Update
Did winning at home in the Portsmouth round of the AC World Series mean a lot to Sir Ben, you bet it did. Bowman Freddie Carr and wing trimmer Paul Campbell-James are just plain chuffed. All three have fine pedigree, Ben’s father is a former Whitbread racer, Carr’s father Rod is the former Finn and Star sailor who, as CEO of the Royal Yachting Association later secured the Lottery funding that transformed British Olympic sailing and Paul hails from a successful Tornado cat dynasty. A nice story of family succession in an event too often characterised by money and politics. As Carr likes to tell you, ‘sailing is still my hobby, I just get a few quid for it’
A TRICKY BUSINESS – Jack Griffin
In a 2014 interview with Scuttlebutt, Russell Coutts talked about how the commercialisation of the America’s Cup that he sought would drive the decision making. The US broadcaster, rather than the teams, would set the dates for the Match. This in fact happened when NBC changed the original date for the Match by one week, to fill the gap left in their June schedule when they lost the US Golf Open to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Sports.
Another of Coutts’ expressed objectives was that the America’s Cup World Series would count towards qualification and would include only teams with enough financial backing to be competitive through a full campaign. Both of those goals have been achieved. Coutts also wanted to shorten the main event. In 2013 the ‘Summer of Racing’ stretched over three months but, when only three challengers had the financial resources to build an AC72, San Francisco and ACEA were left with a series of one-boat sailovers and lopsided matches leading to the foregone conclusion of New Zealand’s victory in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
For 2017 Coutts wanted the schedule shortened. Again, this has been achieved, although the 2017 race calendar still stretches over 32 days – twice as long as the Olympics and a day longer than the 32-team football World Cup.
Commercialisation continues to be top of mind among teams. Ben Ainslie and his CEO Martin Whitmarsh have both spoken in the press about discussions among the teams aimed at shortening the Cup cycle to two years with the next Match in 2019. Teams would have to commit in advance and the AC Class yachts from 2017 would be used for the AC World Series. The perennial desire for more challengers remains part of the equation, with each challenger holding a World Series round during the two-year run-up to the Match. The article citing Ainslie and Whitmarsh resurrected the idea of having only the top four from the World Series advance to the final challenger selection series
10 SEAHORSE
in the venue of the Match, thereby increasing the importance of the World Series.
The 2017 America’s Cup has attracted sponsorship from Louis Vuitton and BMW plus an impressive list of well-heeled Bermudian companies. Team sponsors have come from industries including airlines, financial services, car manufacturers, IT and, of course, luxury goods. Confirming dates, venues – and competitors – in advance would make it easier to attract longer-term sponsorships. Easy to say and to write. Iconic venues have provided some dramatic backdrops for the World Series, but trying to fit a racing schedule into a short TV window will always be weather dependent and risky. Logic dictates that to get commitments for a 2019 cycle, a Protocol would need to be negotiated in advance. Using the World Series to select the challenger semi-finalists would require a defined format and scoring system. Would the World Series remain telegenic fleet races? Self-interest would lead a challenger that had locked up one of the playoff spots to match race dangerous rivals down the fleet in the remaining races.
Racing AC Class yachts in the World Series while trying to expand the number of teams poses its own dilemma. New teams would need AC Class yachts for the World Series. Existing teams could sell their 2017 boats or their designs but, one way or another, more AC Class yachts would need to be built. How would a new team be scored if their race yacht was not ready for the early rounds? All these yachts would spend time in transit between World Series venues. Would the Protocol allow teams to build additional yachts? How many? What about modifications? Will the not-a-surrogate AC45X-turbo boats continue to be used as test platforms? Will the 2019 venue be agreed, or at least narrowed down to a known list of possible locations, in advance of the 2017 Match? The devil is in the detail, and the biggest detail is that Team New Zealand appear not to be onboard. Bluntly put, as long as the Kiwis are in the event, none of these ideas can be committed to for a new team, sponsor or broadcaster. The Cup remains very tricky.
INGRID ABERY
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