The final session at the 2011 World Yacht Racing Forum brought together delegates from the forum as well as the Design and Technology Symposium. David Fuller from Yachtracing.biz moderated a panel that featured: Richard Worth – Chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA), Clifford Webb – Communications Director, Team Korea and Marco Nannini from Green Comm Racing.
This is part one of a few that cover the 40 minute session.
David Fuller: Welcome. Let’s start with the question printed on the program- What is the status of the America’s Cup at the end of 2011 and what are some of the key learnings and challenges for next year?
Richard Worth
I guess the key lesson then is keep out of the way of the Greencomm boat, because they crash into everybody.
It’s been a high speed year. Incredible really when you think that at the start of the year, in January, the boat wasn’t even launched. Three months ago, the World Series hadn’t started, and thanks to our friends in Cascais, they launched a great event for us.
A positive lesson learnt – We’ve created something in a very short space of time, in the America’s Cup World Series, which is a sports property that can stand on its own two feet against most other sports properties. It’s been a surprise and maybe we had luck in Plymouth and particularly San Diego with the quality of the wind. To be able to produce a television broadcast and programming that was exceptional, and a really good launch for the America’s Cup World Series property.
I suppose looking back over a year, we probably tried to do an awful lot in that year, and maybe if we had the year again we would go back to what Knut Frostad was talking about this morning – just get the basics right.
I hope that with the broadcast product – we have got that basic right, but perhaps there are other basics that we have to concentrate on more and will do in the future, but to solve every problem in as short a period of time might not be desirable.
So in a year, to launch a boat and have the establishment of the competition and really the quality of the competition, the people involved, the courage and vulnerability of the teams has been a spectacle that we are proud of. We’ve got a bit more development to the done and a lot more to learn.
David: The challenges are probably experienced most by teams like GreenComm and Team Korea. Marco, why don’t you talk about some of the biggest challenges that GreenComm face…
Marco Nannini
We have challenges with everything. We started later than all the other teams, so we have a lot of problems. It’s very complicated – logistics, the management of the wings.
The main things that we have learnt, generally speaking is that it is vital that we work together – both the America’s Cup Event Authority and all the teams, because we have different stakeholders with different points of view and it is important that we do find all the solutions to the problems.
There are different points of view from event authority, the big teams and the small teams. We need to improve the audience – for the sport – for the America’s Cup and the World Series. Some things, from my point of view are not so relevant.
It’s important for the fans of GreenComm and the America’s Cup is bigger.
David: Cliff – you are working with a team that is brand new to this kind of racing. What are the challenges for Team Korea?
Cliff Webb
It’s been a challenge from Day 1 quite frankly. We are trying to break a market that has little or no idea at all what the America’s Cup is, let alone sailing. Sailing is not on the radar at all in Korea, so it has been a major challenge to get it off the ground.
The decision was taken by Kim Dong-Young, back in February to enter and go in at the America’s Cup level rather than anything else as a way of starting at the top, creating the most publicity and creating the theatre if you like to attract sponsorship. The challenge continues.
We’ve been talking for 2 days about the economic climate that we are in, and Korea, while it is burgeoning country and is a very wealthy country, getting people interested in a sport like sailing is a hard sell. It’s hard here in Europe – its even harder where they don’t know about it.
David: You made an announcement yesterday that Chris Draper will leave the team, which is disappointing, but up until now, Team Korea has been very competitive in these AC45 boats.
Cliff Webb
We were very fortunate with the team that we put together, and I think it has been fantastic that Team Korea and some of the other small teams have given a good account of themselves out on the racetrack and that has got better through the three events. It’s been a fantastic ride, to be involved with a team of people that gel and that can deliver against the big teams with hundreds of millions of dollars. It shows that it can be done in these one-design boats.
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