Audi continues to pursue its ‘cherry picking’ approach to sailing sponsorship with the announcement that the German car manufacturer will partner with Mascalzone Latino. Audi provide support to a number of sailing properties around the world including the Audi Med Cup.

Vincenzo Onorato, who is the driving force behind Mascalzone Latino said:

“I am very proud of the fact that Audi, a prestigious car company with such great tradition in sponsoring the sailing world, has chosen to link its name to Mascalzone Latino. I would like to thank the President of the Volkswagen Group, Dr. Tartaglione, the Director of Audi Italy, Dr. Frisch and the Director of Audi Marketing, Dr Migliorini for the trust they have put in us. We share the values of excellence and of fair competition as an incentive to constant improvement, as individuals, as a team and from a technology development point of view.”

Vincenzo Onorato’s team will campaign in the Louis Vuitton Trophy, the Farr 40 and the Melges 32 class. Mascalzone Latino Audi Team will host the Italian round of the Louis Vuitton Trophy at La Maddalena in Sardinia from 22nd of May to the 6th of June.

Onorato said:

“La Maddalena will be at the center of media interest right at the beginning of the summer season and attention will be directed to the new infrastructure created for the G8 summit, later transferred to L’Aquila for the well-known reasons. This success was possible thanks to the decisions taken by the Government and by Dr Guido Bertolaso, who has asked me to coordinate the event. As the “hosting team”, Audi Mascalzone Latino Team wants to offer all competitors the best hospitality. My heart full thanks also goes to those who welcomed us, the Region of Sardinia, that is sponsoring our team in all stages of the Louis Vuitton Trophy, and that here is represented at the highest institutional level by the President of the Region Ugo Cappellacci.

Sardinia is a region with an enormous untapped potential, both in terms of nautical tourism and of all it offers as a whole. The interior landscape is extraordinary, but still unknown to most. The Louis Vuitton Trophy is a global event and Sardinia will have the opportunity of being added by travelers to their “Italian Grand Tour”.

2008 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, Terry Hutchinson will become an ambassador for Gill, the technical sailing clothing specialists.

Gill and Hutchinson have formed a partnership that will provide the best technical clothing to the yachtsman who competes in the Audi Med Cup for TP52 yachts and was 2008 World Championship winner on Quantum Racing. The two share the same values of relentless preparation and attention to detail, that in the end, bring great results.

Gill has a policy of partnering with people who will add their experience and insight into the product development process thereby ensuring the Company’s continued reputation as technical innovators in the sport.

Gill will also be supplying the clothing for the high profile International racing campaigns that Hutchinson will be involved within in 2009, on the TP52, Farr 40 and Melges 24.

Goombay Smash has won the 2008 Rolex Farr 40 North American Championship. The boat, owned by William Douglass beat eight teams in Miami Beach, Florida. Douglass’ team’s finished in the top three in nine out of the 10 races run by the Storm Trysail Club. Douglass was presented with a commemorative Rolex timepiece by Farr 40 Class Secretary Bunny Wayt.

Commenting on the event, Douglass said: “This regatta represents a big improvement for us. We were fast and our crew work was sufficient to get us around the course. It’s great to be sailing against very well sailed boats.”

Within his first year of campaigning Goombay Smash, Douglass won the Rolex Farr 40 Pre-Worlds in Miami Beach last April. This was his first win with tactician Morgan Larson, who last served as substitute tactician on the first day of the 2008 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship for eventual winner Vincenzo Onorato on Mascalzone Latino. Goombay Smash finished the Worlds in 14th.

Barking Mad, with tactician Terry Hutchinson, finished in second place, tied on points with Nerone in third. Vasco Vascotto served as tactician on Nerone, which won the Farr 40 Match Race Invitational, held earlier in the week, November 18-19, in Miami Beach.

The Rolex Farr 40 North American Championship was also supported by SLAM and Harken as well as Edgewater Boats and Southern Spars, both divisions of North Sails.

www.farr40.org

The 2008 Rolex Farr 40 North American Championship heads to Miami Beach this week.

The regatta straddles two seasons – the concluding summer schedule in the U.S. and Mediterranean and the upcoming winter events in Florida. To date, eight of the 40-foot racing machines are registered to compete with nine-person teams of the world’s best sailors. Scheduled for November 21-23, the regatta will be preceded by the Farr 40 Match Race Invitational, November 18-19. The racing can be viewed in the waters off Miami Beach. At the conclusion of the Rolex Farr 40 North American Championship, the winning helmsman will receive a Rolex timepiece.

There will be plenty of Olympic, Volvo Ocean Race and America’s Cup talent throughout the competitive fleet, serving as tacticians and filling key roles for professionals, including Terry Hutchinson, who returns to his tactician role on Barking Mad after a successful season at the TP52 MedCup. No stranger to international competition is Jonas Werrer, the Olympic Gold Medalist in the 49er from Denmark, who will fill the role of tactician on Nanoq while regular tactician Bouwe Bekking helms his Telefonica Blue in the Volvo Ocean Race. Talented sailors in the fleet include Bill Hardesty and U.S. Olympian Debbie Capozzi on Donald Wilson’s Convexity (Chicago, Ill.), Morgan Larson on William Douglass’s Goombay Smash, Cameron Appleton and Volvo Ocean Race veteran George Peet on John Demourkas’s Groovederci, Tony Rey on Alex Roeper’s Plenty, and Vasco Vascotto on Nerone.

Making their debut in one design racing will be Sedat Gulcaglayan and Haluk Babacan, a dentist, from Al Tunizade, Instanbul, Turkey with their Farr 40 Team Oguzhan. To put together the team’s program they brought in North Sails’ Dave Scott, who went to Turkey this past summer to race with them in IRC-rated events. The team’s ultimate goal is to compete in the 2009 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship to be held at the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in Porto Cervo, Italy.

Title sponsor of the Rolex Farr 40 North American Championship is Rolex Watch U.S.A. with support from SLAM and Harken as well as Edgewater Boats and Southern Spars, both divisions of North Sails.

There is a growing trend within sailing to put together a talented group of indivduals, work them into a team and race whatever is going. Helped along by the becalming of the Americas Cup, teams are climbing aboard different boats in different series and taking their sponsors with them. 

In Australia, the Estate Master Sailing Team is another example. The recently launched website states:

The Estate Master Sailing team concept is not about a focus on an individual or a single boat outcome it’s about the individual maximizing the chance of the team. Right now, our focus as a team is on the Farr 40 program leading to the World Championships in Sydney in 2011.

The Estate Master Sailing Team, I hope will spread over many classes at an international level. The concept is that our brand Estate Master with its splash of green will earn the respect of its competitors for its dedication, preparation and application of science. We know this won’t happen over night – but as they say in that commercial “it will happen” if we apply ourselves.

Apart from the title sponsorship of Estate Master, software for property management, the team is also supported by Hill PDA.