Firing on all cylinders

We speak to Peter Gilmour about his match race program and the America's Cup

His name may not be being touted in America's Cup circles at present, but Peter Gilmour has proved over the course of this last year, that he remains one of the most formidable talents in match racing.

Against stiff competition including the likes of BMW Oracle Racing's Gavin Brady and past winner Magnus Holmberg, the Australian former America's Cup skipper sailing with his regular crew of Rod Dawson, Mike Mottl, Kazuhiko Sofuku, Yasuhiro Yaji dominated the 2003-4 Swedish Match Tour winning the series with two races to spare, never finishing lower than fourth. As a result they walked away with prize money for the year amounting to more than £125,000, including a Mercedes Benz SLK 200 for their first place in Match Race Germany.

While Gilmour is clearly effective on the water, part of the reason for his success on the Swedish Match Tour is his consistency in attending events. The Tour is the only sailing he is doing at present.

"It’s more than enough," says Gilmour. "It is a great schedule. If you live in the Southern hemisphere, it keeps you going from one summer until the next summer. The racing is as tight as ever and I am a real believer that the Swedish Match Tour is about to leap into much bigger, grander things. It is going through that phase at the moment. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a lot of interest in the America’s Cup and also a lot of lower level interest. It makes for great sport and great spectacles and all that you find on the Tour. So it is fun to be in there with a good to and a great sponsor."

Gilmour's sponsor, Pizza-La, are a substantial company in Japan with some 700 outlets selling pizzas. Gilmour says that in Japan pizza is considered much the same as sushi is in London - high end, quality food.

The type of development in the Tour Gilmour is referring to is what will be demonstrated next week at Match Race Portugal, an event with record prize money to be held for the first time in the Tour's own concept of boat - a reasonably heavy displacement mini-version of an America's Cup boat.

Gilmour says it is not just the hike in prize money that is important, but the money spent on background promotion too. "Pre-event bus-back advertising and local promotions and really create some local energy which helps the local economy. Rather than just having enough, they need substantial budgets."

The dawn of the new era for the Tour is partly due to the change in the type of event organiser. "I am a big believer that market forces prevail on event organisers," Gilmour continues. "So you see the Royal events, such as the Royal Perth YC, Royal NZ Yacht Squadron, Long Beach YC struggling to keep their events together. They are set up in a very uncommercial sort of a way and they are trying to do it with committees and sub-committees and they haven’t handed it over or created a commercial entity. GKSS [the Royal Gothenberg Yacht Club who organise the Swedish Match Cup] has created its own commercial entity and they have given them a balance sheet and told them this is what you have to work with."



Gilmour makes the valid point that many yacht clubs still feel the onus to hold events annually. This is almost certainly due to tradition. "Who says you have to do it every year? Why not take a two or three year breather and regain their energy and focus on making it bigger in two or three years time?" He gives the example of the Nippon Cup which was held succesfully last year after a break of two years.

At present there are no major events on the Tour in the southern hemisphere and Gilmour puts this down to the enormous vacuum created when a country loses the America's Cup. "In fact I’m so surprised that Team New Zealand have been able to pull the money together. I just thought they were fighting an uphill battle - all credit to them for doing what they have done. They’re back in business, but I thought it would be hard to get something going in the context of what they’ve had in the past."

Following his lengthy career in the America's Cup that started when he was the young helmsman of the Australian defender Kookaburra in 1987 and continued as skipper of Spirit of Australia in 1992, coach and then skipper for Nippon Challenge in the next two events and most recently as skipper of OneWorld, this time round Gilmour says he is not involved with the America's Cup.

"I love the America’s Cup. It is a very interesting and strategic game, but at the same time I have settled down in the Perth and it is just not on my radar screen at the moment."



In fact Gilmour already has enough on his plate. An astute businessman he runs his own funds management business from his base in Perth, WA. "I’ve got a fair asset base which I’m working on. In a whole range of things and unlisted companies and where I do a lot of the active trading is in listed companies and I’ve got listings all over the world and in currencies. We bought a wine business in Market River, and I’m into a big airport trust." One wonders whether he shouldn't be financing his own America's Cup campaign.

"If someone asked me to do something associated with it then that would be fine, but otherwise I’ll continue doing what I’m doing and also keep an interest in America’s Cup. From a big picture perspective, being in an anchor position like I was last time, it is a fair grind and it takes it toll on you and if you’re not successful there is a fair amount of introspection and examination about how you went about it and how to do it."

In the America's Cup there is no substitute for experience and Gilmour says that he sees fledgling teams making the same mistakes again and again. "A lot of these new campaigns have got going with people who just simply don’t understand the game and how they will ever breach the void? All the same mistakes are being made and it is remarkable that people that have been there and done it before, like Paul Cayard and people who really know how to campaign aren’t employed by these campaigns for the knowledge, even on a consulting basis. That really surprises me."

Gilmour is among the most likeable fellows you could meet and you can almost believe when he makes this statement that he does so self-lessly.

In addition to the America's Cup coming to Europe, Gilmour is enthusiastic about the way America's Cup Management are turning the event into a more professional sports entity. This includes the bidding procedure that ACM employed to single out the Spanish host port.

"Once the model has been created - and it has been done perfectly by the best land locked country that could do it - it can now be viewed as a serious business and I guess over time the numbers will become known and they will be proven to show in my estimation that it is a substantially cash-positive business for the winner. And that is quite an attractive aspect for people going into it."

And what of the Russell Coutts situation? "It is difficult to comment, because I haven’t spoken to either Russell or Ernesto, so you don’t know what is true. From what I’ve read it is one of the biggest sporting tragedies of all time - that both of them who are both sensitive intelligent men could let this happen to each other - that they couldn’t resolve it. I think over time they will both be losers because of it - in the short term for Russell and long term for Ernesto. I would strongly encourage them to get back together and try and solve it because they are both stronger with each other - enormously so."