Update
Petticrow Dragons so fast and thus successful’? The answer must have something to do with the lasting influence of Luca Devoti. Luca has been a sailor from an early age, racing (note that, not
‘sailing’) with his father on a small keelboat. He sailed in Lasers until he literally grew out of them (he’s a big lad.) He moved to the Finn class. It was a move that he did not regret; his racing record is enviable. European champion and second in the worlds in 1997 were followed by an Olympic silver medal in Sydney in 2000 (he was beaten for the gold by his great friend Iain Percy). He stayed with the Finns as a coach, most recently assisting Vasilij Zbogar of Slovenia to win an Olympic silver at Rio in 2016. As the years roll by Luca, who was born in 1963, is now
very much involved in competitive sailing as a coach at his dinghy academy in Valencia, where he feels that mentoring a new gener- ation of small boat sailors is a ‘calling’. It is not simply about trans- mitting skills (although that is a large part), but also in the trans- mission of the values and culture of the sport. He claims to be particularly proud of his place with the young athletes from emerging
What Luca found too was that budgetary issues were his to sort
out and at the same time he had the major task of keeping a young crew fully motivated – a full hand had been dealt. His helmsman was British gold medallist Iain Percy, and the tactics were the baili- wick of his fellow Brit, Ian Walker, and they were sailing a boat to the newly introduced Version 5 of the America’s Cup Class – a ton lighter than previously. Luca had a massive job on his hands. With the +39 Challenge lurching from one financial crisis to
another, the sailing team worked for months without pay as Luca tried to keep it all going (it is a common story around the lesser teams in the America’s Cup, and always will be while delusions of grandeur continue to activate challenges for this trophy). While the richer teams, BMW Oracle and Alinghi among them, had sustainable budgets of 110-120 million euros, +39 was at the other end of the scale with 15-20 million at most. The biggest cost in any America’s Cup budget is the people and only China tried to manage on a lesser figure. He had his two superstars in his team (who certainly didn’t receive what their contemporaries took home) but the rest of the crew needed their wages too. Luca was really up against it, but he ‘learned a lot’ about dealing with the many tentacles and requirements of a large and overly political organisation. To his eternal credit Luca says little about the 30 years’ expe-
rience he has behind him as a builder of highly competitive racing sailboats, in fact he’s almost shy about it. Yet closer investigation shows that some 5,000 boats have been sold by Devoti Sailing. He also believes in and strongly campaigns for monopoly-free man- ufacturing, because, he says, monopoly builders deliver poor-quality boats while charging unreasonable prices for their products. World Sailing is already onto this major grouse, which is pleasing
to Luca, but he continues to spend serious time on the issue. The current anti-monopoly rules seem to him soft at best, and therefore ripe for overhaul. One detects this in his attitude towards the Laser, which Devoti has built in great numbers under a different name. Devoti argues passionately and persuasively that single-manufac- turer one-designs in present form are not good for sailing. There can rarely have been a candidate for high office at World
Sailing who would bring so much experience, knowledge and above all passion for the sport. His election would be a much needed breath of fresh air. A voice from the boatpark indeed.
Ubiquitous, popular, a great sailor with an Olympic medal in the Finn to prove it and above all a passionate sailing enthusiast who works tirelessly promoting the sport among young athletes. Luca Devoti would make the most suitable World Sailing vice president we could think of, better still if he can work with fellow Finn sailor Gerardo Seeliger who is standing for president. Two much needed as well as long overdue voices from the boatpark
sailing nations, including Mexico, Venezuela, Iran and Argentina, among others. Luca clearly takes great pleasure in seeing his pupils leading sailing projects when they later return home. It will be particularly handy for Luca to be fluent not only in his
native Italian, but also in Spanish, French, German and English – he has been domiciled in Spain since 2005 and can converse freely to his international pupils and presumably, in future, his World Sail- ing board members. His university education was in Milan where he read economics at the prestigious Bocconi University. That economics background is more than a touch important for
Luca – although fast boats are desirable no one wants to pay through the nose for them. And that has been one of the reasons Devoti’s influence among the builders is an area, where luxury and technique meet, in which has been so successful. He moves in high places; the America’s Cup among them. He
was responsible, in 2007, for the +39 syndicate’s America’s Cup challenge. He was in it up to his eyebrows, organising and managing the syndicate’s progress in Valencia. He was not only the skipper, but also the technical director, and as such he had to deal with the concerns of the sponsors, but also with all the considerable political turbulence that accompanied this Italian campaign.
16 SEAHORSE
THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING – Rob Kothe While the pandemic has caused a swathe of event cancellations, it has impacted too on competitors preparing for races on more distant horizons. The 2022 edition of the Golden Globe Race is around 800 days away. It will start on Sunday 4 September 2022. But as preparations for the world’s longest sporting event must be meticulous, the loss of the 2020 summer will impact heavily on many of the entrants as they begin their campaigns. The winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Race, grandfather of French
solo sailing Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, completed his sixth circum- navigation to win the 30,000-mile race in 212 days sailing his Rustler 36 Matmut. His pre-race preparation is legendary. He spent half of the six months before the race at sea, testing equipment and looking for chafe points. Van Den Heede is not back in 2022, eyeing instead the fully crewed Ocean Globe Race of 2023. But he set the bar high in terms of preparation. The 2022 race has so far attracted 26 entrants from 12 coun-
tries. Seven British, six Australians, two each from Canada, the USA and South Africa and one sailor from each of France, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Malta, New Zealand and Finland. As the race is based in Brittany more French entries are expected, with a maximum fleet size of 35. It is an incredibly diverse group of solo skippers and every one of them already has a boat. Here we profile just four. One 2020 entrant is better prepared than most. Cornwall sailor
Robin Davie (68) competed against race founder Don McIntyre in the 1990 BOC Challenge, going on to make his second and third solo circumnavigations in the 1994 and 1998 BOC races. In 1994 he was dismasted thousands of miles from Cape Horn but then sailed under jury rig around the Cape to the Falkland Islands.
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