The America’s Cup has always been about the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. In the America’s Cup World Series, watching the racing in the AC45s it’s not that easy to tell the rich from the poor. That’s the great thing about the AC45s - at less than a million euros they’re cheap (by Cup standards), and they’re all the same. The wing rigs are all identical. The only thing that’s different are the jibs and gennakers. At some point every team has led a race. That’s the beauty of one-design competition.
But when you look at how the teams operate ashore, the differences start to show. When the Oracle crew step ashore, their job is done. It’s the shore crew that are left to pick up the pieces, put the boat away, make sure it’s fully race ready for the next day. At China Team, on the other hand, it’s often the same five guys who were racing the boat who will be working on fixing it until late in the night. It’s not much different at the two French team bases, with Aleph and Energy Team both operating on a shoestring.
The China Team crew have been operating without pay for much of the time, while Aleph’s decision to bring in two guys for San Diego from the Extreme Sailing Series was a big deal. They cost between 800 and 1000 euros per day, considerably more than the rest of the low-paid Aleph crew.
Thing is, if you’re fretting about spending 1000 euros per day on a sailor, you’re not really in the market for lavishing 10 million euros on the construction of a new AC72 catamaran. That’s considered to be the bargain basement cost of building one of these monsters, and that doesn’t take into account the cost of maintaining one - or worse, repairing it, if and when it breaks.
For some teams, money really is too tight to mention. Some of the ‘have nots’ have not even purchased their AC45s. They’ve been using them on long-term loan from America’s Cup Race Management. The intention had been for the roadshow to move on from San Diego across the Pacific to Auckland or Brisbane, or both. But the cost of putting on these events does not sit well with most city politicians in the current gloomy economic climate.
So there is quite a hiatus until the next event: Naples in April, followed a month later with Venice. Word is that we could have up to 12 boats by Naples, with Swedish challenger Artemis said to be bringing a second boat on to the circuit, and recently announced Luna Rossa joining the fray.
More telling than the predicted number of AC45s in Naples, however, is who is pressing ‘go’ on construction of an AC72. The experts say that if you’re not starting to build one by early 2012, then there probably isn’t any point in building one at all, not if you’re serious about the 34th America’s Cup in summer 2013. Strict rules mean practice time is severely limited in the AC72, a cost-saving measure borrowed from the world of Formula One where race teams are restricted on track time. America’s Cup teams are limited to a maximum 30 days of sailing aboard the AC72 in 2012, starting from 1st July. With sailing opportunities in such short supply, it’s easy to see why teams need to start building now.
Of the ‘have nots’ the rumours are most encouraging for Team Korea, which is hoping to take advantage of a multi-million dollar technology grant from the Korean government. It would be great to see the Koreans join the ‘haves’, and hopefully a few more teams too, but the only definites at this stage are Oracle, Artemis, Emirates Team New Zealand and their new technology and training partners, Luna Rossa.
“If it doesn't break, it’s too heavy,” was a bold statement that defined legendary designer Ben Lexcen’s America’s Cup career. If anyone pursues that mantra for the 34th America’s Cup, I’ll eat my hat. Artemis Racing have just become the first team to point a full-size wing rig into the sky. But no one wants to be the first to have one of these space-age structures come tumbling down.
Any British sailing fan has known just how good Ben Ainslie is for a long time. Even so, watching him win his fourth gold at London 2012 still took my breath away. Question is, will any of that superhuman success ever give Ben a chance to take a leading man’s role in the America’s Cup?
With a home crowd to please, Luna Rossa burst on to the America’s Cup World Series with a performance that delighted their passionate fans and struck fear into the hearts of their competitors. The wild reception in Naples was a reminder that no one can top the Italians in their enthusiasm for sport - even sailing!
Sir Ben Ainslie was the star attraction at the London Boat Show, where the four-time Olympic Champion sounded very positive about the prospects of mounting his own America’s Cup challenge. Ben, along with French star Franck Cammas, also told us his plans to race in the Extreme Sailing Series this season. With no Cup racing going on at the moment, the global cat racing circuit has given potential Cup challengers a playground to keep them occupied for the next year.
This summer we will see an America’s Cup where four giant 72-foot catamarans will barely touch the waters of San Francisco Bay. Instead they’ll be flying around above it, as Swedish team Artemis has recently conceded that ‘foiling’ - rather than floating - is the new way of sailing super fast.
As we reach the business end of this America’s Cup cycle, we find ourselves in the ‘phoney war’ of dissembling and misinformation. Four fast boats on or above the water, yet the news flow has dried to a trickle of Twitter comments. Don’t we, the fans, deserve better? No! This is ‘their’ Cup, and ‘they’ can do what they want.
So all us ‘experts’ observing the America’s Cup have been saying that no one’s ever going to take it away from Oracle next September. But after the defender’s shock pitchpole and subsequent destruction of its multimillion dollar AC72, the odds on a Kiwi victory have shortened considerably.
After some ho-hum performances in Europe, I’d begun to wonder if the sailors at Oracle were really that bothered about results on the AC45 circuit. But after a barnstorming performance in Newport, I’ve revised my view. Whichever way you look at it - financial, technological or in pure sailing terms - the Defender is going to be very hard to beat.
Visiting the Amels yard in Vlissingen, it was staggering to see how far the build of the Amels 199 has progressed since I last wrote about the radical Tim Heywood design a year or so ago. Heywood hopes the audacious curves of the 199 will forge a new direction in superyacht design, and having seen her in the flesh, I hope so too.
San Diego was meant to by my warm-weather escape from the English winter, but the shorts and T-shirt never even got unpacked. Should have brought my umbrella. Still, if the weather disappointed, the America’s Cup World Series continues to deliver unpredictability and drama. Question is, how many of the nine teams in San Diego will we see next year? For some, money’s too tight to mention, but at least the return of Luna Rossa provides the prospect of another big team to challenge the might of Oracle Racing.
Russell Coutts’s grand plan for the America’s Cup - to turn it into a TV and spectator-friendly sporting event - looks like it might just work. The people of Plymouth are not the easiest to please, but those who came to watch the nine high-speed catamarans crashing and capsizing around Plymouth Sound looked like they were genuinely enjoying themselves.
The first event of the America’s Cup World Series in Portugal is fast approaching. While the established Cup teams are sticking with their old keelboat personnel and re-skilling for a new format in fast cats, the start-up challengers are recruiting from the ranks of Olympic sailors. This new breed might have little to no experience of the America’s Cup, but they have grown up racing fast, high-performance boats like Tornados and 49er skiffs. The AC45 catamaran is an obvious next step for this younger generation.