Rod Davis
Total reboot – Artemis Racing 2.0
As the recently appointed coach of Artemis Racing, my job is to make sure that the sailing team members are ready for what’s ahead of them. But as the new guy in an established team, I also need to look back and understand how they got to where they are today.
You would have to look a very long way back
in history to find a more difficult first attempt than the Artemis Racing campaign for the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco. In fact, I’m not sure you would even find one… ever. When Torbjörn Törnqvist started down his path towards yachting’s Holy Grail things looked solid and exciting. His Artemis Racing team led the field in many ways. The first team to design, build and sail with a new Cup wing. The first team to have a boat under construction, big-name designers, sailors and management. Those were pretty heady times.
Then it started to unravel: the wing broke, then the boat broke during a tow test. The original skipper left, then a tragic accident cost a sailor’s life. As a consequence a number of people were let go or sidelined, to a point that things looked to be at an all- time low. That’s when Torbjörn hit the reset button. The new Artemis Racing plan was a grassroots approach: everyone in it together to pick up and run with the ball that had somehow been dropped along the way.
By giving the power to the people he sparked and stimulated each and every person on the team. Watching from my position at the time, as coach of the opposition at Team New Zealand, what Artemis Racing did to get on the racecourse and compete against Luna Rossa in the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup was nothing short of spectacular. At the rate the blue and yellow team were improving, with every tack and gybe, the Italians in the silver corner were thanking their lucky stars (or should I say moon) that the racing hadn’t started a week later! Still, Artemis Racing and the world knew that this was a stopgap reset.
22 SEAHORSE
Then Torbjörn did it again, and now with Iain Percy leading the reorganisation they committed to another America’s Cup challenge. This time it was a proper reset. One that was premeditated, with planning and time on their side.
The past lessons were not lost in the thinking of Artemis Racing’s expectations. To be a team, in the true sense of the word. One like no other, not centred around one person, a team that by its very nature uses and gets the best out of all its people. Thus Artemis Racing 2.0 was born.
Some basic concepts were adopted at the moment of reset. First: keep it small early. AC programmes only get bigger with time, for the simple reason you take on more and more work as the Cup gets closer, thus the need for more people. If you start small you will end up big. If you start big you will end… well, unimaginably huge.
Second: under-state and over-deliver. Not rocket science in sport but you would not believe how the PR/Facebook/Twitter/ website/look-at-me participants simply can’t comprehend that fundamental rule.
Third: start with a flat management structure. Pigeonholing people early does not promote anything great. It only stifles creative thinking, leadership, team work and communication, whereas flattish management, at least early on, allows natural leaders to rise to the top. And already the new leaders are beginning to shine through.
Drafting in the top people started well before the last race of the 34th America’s Cup. Top talent and team players were just some of the prerequisites to joining the team. No matter how good you are, if you don’t fit into the team you’re not getting an invitation. The lessons of 2013 were going to be well learnt and implemented. Designers, engineers and boatbuilders all had to pass both criteria. Many were considered and dropped because they just didn’t feel right. It was about talent and team. Take the sailing team, for example: how do seven Olympic
MAX RANCHI
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