Having twice won the Extreme Sailing Series the Alinghi team switched horses to the GC32 Cup for 2015, winning the final round in Marseilles. While most of the Alinghi crew stayed the same after the switch, with Morgan Larson the lynchpin, the GC32 was interesting enough to tempt Ernesto Bertarelli back onto the tiller…
Moving on
Mark Turner’s Offshore Challenges’ successful Extreme Sailing Series is set to evolve in 2016 with a switch to foiling GC32s that is likely to presage a later move into a purpose-built foiling design. Series event director Andy Tourell explains the latest developments
Seahorse: Please could you outline your general plans in terms of the Extreme Sailing Series fleet for the next two to three years, including development into new territories? Andy Tourell: Stadium racing is at the core of the Extreme Sailing Series and so in that respect we won’t change. Fans can still get
up close and personal with the fleet as we tour iconic city centres around the world. Our focus will still be on making sailing more accessible to a mass audience, slowly expanding on the traditional fan base. But the industry is rapidly evolving. With the developments in technology for foiling multihulls the series will embrace this change, collaborating with The Great Cup series to introduce the GC32 catama- ran as our new boat for 2016 and beyond. Having confirmed the 2016 calendar, we are now focused on securing new venues going forward into 2017 and 2018. They need to deliver against our five criteria for selecting a venue: iconic, stadium, sail- ing conditions, commercially attractive and public engagement, as well as being key markets for our series’ stakeholders. SH: How would you sum up the development and history of the ESS from its launch until the present time? AT: Ten years ago OC Sport created a stir within the sailing world with the creation of a series in multihulls – the Extreme Sailing Series. We led the development of this new and relatively unknown discipline in professional sailing and created the first true stadium racing.
The Extreme 40 has been an ideal platform for the series and, even today, it is a fantastic tool for our racing format. It
is large enough to make an impact in the city centres where we race, and to provide sponsors with the exposure to deliver against their marketing objectives. It is challenging for the teams, works well on stadium racetracks and offers an excep- tional experience for VIP guests. There have been many attempts to claim ‘stadium’ status in sailing, but we would argue no one out there really under- stands just how close in the racing must be for the stadium format to work for specta- tors. We are talking sailing within metres of the crowd, not hundreds of metres. It has been an unbelievable 10 years for the series but now is the right time for us to evolve. As multihulls become the norm the future of the Extreme Sailing Series will be foiling. SH: And how have budgets fluctuated for a team entry over that period? AT: Since the series went global in 2011 we have actually always tried to keep the running cost of an Extreme 40 campaign as stable as possible, giving teams and sponsors confidence in making decisions over the long term. SH: With a switch to the GC32 for 2016, will the ESS be purchasing or chartering next year’s boats or will it be arranging a favourable price for contestants to buy? AT: A bit of both. To ensure the availabil- ity of boats for the new season and to support our teams through the change, OC Sport have committed to the produc- tion of up to eight new GC32s which can either be chartered or sold on to the team. SH: Cost of the GC32s? AT: We are aiming to keep the running costs of a GC32 campaign comparable to
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