Opposite: relive those Americaʼs Cup dreams every weekend... The GC32 fleet blasts across the start line at the Copa del Rey Mapfre as the most spectacular fleet at Spainʼs most spectacular regatta. Ben Ainslie and Ineos UK (above) have been using the GC32 Racing Tour for Americaʼs Cup training, finishing third at the 2019 GC32 World Championship in Lagos, Portugal to run-away winners Alinghi and second placed Team Tilt – with Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby onboard. Americaʼs Cup skippers all
Obviously that simplicity helps keep down costs, as does the boat’s one-design nature. Significantly the GC32 is now a ‘mature’ one-design. In the world of high tech yachting this means that not only are costs prevented from escalating, but those teething problems you don’t read about in the brochures have been solved: the GC32 has been through the inevitable phase of parts (notably foils) breaking and today has a good record for reliability. By having a strong class association with its own measurer (who operates spot checks during events), the integrity of the GC32’s one-design status is maintained. The class rules also evolve steadily both to improve the quality of racing and keep a lid on developments that would require teams to spend big money to keep compet- itive. This plus the robust carbon construc- tion means older boats can remain at the front for many seasons.
In recent years there have been two key milestones in the development of the class. At the end of 2017 the GC32 was officially recognised by World Sailing as an interna- tional class. This enabled it to hold its first official world championship.
For 2019, with the end of the Extreme Sailing Series, many of the teams moved onto the GC32 Racing Tour, now into its sixth season. Top teams like Alinghi, Red Bull and Oman Air joining the Tour has raised the level of racing. The masterclass Alinghi gave at the Lagos GC32 World Championship, winning with two races to spare, demonstrated that even the most experienced teams still have much to learn
to get consistent speed from their foiling machines, including smoothness manoeu- vring, mastering foiling gybes and starting. From very early on the GC32 Racing Tour acknowledged that for both pro/sponsored teams or teams with busy, time-poor owner-drivers, any racing days lost represent a considerable waste of time and money. Thus the Tour actively plans to minimise this.
Venues are chosen that provide reliable foiling conditions, in other words prevail- ing winds of 10-15kt and flat water. For example, in 2019 the Tour started in Vil- lasimius in southeast Sardinia and had its world championship in Lagos, Portugal before joining up with other grand prix classes at Copa del Rey Mapfre in Palma then moving on to Riva del Garda. To ensure the maximum racing takes place the GC32 Racing Tour also employs its own race team led by PRO Stuart Childerley. In addition the Tour has its own safety team with a safety leader and diver in addition to the local course marshalls. On- the-water umpiring using the RRS Fast Boat Edition is standard.
The GC32 Tour also operates a guest programme using mostly club infrastruc- ture, sometimes with VIP tents ashore. A lucky few also get to experience fast foiling in the guest position on each boat. For this purpose the Tour pioneered its Speed Challenge of two reaches with a gybe in between for guests to experience first-hand the excitement of catamaran foiling. The recent GC32 World Championship in Lagos saw an exceptionally high level of
cat sailing. In addition to the two-time America’s Cup winner Alinghi, there was Ben Ainslie with Ineos Rebels, Volvo Race winner Franck Cammas (Norauto) and match racing world champions Adam Minoprio and Phil Robertson.
A key element of the Tour is the owner- driver teams which presently include Melges 32 double world champion Jason Carroll and Argo from the US and France’s Erik Maris and Zoulou – a past Mumm 30 world champion. Then there are the top small cat sailors like (GC32 association president) Simon Delzoppo from Australia and Federico Ferioli from Argentina. Past owner-drivers have included Kiwi Orma 60 owner Simon Hull and Monaco’s prince Pierre Casiraghi with Malizia.
‘The GC32 is a great boat for an experi- enced owner-driver,’ says Simon Delzoppo. ‘It is not a hard boat to sail well, it just takes a while to get to that point where you can sail it consistently well.
‘The Tour obviously has a lot of profes- sional sailors competing so for an owner- driver you have to go in with the aim of running at least a semi-professional team to be competitive. There is no reason why a bunch of mates couldn’t enter, but it would take them a while to get up to speed.’ For sailors looking to get into GC32 racing new boats are available from Great Cup BV; good used boats can be bought for around 280,000 euros. As the Tour has been going for several years now there is also a useful pool of experienced crew. Information:
christian@gc32racing.com Also:
gc32racingtour.com /
gc32.org q
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