Bringing the Cup back home

We look at the prospects of the new British America's Cup challenger - Origin

It takes quite a lot to get thedailysail to return a week early from Australia but for Sir Keith Mills' announcement today of Origin, a wholly new British-based America's Cup challenger, we are more than pleased to have made the effort.

This morning's press conference at the Design Centre close to London's Tower Bridge, represents a phenomenal boost for British yachting. The UK is decidedly top nation when it comes to Olympic sailing, is second behind France when it comes to offshore shorthanded events like the Vendee Globe and is performing well in the TP 52 class, but in two other pinnacles within our sport the UK has been decidedly absent in recent years: There's been no British boat in the Volvo Ocean Race since Laurie Smith's disappointing result on Silk Cut in 1997-8 and the first taste of America's Cup sailing in 15 years was Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge - a fledgling effort, knocked out in the quarter finals of the 2003 Louis Vuitton Challenger series and unable to return with a follow-up campaign for 2007.

While the UK seemed to return to the dark ages in America's Cup sailing when GBR Challenge failed to continue, if one looks back at it in light of the new announcement, this is in fact far from the case. The amount learned from Peter Harrison's campaign was immense and it gave a whole squad of British sailors invaluable experience in the highly complex and, what was at the time, entirely new world of America's Cup racing.

Pre-GBR Challenge there was a scarcity of British sailors in America's Cup teams. Today many former GBR Challenge crew are now part of overseas campaigns in Valencia and have been joined by a number of top British Olympians including Gold medallists Iain Percy and Ben Ainslie. As both Sir Keith Mills and RYA Chief Executive Rod Carr explained this morning, the timing is very right at the moment for a UK-based campaign to win the America's Cup.

A major wave of highly talented sailors who have been preened by the RYA since youth squad days are now approaching or are into their 30s and in addition to their Olympic sailing now hold considerable experience in big boats and thanks to GBR Challenge, the Cup itself.

The America's Cup has evolved into a much more commercially viable entity following wins by Team New Zealand, but particularly after the victory of Alinghi. America's Cup Management (ACM) has been established propelling the commercial side of the event upwards so that it now ranks alongside other top sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup. The Acts have bridged what was previously a monotonous three or four year gap between events allowing commercial partners to get an on-going return on their investment.

A win by the Swiss team in 2003 has also resulted in the Cup coming to Spain making it much more accessible to European teams and their backers. There being little time difference between European countries means that the media impact particularly with live television, etc is vastly improved over Auckland or San Diego and technology has evolved to make the America's Cup a more interesting televisual sport.

Having won the Olympic bid, the climate is now very strong to continue riding the crest of this wave and to win another major sports property like the America's Cup.

But the person who is really going to make the big difference between the success of GBR Challenge and that of Origin (we remain unconvinced about the name - it is a reference to Britain's role in the creation of the America's Cup and the 'original, creative and innovative way they intend to structure the challenge) is Sir Keith Mills.

Mills' early career was in marketing and then in advertising. He moved into the business arena when in 1981 he led the buyout of the London office the advertising agency Nadler & Larimer. However he is best known in the business world for his customer loyalty schemes - it was he who originally came up with the concept of Air Miles back in the late 1980s, successfully launching it in Europe, America and the Middle East. He remains Chairman of a company that licenses Air Miles programmes internationally and also runs Nectar, a loyalty card scheme that rewards users of many high street retailers and other companies in the UK.

The Mills name moved from the financial pages to the front page, when in 2005 he spearheaded the campaign that resulted in London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games ahead of stiff competition from New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow. He remains non-executive Deputy Chairman alongside Lord Coe overseeing operations at London 2012.

Married with two children, Mills is a keen amateur sailor and in 1999 sailed on Alex Thomson's Ariel, winning the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. He has since been a lead investor in Alex Thomson's Open 60 programs.

In short, the new British America's Cup challenge is being led by a man who commands the utmost respect and credibility, who's management skill is beyond reapproach, who knows yachting and through his work tickling the International Olympic Committee in the right place with the 2012 Olympic bid, has already successfully manoeuvred his way through one of the few political arenas in sport even more complex than the America's Cup. As Rod Carr puts it "he is a winner."

While so many people in his position might be looking to limit their risk, Mills has emulated the likes of Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison in making the bold move of stating he will bankroll the entire Origin campagin to the tune of 30 million Euros per year. In addition his funding will cover not one, but two challenges, so if the next two Cup cycles take six years (it is assumed that the next Cup cycle will take place in two years, followed by a change of boat and then a four year Cup cycle) this will amount to 180 million Euros.

Mills this morning said he is personally underwriting all of this, but in reality has set a target of raising around 50% of the cost commercially - Alinghi and BMW Oracle are believed to have managed considerably more than this and in our interview him, Mills, a lifelong marketeer, states he also has some new ideas about how to monetise a Cup campaign. In addition he is already in touch with other 'British businessmen' who might be interested in sharing his personal financial commitment to the campaign. Thus if he can split his 50% personal liabilty three ways, this venture could cost him 30 million Euros over two America's Cups.

And the prospect of any Lottery funding? "I think the answer is no - it wouldn’t fit the right criteria," Rod Carr responded, with hurried agreement from the Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn at this morning's announcement.

Throughout conversations with him Mills seems very well up to speed with what a successful Cup campaign for Origin will entail and fully accepts that a large part of his involvement will be philanthrophic rather than a smart business investment. "There aren’t many people involved with sailing who get a return on their investment. As an assessment of that my Hugo Boss boat is lying at the bottom of the South Atlantic as we speak! So no, sadly this is not a great investment."

He follows this up by saying that the America's Cup only becomes a good investment if you win as he is clearly intending to. "These days commercial revenues generated by the America’s Cup both in terms of broadcast revenue and sponsorship are significant. So a winning team and the investors in a winning team are likely to get a significant return in the case of a win. But I wouldn’t suggest any co-investors in this venture look at it in anything other than a philanthropic exercise." He added, looking at the Minister for Sport - "I think as far as the Chancellor is concerned we are still able to get some tax relief against it?!"

Mills' reasons for attempting to win the America's Cup also seem to be the right ones. He already has the knighthood for his work with the 2012 bid and says he has no interested in the game of Big Boys Toys, international captains of industry gambling with their billions. It seems to genuinely gall him that while Britain has won most major sporting events - the World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the Ryder Cup - even the Ashes and in the long distance past Wimbledon, but in the UK - the country that created the event in the first place back in 1851 - no one has managed this with the America's Cup.

Mills says he was looking seriously at taking over from Peter Harrison with a challenge for this year's Cup, but was intercepted by the Chair of the London 2012 Olympic bid, Barbara Cassani, who persuaded him to join the bid as a CEO. "Interestingly her sales pitch to me as she was persuading me to take on the role of running the bid was ‘your chances of winning the America’s Cup will rise exponentially if you bring the Olympics to London’."

Typically new America's Cup campaigns are announced after the previous event are done and dusted. However as it is generally believed the next America's Cup will be held in 2009 (ie over an unprecidented short two year cycle) and this would not provide adequate time to get a new team fully up to speed, particularly as the next cycle is expected to launch quickly into some Acts in various locations around the world. Thus at this stage there is considerable work to be done. Mills says that in this short time frame they have to recruit the very best talent be it sailors, designers, boat builders, shore team, team management and support staff as well as acquiring all the necessary assets, training boats, design models, technology etc. They also need to decide upon and establish a base in the UK as well as in the venue for the 2009 Cup. Today's announcement, Mills says, should enable him to start firming up the process of getting Origin on the road as well as opening up discussions with potential yacht clubs and commercial backers.

In addition to this, making the announcement prior to the 32nd America's Cup will offer Mills and his marketing team a superb opportunity to woo potential partners as they will be able to show them the Louis Vuitton and America's Cup in action in Valencia this summer.

Announcing or even securing the services of the majority of Origin's personnel is hard at this stage since many, be they sailors, designers or even shore team, are currently under contract to other teams in Valencia, however Mills says he has had conversations with many of them and there is the possibility of entering into option agreements with some. We can expect a deluge of formal appointments in July as teams are knocked out of the Louis Vuitton series or the Cup itself.

It seems probable from what Mills and Carr say that most signings to Origin will be those already involved in this Cup cycle and that the team will be mostly British aside from areas where there is a clear weakness or there is a better man for the job.

According to Rod Carr there are 28 Brits involved with the Cup down in Valencia now and he reckons that most of those will be involved some way or other.

Thus the afterguard could include: Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy, Ian Walker, Simon Fisher, Adrian Stead, Andrew Simpson, Ian Moore, Paul Standbridge, Neal McDonald, Steve Hayles

After GBR Challenge's chopping and changing of helmsmen, there seems to be little doubt that Ben Ainslie will steer for Origin. He's been talking about it for years and it is one of the reasons why he helms the Emirates Team New Zealand B boat rather than being in the A boat afterguard.

Elsewhere on the boat: Chris Brittle, Matt Cornwell, Mo Gray, Guy Salter, Jim Turner, Andy Hemming, David Carr, Nik Pearson, Richard Sydenham, Ian Weighell

On the design team side: Ian Campbell, Andy Claughton, Giovanni Belgrano, Will Brook, Derek Clark, Jason Ker, Simon Alexander, Tom James, Simon Schofield, Rodney Fogg, Mark Hobbs

On the sails: Nigel Brown, Ian Pattison, Simon Palmer, Matt Tasker

Other names that spring to mind on the sailing side include Jules Salter, George Skuados and Ian Williams. (Apologies to anyone obvious we've missed out.)

One gets the impression that a list of the 'dream team' has already been written and many of the boxes ticked on it. For example Mills reckons that just over half will be British on this occasion, while Carr intimates that the Cup following 2009 is much more likely to be a case of "here come the Brits".

Over the last 12 months Carr and Mills, along with some anonymous helpers in Valencia, have been carrying out 'due diligence' (ie intelligence gathering) and this has gone well beyond the personnel available. They have looked at all the existing America's Cup teams to establish the best management structure for Origin as well as examined what went right and wrong with GBR Challenge.

As Rod Carr explains: "What is immediately apparent is that several different structures work and there is a winning formula, but there are some things which don’t work and we’ll be sure not to do those. There are a couple of things which do work – I think job clarity and responsibility is crucial, but also the communications route so that the sailors and the design team have what I call a motorway of communications between them, so that neither lead. All of that will be integral to the structure of this challenge."

Carr cites Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand as having two effective sturctures although they are polar opposites apart: the former very well structured and highly corporate and in a post-Coutts era with no single dominate figure, the latter ruled with an iron rod by Grant Dalton.

The management structure of Origin has already been decided upon and has very little in the way of middle management. King pin and the person one expects Mills will have the hardest job of recruiting is a CEO. This needs to be someone with serious management clout - after all they will be in charge of a medium sized company with possibly as many as 150 employees. As Carr puts it: "Keith isn’t going to be hands on day to day so we need to find people who do have that experience so we can hit the ground running."

Directly reporting to the CEO will be department heads of the sailing, design, meteorology teams etc while alongside the CEO will be an Operations Manager in charge of the non-sailing side such as personnel, legal, marketing, base support, etc. Everything will come through the CEO will report to Mills as Chairman. Mills is brilliant in this role says Carr: "I think what Keith brings to the whole thing is he is extremely experienced in ‘helicoptering’, both in the London bid and his own commercial business of standing above a complex situation and picking out the crucial decisions and I think that is absolutely vital and he has proven ability to do that and that is going to be key for us to make the ground up as quickly as we can."

Some key personnel not currently under contract already seem to be on board. In evidence at the announcement were Leslie Ryan and Nick Masson on the marketing side. Ryan was previously Head of Sponsorship and Marketing at GBR Challenge while Farnham-based Masson has a strong background in Formula 1 and was at one time Marketing Manager for Alinghi, for whom he has remained as a consultant up until joining Origin.

Former GBR Challenge helmsman Andy Green has been tasked with sorting out what assets are needed and what are available - the 'shopping list'.

If all goes according to plan with the 32nd America's Cup the feeling is there will not be a change of boats for the 33rd although it is generally felt that with the two year cycle prior to 2009 teams may be limited to building only one boat - if this is not the case there seems to be no question that Origin will build two. Thus the choice over boats is a case of either buying all the 2007 assets of a defunct team (at this stage it is very hard to establish who will continue and who won't) or the 2003 assets of one of the top teams (while a generation older, the 2003 boats will have been 'version 5ed' and heavily developed prior to the launch of a teams new boats). Thankfully due to a change in the America's Cup protocol when new teams buy boats off existing teams they are also now allowed to purchase a technology package including for example the R&D and in particular the engineering carried out in the design of the boats. Ernesto Bertarelli's wife is English - surely she could have a word?

Another important decision to be made is where in the UK the team will be based. Mills says there are in fact only three or four potential places in the UK that offer enough access to the sea, adequate draft, access to the open sea and convenience. In Rod Carr's summation:

Falmouth - great water, a long way away
Plymouth - reasonable water, still quite a long way away
Poole - newly dredged channel, interesting, Poole Bay very nice but a bit of long tow out.
Southampton - long way from reasonable water and a hell of a long tow out
Cowes - Chain ferry
Portsmouth - yes, either side possible, good communications and reasonable sailing waters.

Also to be decided is which club will tend Origin's challenge, as required by the Deed of Gift for the America's Cup. Following the announcement Mills says he is now in a position to start talking to Clubs and there is even the possibility he may issue the Challenge through the RYA - Desafio Espagnol have issued their challenge through the Spanish National Authority for example.

So what are the prospects of doing an Alinghi and winning straight out of the box? We put this to Rod Carr. "I think that is a tall order. But it is possible - it is sport. If it was predictable we wouldn’t be doing it. We are ambitious but we don’t want to limit what we are going to achieve by saying 'we are only going to make the semi-finals'. We are going to do as well as we can, confident we can hit the ground running and be a real threat."

Listen to an audio interview with Rod Carr here