madforsailing visits GBR Challenge

Ed Gorman is impressed by the team's progress

The GBR Challange for the 2003 America's Cup has got off to an excellent start. In its first three months the syndicate has accomplished most of its early set-up goals and the sailing team is now becoming freed-up to concentrate on three months of intensive two-boat training using the two Japanese IACC yachts, Idaten and Asura.

Earlier this week the team, which is led on the water by Ian Walker and on shore by general manager David Barnes and sole financial backer Peter Harrison, invited the sailing media to watch as they took the two Japanese boats out onto the Solent together for the first time.

The impression one got - notwithstanding the extremely limited time and access afforded to those of us trying to explain to you what is going on - was of a group of people who have thrown themselves into their Herculean task with relish and enthusiasm. Professionalism and willingness to learn seem to be the watchwords and realistic ambition is evident as the focus increasingly switches from the hard graft of setting up the shore base and sorting out the boats to the hard graft of learning how to race the yachts.

At the syndicate launch at the end of January, Barnes was clear that he could not see how any new challenge for the Louis Vuitton Cup starting from ground-zero could hope to get further than the semi-finals. On the Solent this week he repeated that view but he seemed more optimistic about overall prospects not ruling out for instance, the possibility that a new one-boat programme might be capable of reaching the Louis Vuitton finals.

In America's Cup terms, Barnes has seen it all, whether on the water or on shore, working with Team New Zealand and with Cup programmes in Australia and America. Yet he has been genuinely impressed by both the ability and application on show amongst the new generation of British keelboat talent. He predicts that by the end of August the GBR Challenge crews will be able to race an IACC boat round the track as well as any of their eight potential rivals in Auckland.

One of the key unknowns of course is how the lack of experience across the team at America's Cup level will affect their long term chances. In some respects this looks to be a major handicap but Barnes stressed the positive aspects; the clarity of purpose which only newcomers to the game enjoy plus the enthusiasm which first-timers bring. The new blood in Team New Zealand should give that outfit plenty of bite, so why not the same for the GBR Challenge?

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