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Reader's view on the new Origin America's Cup challenge and powered winches on racing yachts

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Last Thursday's announcement by Sir Keith Mills that Britain will be fielding a team in the next two America's Cups has been received with high enthusiasm, not just by us....

Alistair Skinner, Founding Commodore of the Shanghai Boat & Yacht Club writes:

Go TEAM ORIGIN!

As a sailing mad Brit working here in China and watching the efforts of China Team by Le Defi I am naturally just as delighted that we (Great Britain) are mounting a further challenge for the America's Cup as I was disappointed at the failure of British Industry to back Peter Harrison the last time round.

As a former Commodore of a challenging club that saw it's challenge accepted by ACM only to falter at the 11th hour (literally) due to inadequate funding I am only too aware that no matter how much sailing talent one may have on hand success at this level only comes, ultimately, from people putting their hands in their pockets.

We had a cast of all stars waiting in the wings including one of the America's Cup's most qualified lawyers and rules experts, one of the world's top match racers as helmsman, a Whitbread winner waiting to join the team and a sailing manager who had helped lift the Cup back in the 80s.

It proved to me more than anything that talent alone is not enough to compete in the rarefied atmosphere that is the America's Cup circus.

Similarly, having the money to be there is worthless without the required sailing talent on board as some challengers are finding out not once, not twice, but for the third time. This element, I believe, is not the problem with a British Challenge.

It (the team) needn't be totally nationalistic but we have a rich depth of talent in boat building, designing, testing facilities and world class sailors, indeed it has been said that some, perhaps more than the Kiwis would want to admit, of Emirates TNZ success last year was how hard Dean Barker was being pushed by his training partner, a certain Mr Ben Ainslie.

Ian Walker has done a wonderful job with Siemens (nee Patches), Shirley has proved to be more than useful on a big boat, Iain Percy has done well with a poorly funded +39 and Green Marine has built more than one carbon fibre rocket including at least one AC boat in the past.

No it is not the talent that will be lacking, on current record that will not be the problem, the main challenge as I see it will be getting corporate Britain behind the effort.

Let's hope they give it more support than they did to the likes of MagLev, the first of which now whisks passengers from Shanghai's Pudong Airport to the downtown area and was built by a German and not a British company.


Nick Walters echoes the sentiments of many....

About bl00dy time. Best of luck to them - they're going to need it, plus of course lots and lots of money! Lets just hope they can drum up some serious sponsorship this time round.

As does Peter Barclay....

What wonderful news. It has been so depressing to watch the results of the various lead-up races with South Africa, China etc. but no British interest. Lets hope it brings the success it deserves.

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On to the issue of whether or not we like the idea or not of powered winches on board all these new generation 100 footer like Mike Slade's Leopard 3 . Surely this is not proper sailing?

A man with something of a vested interest and some top opinions on this topic is Lewmar Sailing Market Manager, Phil Atfield:

Happy New Year from Sunny Havant!

Interesting debate about powered winches, which I do not believe will ever reach a unanimous decision. The purists will argue that it is not in the spirit of the Corinthian ideals of yacht racing. The evolutionists will argue that it is progress, and fits ideally with the philosophy of increasing performance in line with modern technology.

From a purely practical standpoint the Lewmar Carbon Grand Prix Winch package supplied to Leopard, Oats etc which has to pull loads up to 12 tonnes, there is a physical horsepower requirement that would need a small army of athletic grinders to cope with racing manoeuvres if the winches are manually operated. That horsepower requirement already exists in powered mode by the power source necessary to control the canting ballast system.

From an owners standpoint he can race with less people on board using powered winches - less people on a professional race programme saves a shed load of money and logistical problems. A yacht with a dual life which either wants to have the odd cruise, or even charter, powered winches are a practical option.

I think the answer is obvious - there are room for both because you cannot legislate for peoples wants because yachting is a want not a need if you follow the logic.

And as we are in the business of helping achieve both I think they both have their place.

Or we go back to the days where America's Cup challenging yachts have to get
to the race venue on their own bottom!!!


Jon Stapleton writes:

Seems as if there has to be two classes for everything - manual and powered. Powered should include any power to improve performance - pumping for water ballast, hydraulics for keels, winches etc.


From Shanghai Alaistair Skinner returns with this....

FASTEST IS FASTEST - Surely?

In most endeavours THE Record is THE Record. The first successful attempt on Everest was technology assisted. The air speed and land speed records both made the transition to jet power from propeller power yet retain classes for world's fastest propeller plane.

The world's biggest ship in wood or even Mirabella's composite hull are dwarfed by the steel leviathans of the sea yet Mirabella is widely admired and well regarded AND in the record books.

If we deny progress surely we slow down the development of whatever we apply special rules to.

It is not being purist by not allowing powered winches any more than allowing GPS navigation or weather routing on such a record attempt is a 'pure' record.

Mari Cha IV's record is impressive but took technological input to beat the old record in the form of electronics and even the selection of the correct 'weather window' and strangely there was no debate along the lines of the MacArthur - Knox Johnson debate as to which was more meaningful.

Although as a racing sailor I would be less than happy to be racing against a 'powered' sailing yacht if all my crew were on grinders and manual winches surely the outright record is the outright record and other slower times being classes of the record (but just as well regarded).

The WSSRC has set a precedent in that the ULTIMATE World Sailing Speed Record is held by a floating object with no rudder and a mast that falls down if you don't hold it up (a Windsurfer) blasting down a canal somewhere. It does nothing for advancing mainstream sailing and is nothing to look at.

Perhaps this is why this record gets such relatively little attention compared to either the Crossbow (remember her) days or the 24 hour records set by such as the VO70s.




And finally it has been pointed out to us the ressemblance of Big Brother presenter and media star Davina McCall and newbie Open 60 skipper and round the world sailor Dee Caffarri. Maybe we're just seeing things...




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