and we already have a budget set aside for that - so we would use the America’s Cup money to help supplement our budget and expand. It’s cheaper than starting something from scratch.

SailBlast: Do you see mopeds and the like being the transportation of choice during the AC events?

Peter Albert: There’s a limit to what you can do in a dense urban environment that’s motorized - even mopeds - particularly as environmental sustainability is one of our goals I’m getting a lot of questions such as, when you get new ferries are they going to be clean fuel ferries? That technology is still pretty rudimentary so I wouldn’t turn down a boat just because it wasn't 100% zero emission. I like the idea of mopeds and segways - they could both be part of the mix. It could be that someone like Vespa wants to come along and be the official scooter of the America’s Cup. The electric bike is something we’ve also been looking at.

SailBlast: Do you see the cost of public transportation for locals increasing due to AC34?

Peter Albert: I don’t see costs at all affected other than regular cost of living increases. None of these projects run in isolation - we’re building a new Transbay terminal, we’re building a new subway into Chinatown, we’re building a new Bay Bridge, we’re talking high speed rail, BART is extending to San Jose - it’s that goal of efficiency for the People Plan and knowing about these things that are coming on line and just coaxing a little more out of them. The high speed rail plan (between LA and San Francisco) will eventually get us better connections to the City and its transit hubs. I’m interested in whether there’s some way that we can borrow some money from the future high speed rail - it’s just one idea of leveraging bigger projects on the horizon.

SailBlast: What have been the main public concerns?

Peter Albert: Just like tonight, simple concerns about parking and traffic. It’s not like we’re hearing, “What are you doing in my neighborhood and how are you going to change it?” Instead, there’s enthusiasm and smart concern. People seem to grasp that this could be a good thing for San Francisco. They saw the battle, we almost didn’t get the Cup, maybe that was a good thing to have to go through.

SailBlast: What’s your biggest challenge in all this?

Peter Albert: Time, time and time. Not even so much the money.

SailBlast: The people at the City involved in the Cup seem incredibly dedicated to this project. Comment?

Peter Albert: Of all the jobs I’ve had - private sector, architecture, gas station jobs, cattle ranching - I’ve never enjoyed a job as much as I have working for the OEWD. It’s about the way this office was structured, to bring in people who have been in different departments and other bureaucracies but who love the opportunity to work in a very non bureaucratic, a very can-do environment, people who don’t mind working past 7pm because they love working for the City. The chemistry of this group makes it happen - it’s a tight group of people who love working with each other. These are people who when the day is done I want to go have a beer with. At the moment though, that day never gets done!

**Author’s note: To this last point, while chatting to Peter, Ann Weir, wife of SBYC’s vice commodore approached and said to Peter, “You were amazing - I was watching you and the way you were answering questions that I couldn’t even interpret - you fixed them and made it so everyone could understand. That is an amazing skill. I really enjoyed your presentation and it seems like you’re working with brilliant people. If they’re anything like you, well, you’re amazing.”

The credit is all Peter's...

On another note, former ORACLE Racing's USA 76, was due to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge this morning, not sure if it made it given the pouring rain and miserable weather as I write this. USA 76 will become part of the "America's Cup Academy", offering rides to the public on board this former America's Cup monohull. Stay posted for more info.

John Craig on AC 45 Testing

2011-05-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

The two week testing period for the AC 45s is almost over in Auckland, New Zealand. SailBlast caught up with John Craig, PRO, who had nothing but positive things to say about the progress made on the water over the past few days. While the weather has been variable as New Zealand slips into winter months, the breeze has held it's own. Said Craig, "We had a tornado come through yesterday - we got off the water before it got to us so we actually got a bunch of racing in - it was a great time for testing!"

SailBlast: It seems like the biggest bug to have come out of the past week’s testing is simply getting used to the equipment - your comments?

JC: It’s equipment that people aren’t used to. It’s a new way of doing things - communication through text and communication through radio comms. There are no flags or big clocks on the side of the committee boat like we’re used to, so some of the equipment here is very much in testing mode. An example is we originally had the display placed close to the helmsman but he had to look over his shoulder to see what the RC comms were doing for the penalties etc. That wasn’t working so we’ve since moved those forward in the boats so that the teams can have multiple eyes looking at them. That’s been an improvement.

The other thing has been the boundaries, which are virtual, so they’re using that (virtual) instrumentation to figure out where the boundary lays. It’s been pretty tough figuring it out so yesterday we attached kind of a strobe light forward of the boat so that when they were getting closer to the boundary, the strobe light would begin to speed up and the closer they got, the faster and faster it would go. Reviews on that are still out so we’ll see what happens there.

The other piece is that what we’ve essentially created is an arena or a sand-box with this virtual boundary to keep the guys back in the middle of the course. The spectators will line up probably 50 to 75 yards outside of that which will create a corridor which will hopefully give a bit more definition to this virtual boundary for the teams. We’ll run the coach boats, media boats, teams boats and all that will run up and down that corridor. Hopefully that will give a harder definition or line to give the guys to figure out, “Here comes the spectator fleet; the virtual boundary is close by.”

SailBlast: Has this testing helped clarify what it may mean for the spectator fleet in San Francisco?

JC: Yes, it’s definitely put some shoulders around what it’ll look like. We’re experimenting with all different types of courses - we’re looking forward to the next three days as we’re not anywhere close to having anything locked down to what the course will look like. Once that gets firmed up, then we should have a better idea of what the spectator fleet boundaries will look like and then what the virtual boundaries will look like from that.

SailBlast: The 45s stop and start pretty quickly - how much can they handle in the start, and what will the start sequence be?

JC: I was kind of skeptical. In all honesty I thought, “It’s going to be catamarans match racing. It’s not going to be like it has been." But, it’s been amazing. The first day they just fully locked up and got at it and started chasing each other - it’s been really, really good. The quality of what these guys are able to do and how quickly the boats can stop and start lends itself really well for match racing. Right now, it’s a 5-minute sequence, the starboard end is coming in at 3 minutes and the port end comes in at 2:50. They’re fully locking up and it’s very cool to watch.

How will you adapt what you’ve learned this week to the World Series?

We’ll basically take what we've learned here with the feedback from the teams and then refine what that is. Stan (Honey) will do his magic and make the equipment more robust and user friendly - all the things the teams are looking for. Leading up to Cascais we’ll definitely look for race committee opportunities to further test the equipment and to put it through its paces. The umpires will be doing the same, looking to try and make sure that the software is doing what we want it to do.

SailBlast: What will the racecourse in Cascais look like?

JC: We should have a pretty good idea by the end of this testing because we're bound to protocol - we have to have the sailing instructions out 30 days prior to the event in Cascais.

SailBlast: What’s your safety plan on the water?

JC: We’ve got two, jet-driven purpose built medic boats which will each have a medic team on board. Additionally, the teams have really taken it on as a concern. We’re finding that a lot of the team boats are much better equipped to deal with medical emergencies than previously, for example, Team NZ had a medic on their RIB yesterday. Teams are wearing life jackets, helmets in some situations and we see that developing more as the racing heats up. It’s something we have a concern about and trying to address with as many resources as we can put at it.

SailBlast: Will extra wings be easily accessible to teams in the event of crashes?

JC: It’d be pretty tough because the race period is going to be fairly small. We don’t see racing more than three or four hours and for a team to recoup from a blown up wing, get back in and get a new one, then get back out, isn’t going to happen. What we do see is that when they do damage the wings they are able to be back on the water the next day - they’re doing that very effectively. It’s been a pleasant surprise to see how quickly the teams can reapply the film that wraps over the wing - initially it was taking them a long time to apply that stuff but now the teams are getting pretty good at it!

SailBlast: If a 72 flips on the Bay mid-race, will it be a case of race over?

JC: In a match race or a fleet race, if a boat flips, they’re going to need a tow boat to right that so they’ll be receiving outside assistance so that’ll be their race for them. We have a feeling that if the crash is slow that they may be able to right the boat with no damage to the wing. If the crash is violent, or if its wavy, it seems that the waves on the wing with powerboat wash etc., sometimes cause damage.

SailBlast: You’ve been on board for a while now - how’s it feeling to be involved in something so revolutionary?

JC: (LOL) - it’s been very cool. It’s been really busy and we’ve been learning tons as the stuff unfolds. Because it’s so new and experimental, things are changing daily. Everybody’s been really good. The teams are working together well as a group. We’re all in the same base and so we’re all sharing the same stuff. Everybody’s tripping over everybody but it’s been good that way. The guys from ACRM have got really good skills with the wings etc., and they’re chipping in wherever they can, there’s a lot of back and forth between the teams so right now it’s very family, cooperation, “let’s go out and figure this out together”, which I think is unusual for this kind of event. I am sure as we get further down that the camps will become a little tighter.

Photos: Gilles Martin-Raget