A OneWorld Diary

Mark Chisnell writes from Seattle with the first of his accounts of the team’s preparation for the 2003 America’s Cup

There's every reason to believe that the gains to be found from soft spots in the IACC rule are shrinking with every design iteration. The boats next time ought to be closer in speed than ever before. What we need is to keep them together all the way round the track. And the way to do that is to ensure that they are all sailed better, for more of the time.

More and better knowledge of the conditions on the other boat and elsewhere on the race course would tighten the tactician's options down to the realistic. With access to the other yacht's instrument data and precise position, so much of the doubt that makes the yacht prone to the vagaries of the race track - are we ahead or behind, does he have more breeze, is he higher or lower - would be removed. There would be no more bailing off to the other side of the course looking for a miracle and coming back four minutes behind - race over and with it the spectator interest.

It would be a little like the way the Volvo Ocean Race supplies weather information to the fleet. It's much more information than would be available under Rule 41, no outside help, but its effect, because everyone has good quality - not to mention the same - weather information, is to keep the fleet together and produce a tight boat race. And that's what we believe the spectator wants to see; breathtakingly close crosses, wrapped spinnakers, late-takedowns and all the rest.

That's the concept, and interestingly the first draft of the America’s Cup Match conditions includes the possibility of the yachts being allowed to receive the GPS position of the marks - in real-time, directly from a transmitter on the marks themselves. We're already taking small steps down this road.

What’s the down-side? Cost obviously, with an open rule the sky (literally as well as metaphorically) would be the limit. There are some fabulous, and fabulously expensive, technologies out there, and it would be essential to keep a tight rein on the tools used to provide information to the boats - a little like the way Formula 1 held back from allowing the pit-crews to actually adjust the suspension while the cars are racing. But a lot of money is already being spent on weather teams whose role is to call the 'first shift'. If they were allowed to continue to participate in the yacht race with similar input, this expenditure would be much more worthwhile.

And those wedded to tradition may argue that sail boats should be raced with just the skills and talents of those on board. That was the reaction in some influential quarters to what was interpreted as 'over-coaching' at the last Olympics. But if the Olympics are about anything, they're about individual endeavour. The America's Cup is different, it's a professional team sport, with a history at the cutting edge of technical and rules development. And in the information age, this is an all-too-obvious next step.