The prodigal son

Ed Gorman spoke to Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts about favouritism, building a team from scratch and his return to Auckland

mfs: You are known as a master on both the sailing and technical side of this game which is why you have been so successful. How confident are you about the technical developments Alinghi has been making with its new boats? You must have had a good idea where the gains might be made and in what direction the whole design aspect should be moving.

RC: I'm very pleased with our design team. I think the progress they've made is quite staggering and when I'm talking about design it's not only related to the designers themselves. You've got to get input from other areas to really make the design successful and that's been progressing pretty well.

We've started our second new boat and I'm pretty comfortable with it. We made a different decision to a lot of the teams early on. We didn't start with two old boats but bought one old boat, modified it - put in new structure, a new keel, new deck, new mast a lot of other new things - and then built a new boat as a trial horse. That was all a quick-start for our technical programme and I believe that was a good decision.

mfs: How are you going to decide who is going to do the driving? You've got a lot of talent around, especially with Jochen Schuemann.

RC: Whoever we think is the best, is the answer.

mfs: Will you be doing a lot of driving yourself?

RC: Yeah, I will be doing a lot of driving. The other thing is that we need good back-ups in all areas. It would be quite irresponsible to build a $55 million programme on one individual. Imagine if I was the only helmsman and I got sick - I don't think Ernesto (Bertarelli) would be too happy at that point.

mfs: What about owner-drivers in this regatta - I'm not particularly thinking of this team - is there a place for them?

RC: If they're good enough, sure. It's been done before, Bill Koch did it.

mfs: In some teams we are seeing a lot of politics, around the afterguards, and already there's a lot of speculation and a bit of friction going on. How easy is it going to be for you to keep everyone happy?

RC: First of all, are the rumours true? I never know whether they're true in America's Cup. We are very, very open. Personally I feel a responsibility to the team in that a lot of people, like the designers and boat-builders, put an awful lot of work into this. They commit their lives to this programme, and to let your ego get in the way of that is just not right. So I could easily see myself not selecting myself if I thought Jochen was doing a better job.

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