The ‘Little America’s Cup’ is an event that has a small and loyal fanbase in the world of sailing. Whatever the PR people at the real America’s Cup want you to believe, international competition on wing-sailed catamarans is not a new thing and the C Class Catamaran Championship will continue to be hotly contested despite the next event going head to head with the reinvented America’s Cup in September 2013.

The 2012 ‘Little America’s Cup’ will take place in Falmouth in the UK from the 25th of August to the 1st of September. The timing, a week before the final America’s Cup event in San Francisco, could mean enormous publicity for the smaller event, or it could mean that it is totally lost in the noise, but it is one of those events that won’t mind too much either way.

If anyone can find us a picture of the Mornington Peninsula regional phone book from around the time the Little America’s Cup was contested of McCrae in Victoria, Australia it would confirm that this event has actually been the trend-setter for decades.

The Little America’s Cup should deliver Falmouth some media attention and generate some inbound teams and close supporters, but it’s unlikely that too many fans will travel to see the event specially. Nevertheless, hosting the event will give the town some visibility. Up to 20 teams could attend the event.

A consortium from Restronguet Sailing Club, Mylor Yacht Club and Windsport International will host the event in the village of Mylor at the upper reaches of Carrick Roads and look forward to creating a great event.

The winner of last years championship, Fred Eaton said:

“We are looking forward to defending the International C Class Catamaran Championship at Falmouth. I have had the pleasure of racing in Falmouth before in International 14s and will enjoy returning. The town and the area are rich with inspirational history for a sailor and the people are very welcoming. I know that it will provide a great test for both the boats and crews at our next Championship.”

UK Team Invictus won the right to choose the event’s location by winning the event in 2010. To fund their 2013 challenge, the team have secured a number of new sponsors, including Atlantis Weathergear, ANSYS for structural and aerodynamic analysis and Advanced Composites Group for materials. The team are also in discussions with a few potential sponsors to cover both the build of 2 new boats and for the event itself.

It remains to be seen what (if any) impact the new AC45 series has on the Little America’s Cup. The AC45 is supposed to be a stepping stone for youth to be able to carve out a career in the America’s Cup, but to the casual observer, there is not a lot of difference between a C Class, wingsailed catamaran and an AC45. With 20 teams predicted for the Little America’s Cup and perhaps 8 with the budget to fund an AC45 campaign, the biggest difference is cost – and heritage.

The AC45 has yet to race an event in anger, while the ‘Little America’s Cup’ has been around since 1961. The ‘cult’ following of the C-Class catamaran should mean that the ‘Little America’s Cup’ will be around for a long time to come, whatever happens to the more well known event.

The first of the America’s Cup 45 boats, has been launched in New Zealand. The 45 foot version of the wing sail powered catamaran is destined to become the mandated boat for the planned Youth America’s Cup, but in 2011, the America’s Cup Event Authority are still trying to put on a World Series, with signed up challengers using these boats for some practise.

Oracle Racing (the BMW era is now over), get the first one and then the Challenger of Record get the next one and then the other teams in order get theirs.

The mono-vs-multi hull debate continues. Comments on the Official 34th America’s Cup YouTube Channel and Facebook page show that the Event Authority still has some way to go to convince people that this is the way of the future, but the entertainment value and the commercial imperatives sometimes don’t match up with the nostalgia for the past. Its the same reason why people complain about the lack of aesthetic beauty of a modern day F1 car and more people attend the Silverstone Classic than the British Grand Prix.

But the America’s Cup Event Authority can’t turn back now. They are committed to the 2 hulled boats with wing sails for the next edition of the event and by the looks of the boat sailing on it’s maiden outing, it’s fast. AC 45 #1 isn’t yet rigged with the next generation of cameras and media capture devices that we are expecting from the organisers.

Early footage is pretty standard stuff, with the classical soundtrack swapped out for something a bit more modern, but the purpose of this launch wasn’t to excite people about the boats, or prove the capabilities of the communications team, it was to see if it hit the numbers that the CFD boffins said it would.

It will be interesting to see how the photographers get more than 2 into a single shot.

First Video of the AC 45 America’s Cup Boat

More America’s Cup News.

The Launch!
After months of consulting the world’s best marketing and television experts, BMW-ORACLE delivered an uninspiring and televisually dull product launch of the AC72, a multi-hull catamaran with a fixed wing, that will be the yacht for the next America’s Cup to be held in 2013.

Russell Coutts told sailing journalists in Valencia that the Defender of the America’s Cup had consulted with experts from Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and NASCAR about how to make the America’s Cup more appealing to a new audience. Yet the event to launch the vision of the cup’s future featured Yacht Club Commodores signing contracts and a rotating 3D model.

Most soap powder product launches are more inspired and inspiring than this unrehearsed, amateur production. BMW-ORACLE have set themselves up as being an organisation that understands the “Facebook generation”, but there is no way that brands like Zynga (Google it) would announce a new global product in such a lacklustre manner.

The Announcements

BMW-ORACLE, the Defender of the America’s Cup and Mascalzone Latino, the Challenger of Record have officially announced the boat to be used for the 34th America’s Cup that will be sailed in 2013. As predicted by many, the chosen yacht for one of sailing’s most recognised events, will be a 72 foot catamaran with a wing sail.

The choice was dictated by requirements that aim to make sailing more commercial, like allowing racing to happen in a wider range of conditions and reducing television delays. It is also designed to keep the America’s Cup at the forefront of sailing technology.

A new nationality based ‘Youth America’s Cup’ would be created in another new class – the AC45 – which would be a one-design boat built by a single manufacturer in New Zealand.

The Reasoning

Challenger of Record boss Vincenzo Onorato put it best, saying that he felt a mismatch between people’s perceptions of the America’s Cup as Formula 1, but he felt recent America’s Cup boats were more like driving a truck. From a commercial point of view, Onorato believes that the multihull platform with a fixed wing is 20% cheaper than the monohull equivalent.

Russell Coutts – BMW-ORACLE CEO, did most of the talking, and made some compelling points unconvincingly. There are good commercial reasons why a multi-hull of this type make sense, including transportation costs and the potential to provide risk taking sailing.

While there may be very good reasons why this platform is the future of the America’s Cup, the audience was asked to accept that reasoning because Coutts said so in the absence of anything more scientific.

The Spin

BMW-ORACLE have taken a big gamble on the future of the America’s Cup at the expense of the current fanbase. coutts was least convincing when he delivered a line that defined those who were in favour of more traditional match racing in monohulls as cavemen and dinosaurs. He said:

We are going after the Facebook generation, not the Flintstone generation.

Comments on the Team’s own facebook page were mixed and polarised. One ‘Fan’ commented:

You are dead to me BMW Oracle. Terrible decision.

While another said:

Bring it! Great choice.

BMW-ORACLE tried to use Twitter to solicit questions from those outside of the room, but these were rephrased before being put to Coutts onstage. If BMW-ORACLE are going to embrace the ‘Facebook Generation’ then they are going to have to learn about social media transparency.

The Road to the Cup

The announcement of the year and boat rule was perhaps not the most controversial news. Coutts, a 3 time winner of the World Match Racing Tour, said that there was no identifiable path for young sailors to the America’s Cup, something that might come as a surprise to sailors like Adam Minoprio and Torvar Mirsky.

Like the world of sailing didn’t have enough classes already, BMW-ORACLE have created a “one-design” boat that will be built by a single manufacturer in New Zealand, something that was not lost on Mitch Booth, Co-creator of the Extreme 40, who was at the event.

The Fallout

It seems that while Russell Coutts claims to have consulted widely, there will inevitably be an impact on other sailing series. The World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA), who have failed to deliver exciting sailing and abandoned their series for Version 5 boats recently, are explicitly named in the new protocol as having significant control over the future management of the cup.

Meanwhile, the World Match Racing Tour, the Audi Med Cup, the Extreme Sailing Series and other sailing events will have to adapt to be relevant in a world where the America’s Cup is offering sailors a chance to be part of their future.

Match Racing may still be important, but Russell Coutts stated today that traditional dial-ups and start sequences that gave one team the advantage were not in the interests of the sport because it was boring to know that 60% of races where the start was won dictated the result. This is like saying that qualifying for pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix should be done away with and all cars should start with an equal opportunity.

The Extreme Sailing Series for Extreme 40s will on the one hand become more interesting because it gives sailors experience in high-performance multihulls, yet by creating a brand new class of almost equal length, BMW-ORACLE has yet again fragmented the sport. This does not seem in keeping with the stated aims of budget constraints.

Coutts said today that series that were somehow based on the America’s Cup might not have very solid business models to begin with. He was confident that the owner-driver one-design class that he designed, the RC44 would be fine.

The Remaining Questions

Russell Coutts dodged almost every question today, from the floor or Twitter. The protocol was distributed seconds before questioning was opened up, giving those present minutes to read and digest a 41 page legal document.

While Coutts says that fans and media and other stakeholders were consulted, there is no evidence given that shows any qualitative results for a preference one way or the other. No polling firms have been named and none of the ‘experts’ from other sports have put their hands up as being consultants to the process.

While the reasoning might be perfectly sound, there is no Boston Consulting Group report or Sports Marketing Surveys document cited. BMW-ORACLE still need to prove, over and above us taking their word for it, that this change is based in solid brand marketing and television research.

The Ranting Conclusion

This was a missed opportunity. While BMW-ORACLE talk about the iPad, they obviously haven’t studied how the Apple product was brought to market. Cam Lewis might be a great proponent of wing propelled multihulls, but he is no Steve Jobs.

History will tell whether the boat rule will benefit the America’s Cup or not, but whatever platform is chosen, it should be given a fighting chance.

No NASCAR executive I know would have put their name to today’s event. If NASCAR had run today’s event, Linkin Park would have opened the show and MTV would have covered it, not Yachting World.

Surely you need to start how you intend to go on. The words of today’s event didn’t match the show and if BMW-ORACLE is to deliver their vision, then the show has to be better produced than this.

Why sit about waiting for the ‘old fashioned’ broadcasters to decide if they like your sport or not? There are people out there who want to watch. They want to watch now. No faffing about with setting the ‘Tivo’ or fiddling with the Red Button or even the good old VHS – want to get fired up about A-Class Catamaran sailing? Google it or search it on You-Tube and consume cool video.

It doesn’t matter if you are promoting the A-Class Catamaran Australian Championships at Safety Beach in Victoria in January, or justifying millions of bucks on  Deed-of-Gift trimaran – You-Tube is here to help. Here’s the promo video for the A-Class Championships:

And here is a sample of what BMW ORACLE have put up on their bright shiny new You-Tube channel. Oops – no, we can’t show you that one because the control freaks in BMW ORACLE PR have disabled embedding of their videos. If you are really really interested in the stuff that the folks in San Diego have been pumping out over the last few days, you can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/BMWORACLERacingTeam#play/uploads/0/2bWCULJRmwQ

No matter what your opinions of  AC33, or multihulls, or the personalities of the remaining teams, it’s hard not to be impressed by a 90ft catamaran flying a hull. Apparently, hundreds of specatators were on hand in Le Bouveret, Switzerland for the maiden sail of Alinghi 5 on Lake Geneva yesterday. The images, by Carlo Borlenghi play tricks with the eye – the scale of the boat is almost impossible to imagine, even with the crew abpard to give perspective.

Murray Jones, who is running the initial trials of the giant multihull that represents a first step in the development process towards the 33rd America’s Cup, gave his comments on a good first day on the water:

“We went out this morning with a list of objectives to work through: testing the boat, checking the structure, doing some manoeuvres and seeing if the sails would all sheet and it went pretty well; we ticked off just about everything. There are a lot of systems on the boat that are complicated and new, but it was fantastic. To fly the boat upwind and downwind with gennaker was awesome for the first day of sailing. The boat is a tribute to the designers and the boat builders. To deliver a boat of this complexity that works straight out of the box on the first day is impressive; really impressive.”

Grant Simmer, design team coordinator, was observing the trials from a RIB:

“It’s been a good day, we had a list of things we wanted to tick off and we took it slowly and carefully and have finished the day achieving all those things. It was exciting to see the boat sailing for the first time after so much time designing, boat building, sail making and spar making; seeing all those bits come together and seeing the machine working is great! We’re looking forward to tomorrow.”

Alinghi 5 First Sail Video

View all the images here: http://www.alinghi.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=7476

Alinghi’s giant new catamaran has hit the water. How these things are going to get to the eventual venue for AC33 is anyone’s guess. Press release from Alinghi follows.

At 16:00 this afternoon, Alinghi 5, the Swiss America’s Cup Defender’s new catamaran, was lifted out of the tent where it was built in Villeneuve, Switzerland, and into the air by a Mil Mi-26 helicopter, the biggest and most powerful in the world, to be launched on Lake Geneva.

Alinghi 5 represents a first step in the development process towards the 33rd America’s Cup and the team will now focus on preparing it to sail over the coming weeks.

Ernesto Bertarelli, Alinghi team president, who was present to congratulate the team and for the boat christening by his wife Kirsty, commented:

“As a passionate multihull sailor I am extremely excited to see Alinghi 5 launched and for the next stage of this campaign to begin: over the coming weeks and months the team will work towards defending the 33rd America’s Cup next year. The team has done an excellent job to make this happen; we are all looking forward to going sailing now.”

Watching as the helicopter lifted Alinghi 5 out of the tent and on to the water, Grant Simmer who, working alongside a team of designers, boat builders and sailors, has coordinated the project said:

“I feel very proud of what we have achieved; there have been so many people involved who have worked really hard. They have done a fantastic job and this is the product of their hard work.”

Photo Copyright Stefano Gattini/Alinghi

The America’s Cup is back in the headlines after a few weeks of relative quiet from the two sides. The unveiling of Alinghi’s catamaran has re-ignited the pundits and no doubt there will be all kinds of armchair speculation for a few more weeks until the boat is seen actually sailing. Here is the press release:

Alinghi, the Defender of the 33rd America’s Cup, unveiled its 90ft catamaran this weekend in Villeneuve, Switzerland. This multihull represents a culmination of Swiss multihull heritage and is the first step in Alinghi’s development process towards the 33rd America’s Cup in February 2010. The boat will be launched by helicopter next week on Lake Geneva before the process of ‘debugging’ begins and the boat goes sailing for the first time.

Grant Simmer, design team coordinator, comments on the achievement:

“Firstly this boat only exists because of Ernesto Bertarelli’s 100% commitment to the team and his support and enthusiasm for this project. The boat demonstrates the talent and creativity of the designers and the skill and dedication of the boatbuilding and technical teams in building a boat of this complexity, facing many different challenges along the way and solving them to pull the project together. Finally, and more recently, the sailing team has defined many of the systems; they have worked with the designers to define the simplest possible solutions for what is already a very complex boat.”

Rolf Vrolijk, chief designer:

“People who see the boat for the first time seem surprised at how light and fragile it looks, that is really their first impression. Creating it has been a huge team effort, both in the design and the build groups; it has been a phenomenal team effort to come up with the concept and it really represents the depth of our group. For the moment we have pushed the envelope as much as we would like, this boat is really a base for further development and over the coming weeks we will collect as much information as we can and cross check it with the predictions, this will help us assess what level we are at and then to optimise from there. We have several opportunities and possibilities to change the concept but first we need a solid base to do our studies from.”

Murray Jones, strategist and design team responsible for mast and rig programme:

“This multihull is nothing like you’ve ever seen before in a big boat. It’s like a small boat but scaled up. It’s a highly finely tuned and engineered boat that’s light. It’s a piece of art. Alinghi 5 has evolved from the Swiss sailing boats, like the 41ft ‘Le Black’. The basic engineering concept has come from ‘Le Black’ but everything else has come from the Alinghi design team, starting from a completely blank sheet of paper, with no preconceived multihull ideas. We started designing it and building it and we’ve done a lot of sailing and testing on ‘Le Black’ and the Décision 35s so we’ve incorporated some of the ideas we’ve picked up sailing these boats.

The focus of the concept and the design and build of the boat has been on what we need to sail a Deed of Gift Match: up/down racing of 20miles. We haven’t focused on the other team at all, only concentrating on what makes our boat go the fastest. It’s been a big job for quite a small design team and we’ll see the results soon.”

Information about the boat

• Boat type: Catamaran of carbon composite construction
• Where built: Alinghi Villeneuve + Décision Corsier, Switzerland
• Length waterline: 90ft
• Hours to build: 100,000 manhours
• Square metres of carbon fibre used: 30,000m2
• Hours to build: 100,000 manhours
• Square metres of carbon fibre used: 30,000m2

NASCAR don’t do sailing, but if they did, it would probably be the best sailing competition in the world. The OC Group does sailing and it is the closest that the sport gets to a product appealing to a mass market, with exciting close racing, visually stunning machines and sailing superstars. It’s entertainment and it makes no apologies.

The iShares Cup 2009, billed as ‘the perfect antidote to distant slow yacht confrontations!’, will feature 10 eXtreme 40 catamarans. Skippered by names that are recgonisable in the sailing world and some that might even be known to the public ( in France) include, Loïck Peyron and Franck Cammas, who are unrivalled in the oceanic multihull world.

In addition to having five World Oceanic Multihull Champion titles to his name, Peyron won The Artemis Transat in 2008 making it three career wins on the toughest solo transatlantic course and in doing so rising one step above French legend Eric Tabarly. Peyron joined the Oman Sail project in March this year and will now be charge of his own Extreme 40, Renaissance, for this season.

Cammas holds the North Atlantic speed record and has recently been “teaching” the BMW ORACLE Racing team how to use their brand new maxi (90′) trimaran. The young French skipper already had a taste of the iShares Cup having raced at the French event in 2007 and at Cowes last year, and wanted to come back for a full season with his long-term sponsor Groupama.

Double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson will skipper Team iShares in 2009 and the Olympic contingent is also represented by Carolijn Brouwer on Holmatro, Yann Guichard on Gitana Extreme- Groupe LCF Rothschild, Darren Bundock on BT and Pete Cumming with Chris Draper on the helm of Oman Sail’s second Extreme 40, Masirah – not to mention the plethora of Olympian crew members throughout the fleet, including the Mourniac brothers aboard Erik Maris’s LUNA.

Australian Nick Moloney brings his eclectic experience as a round-the-world and America’s Cup sailor back into the fray with BT, after finishing the 2008 iShares Cup on the podium

Also coming from the prestigious world of the America’s Cup, James Spithill onboard BMW ORACLE Racing will be a real rival for the number one spot.

The final top-flight team will announce their participation in the coming weeks to make it ten teams in total coming head to head on the demanding, short and sometimes unconventional courses, competing so fiercely that heart-stopping close encounters always feature on the menu.

It’s a show as well as top class racing and the public has full access to the action from the shore, in carefully chosen venues that combine challenging sailing conditions and spectator-friendly configurations. Three of the European venues have been officially announced – Venice (ITA), Kiel (GER) and Almeria, Andalucía (ESP) – the remaining three venues in the UK, France and The Netherlands are confirmed and will be announced shortly.

The iShares format has a real chance at breaking out of the sailing bubble and into a wider consciousness, but it will be a while before sailors will be having their own action figures, or appearing on corn-flakes packets.

Read more iShares Cup stories on YachtSponsorship.

The first Arabian Extreme 40 Challenge has begun in Dubai. The racing is the first of two demonstration events to introduce the class to the region to investigate the potential of a full series.

Four Extreme 40s teams including iShares and Oman Sail, will be take part moving from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, from 2-4 December.

The Arabian Extreme 40 Challenge will be run by OC Events, the owners and organisers of the successful European iShares Cup and supported by Oman Sail. Following the same short, sharp format as the hugely successful iShares Cup European Series, racing will take place in Dubai from the Mina Seyahi, before heading to Muscat for the second event (2-4 December) for the Oman Air trophy, in conjunction with the official launch of the Oman Sail project on 2 December.

Amongst the sailors will be of the world’s best yachtsmen and women, including British double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson and top French multihull sailor Karine Fauconnier. Olympic Bronze medallist Chris Draper will skipper Oman Sail.

The international crews will include Omani sailors on every boat, as well as a lucky ‘sixth man’ – a unique opportunity for a VIP or journalist to get onboard the Extreme 40s during racing and be part of the action. The four teams will not only be looking forward to racing old rivals, but it also provides a great opportunity to practice ahead of the 2009 iShares Cup, with plans firmly underway for next year’s series.

OC Event Director, Gilles Chiorri is yet to announce the European venues for 2009, but says: ‘We have been visiting a number of venues in the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland as we are looking to build on the successful foundations of the iShares Cup series over the last two years’.

He added: “The Extreme 40 boats are so spectacular, providing the public with real close-quarter action at a variety of venues – coastal, inland waters including inner city locations. There are a whole host of reasons as to what makes a good venue but, for sure, we are looking for premier locations that can offer the public a great spectacle as well as a fantastic VIP entertainment package.”

YachtSponsorship.com talks to iShares Cup and OC Group boss; Mark Turner, about breaking the rules and creating long term value for a dizzying array of stakeholders.

In recent years, almost every sport has had to wrestle with the competing interests of traditional amateur events and ever increasing professionalism. The five day game of cricket, based in stuffy old clubs, was reinvented by media savvy businessmen into a one-day game, created for spectators and sponsors. Mark Turner, CEO of the OC Group is shaking up sailing in a similar way – throwing away the rulebook to create an entertainment product that is loved by sailors, sponsors and new spectators alike.

The iShares Cup is the sailing equivalent of cricket’s one day game. In 2008, spectacular photos of 40 foot catamarans somersaulting in the Solent bearing the names of Americas Cup teams, skippered by Olympic Gold Medallists broke out of the sailing press and touched a new audience, but was it a success?

“You can’t create a new event of any kind in any sport without a long term view on it”, says Turner. “It was hard getting it going. We started in 2007, this is the second year running and we exceeded all our expectations this year. It was a huge step up – from the media side, the public side, the VIP side. I’m really really happy to be honest.”

Turner says that part of the success of the iShares Cup is that it is like no other sailing event, and that’s on purpose.

“It’s completely different to the way sailing is normally seen. It is an entertainment product that uses sailing, whether that is entertaining VIPs, whether it’s entertaining the public, whether it’s entertaining journalists to get media coverage.”

The series even discarded with the traditional view that sailing had to be on a large piece of water like a harbour, sea or lake. In Amsterdam the boats raced in a 200 metre by 600 metre concrete pit in the middle of the city, surrounded by buildings with wind-shifts going through 100 degrees and downwind starts.

“Races are 10-12 minutes, in a way the public can understand. You don’t have to know what’s going on. The action happens right in front of you. And at the end of it, the sailors loved it and the good guys still won.”

The iShares Cup is anything but traditional. Just as the thought of cutting a five day cricket game down to a single day, swapping white for Technicolor ‘pyjamas’ seemed an abomination to the establishment, there is a sense that OC Events is determined to create a compelling product and not worry about the criticism.

“I’ve never been one for rules. I like breaking rules. I don’t really care about the taboos and what’s really interesting in the iShares Cup this year is we had the highest level of sailing you could really have. We had two Americas Cup syndicates, Olympic Medallists, World Champions, the lot, yet we ran racing in a way that you could never run in a traditional ‘playground’ – downwind starts, never windward leeward courses – you know – completely changed the rules.”
While Turner is happy to ignore traditional stakeholders, he has different set of masters. Commercial backers who expect to get a return from their investment in his product.

“It’s hard to run because you draw the stakeholder diagram and you think – which one is more important today? In the end you have to satisfy all of them and it’s a pretty diverse set of people. We have to ensure that we are absolutely delivering for each individual boat sponsor and that keeps you on your toes.”

Title sponsor iShares, seem happy with the results produced by the cup that bears its name. According to Turner, the company was looking for a ‘money can’t buy’ experience for their VIPs. The event allowed a ‘5th man’ to be aboard the boats while racing which is not something that Formula One can boast.

“It was an exceptional experience and the feedback from the VIP side is outstanding. 93% of the iShares guys said it was the best hospitality experience they have ever been to.” This was in part down to a unique opportunity that allowed iShares some control over the direction of the series.

But it was not just the VIP guests that benefited from the participatory nature of the iShares Cup.

“In Germany we have set a benchmark for the future. In Kiel, we had 80,000 people over three days that were watching the racing. They weren’t just ambling through a village where there was something going on in the background – they were stood there glued to the racing. The boats were racing five metres away from their feet – interacting with the crowd – when they were lifting a hull, the crowd would cheer and the skippers would react – trying to show off on the way around. The sailors absolutely loved it. That was a real milestone. I’ve not seen that in sailing ever, not in 20 years. Obviously that’s a product that we can take further.”

OC Events got a bonus in 2007. While Americas Cup bosses argued over the future of the ‘Auld Mug’, and contemplated running a deed of gift race using multi-hulls, they found themselves with time and money to go racing Extreme 40 catamarans.

“It was a bonus for us this year to have Alinghi. Alinghi came specifically to train and learn how to sail a multi-hull. Right now they are considering next year. They’ve worked out that this is pretty good for the sponsors and pretty good for media exposure and it’s pretty good training as well. We’ll have a great 2009 if we have no Americas Cup teams, but we will have at least one and maybe three cup teams.

Unlike the Americas Cup, which is currently going nowhere, the teams and their sponsors can put to use their infrastructure and still get returns.

“They get value from it – irrespective of the discipline. They can see it works and will work alongside the cup campaign. You can ship the boat around, go to different markets. We are not going to live or die on the participation of Americas Cup syndicates. It would be nice to have some of those guys, but we have some great teams lining up for next year regardless.”

It’s not just iShares that gets value out of sponsoring the event. Each boat has sponsors who are happy with the return on investment they got from the series. Team budgets range from £275,000 to £400,000 but it’s not just about the racing.

“The teams can use the boat for lots of other things. They might go to other races, they might put it in a shopping mall. On water they might do things like the Round the Island Race’, but on land too – we had one out of the water displayed in a supermarket. It’s such a flexible tool. Add to that hospitality sailing days, exhibition events – Ben Ainslie did a day in the JP Morgan boat up the Thames after the Olympics.”

Mark Turner is not too hung up on the numbers, but wants to keep increasing the media side of the iShares Cup. This comes through investment in television to get the event in front of as many people as possible.
“Media wise, we have got four times the coverage this year. We have used Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS), an independent valuer to understand where we are. The TV series is getting good distribution now – but we have invested heavily – we had a 16 strong TV team at each event, got some amazing footage and in that sense it’s really starting to work.”

“We have a compelling product, we have great teams, and we have a VIP on the boat for a lot of that time. We can have a journalist on the boat. They can share that experience you can watch the whole thing as a spectator from right there and that is a big change for sailing. The venues are not the normal venues that you would associate with sailing.”

So what of the future? Turner says that it is about realistic growth and being true to the commercial model.

“We don’t have a huge desire to grow the fleet massively at each event, 8-12 boats works well. We wouldn’t actively stop it growing beyond that, but we would try to grow additional series beside the European series. We want quality not quantity. We want the best sailors – who are already there – we need to maintain that. Having lots of private owners wouldn’t be a positive thing. Our model is a commercial model and we want commercial brands.”

More importantly, the future is about building on the things that have captured the imagination of thousands of people. Not just sailors, but the wider public.

“If you want to get people interested in sailing, it needs to be sexy, fun, radical, physical – everything. I couldn’t think of anything better. The key thing about this series is that people who don’t care too much about sailing take a step back and say ‘Wow’. Multi-hulls do that – a hull flying through the air has a wow factor.”

Next week: Mark talks to yachtsponsorship.com about trends – super teams, business models and what the increasing gap between professional teams and amateur racing means for sailing.