Mark Chisnell's Diary

The former editor of madforsailing writes from Seattle with the second of his accounts of the team’s preparation for the 2003 America’s Cup

Now it’s over and the dust is settling on the media superlatives that have been used to describe the week, I’m curious to see if the Jubilee has any long-term impact. Was this just a one-night stand, a single torrid dalliance with the yachting elite? If nothing else, the Jubilee has helped to raise the profile of the next America’s Cup. Peter Gilmour commented that many of the people he talked to during the regatta were now planning to head down to New Zealand for the Cup in 2003.

There are a few other possible positives for the future, and an irregular America’s Cup festival of sail, incorporating championships for the 12 Metres or the IACC boats or the Js or all three of them, would be one prospect that Louis Vuitton may already be investigating. It would certainly provide added value for the sponsors investing in Cup campaigns.

But perhaps the most likely spin-off is a further revitalized 12 Metre class - this was a stunning fleet and with all the money that has been spent on renovation of these great boats for the Jubilee, it ought to be a further fillip to their growing circuit.
Ironically, it’s probably more likely after this last month that we’d see a new 12 Metre being built than a full-on IRM boat. A sad conclusion after all the blood, sweat and tears that has been devoted to new measurement rules since the last new 12s were built in 1987. But it would prove once again that all the significant trends in the sport come about through people getting fired up to spend money and go sailing, rather than from high-level summits and decrees dispatched from above.

Next up for me is a quick breather in Seattle to get back on top of the office work, before joining many other members of the OneWorld team aboard Phillipe Kahn’s Pegasus for the Big Boat series in San Francisco. Over here the debate is about the race organizer’s decision to introduce Americap, a measurement handicap rule system, instead of the rather more unscientific - and much more popular - PHRF that the regatta has used in recent years ...