Coutts update

The America's Cup legend looks back at his year in the TP52 and RC44

2007 has produced another great year of sailing. This year I decided to concentrate on the RC 44 and TP 52 circuits with a plan to travel less, however I am not sure I've achieved that goal!

The TP 52 program was funded by Torbjorn Tourqvist who formerly owned and raced a Swan 601 called Artemis and decided to make the switch to a more high performance fleet.

For many owners the concept of racing in a semi-professional series is daunting, especially if they choose to helm the boat themselves. Before the season began, it is fair to say that while we may have had high expectations, we did not believe we would win both the MedCup Series and the TP 52 Global Championships. Torbjorn is a very competitive person who plays competitive tennis and used to run 1500 meters to a fairly high level, but he enjoyed the TP 52 season a lot, so it is reasonable to assume we will see him doing a lot more competitive sailing in the future!

The preparation and presentation of Artemis was immaculate. Rolf Vrolijk designed a very fast boat and Mick Cookson did a superb job of building it. We had very nice sails from North with spars from Southern Spars. So we had what all tacticians love to have and that is boat speed!

In fact, I was amazed at the improvement in performance from last year. When we first went sailing I asked our navigator had to correct the boat speed calibrations as it appeared to be over-reading. In fact, I was told it was slightly under reading. The boat speed was 4/10s of a knot faster than most of the 2006 generation boats! That sort of improvement is simply amazing and shows the effect of a series of subtle refinements. I suspect (and hope) the differences next year will be less dramatic although it is already pretty evident that some of the new 2007 boats will already be uncompetitive in 2008.



Torbjorn has sold Artemis but will build a new boat for next season and in all honesty, it will be very difficult to achieve the same results. Our crew for this year was a mix of different America's Cup teams. We had the Coromandel Cartel from Team New Zealand (Jeremy Lomas, Richard Meechan and James Dagg), and Pieter Van Niewenhuyzen and Juan Vila from Alinghi so during the early regattas we had some interesting discussions on the America's Cup. We also had team members from Prada and BMW ORACLE Racing. Overall it was a fantastic and enjoyable season with a good bunch of sailors.

In the RC 44 we have raced in eight events this year and the competition is steadily building. Chris Bake was a new owner who decided to take up sailing again after something like a 20 year sabbatical and yet his Team Aqua's performance has been pretty dominating this year. They are by far the best team in terms of handling the boat and they generally sail the boat close to its optimum performance. The RC44 is definitely one of the more technical one-design boats around and it requires a very good and well coordinated team. By nature, light displacement boats accelerate and slow faster and so good trim and steering is more highly rewarded, both upwind and downwind. Downwind is where most of the big gains and losses are made. A good gybe or a better selection of course can add up to a huge performance difference.

I must say that while I enjoy the complexity of sailing the boats I had also assumed they would only appeal to the avid racing sailor. However, we have seen new owners come into the class with relatively little experience and do extremely well, and yet we have also seen some very good one-design sailors from other classes come in and not perform as well as expected. For the next event in Trieste we will have at least ten boats racing and several more new teams so this will also add a lot to the competition. Many of the teams are practicing ahead of the regattas so the standard of crew work and competition is getting higher and higher. The rules allow only four professional sailors per team, so it is always a challenge to fully integrate the group of sailors into a fully cohesive team. After Trieste, the fleet moves to Dubai for the final regatta of the year. We started this class with a demonstration match racing event in Dubai one and a half years ago so it will be a nice personal achievement for Andrej Justin and me to see a fleet of RC 44's racing there again. .

Without the help and enthusiasm of our class manager, Julien di Biase, none of this would have been possible. He has already completed most of the regatta agreements for 2008 with a collection of fantastic venues, ensuring the owners get great value and services at each event. In 2007 I really enjoyed sailing at some of the different venues and for me, racing on Lake Garda was one of the highlights of the season. It is definitely one of the best and most spectacular places to race in Europe and we will definitely return there next year. Otherwise, many of the 2008 venues are new. Next year we will also have professional race management and umpires at all events which should greatly improve the quality of racing. I am a huge fan of on the water umpiring, even for fleet racing. Even if the umpires miss a few incidents or make the wrong call, in my opinion it is still much better to deal with an incident there and then than arguing about it four hours later in a closed room! I would rather enjoy a nice evening with some friends and fellow competitors after racing, and I've seen the protest system destroy the atmosphere at a regatta on too many occasions.

The America's Cup is a great event and I certainly enjoyed watching this year’s series but to be able to race in the next event will be much better. The 2007 Cup was one of the closest and best competitions ever and in many ways it ignited my desire to return to the competition. At BMW Oracle Racing, we have been concentrating on recruiting good people and our challenge will be to turn this group into a cohesive team.

If we can achieve that, we will have a very good chance of success but over the last few months I have also been reminded of how intense these America's Cup campaigns are! I certainly plan to have an active sailing role so I will need to carefully plan my external regatta program to support this objective.

Fortunately, the RC44 events incorporate match racing which is something I need to focus on, therefore I plan to compete in all six events scheduled in 2008. For the TP 52 circuit, I will almost certainly need to miss two or three events but I still plan on competing in most of them.

So 2008 will be busy. I will still be sailing high performance boats but with more emphasis on re-discovering some form in match racing.