TP52 round-up - part 2

We speak to MedCup Manager Fernando Inigo and Class Manager Rob Wieland about developments for 2008

This article follows on from part 1 here

Escalating costs

A concern in the TP52 class, as ever, is over escalating costs. While this has not got out of hand yet, typically, as we have seen in so many other classes in the past, the game gets raised and raised and eventually it becomes a case of the person with the most money wins and the class implodes.

To counter this occurring the MedCup organisers have imposed some limitations, such size of the sail wardrobe, and there is the inherent tightness of the box rule, but other than this there is little they or the class can do to limit crew costs, teams building new boats each year, etc. If Cup teams enter the fray and start approaching the circuit in a more serious way still - two boat testing, individual R&D programs, tank testing, wind tunnels, etc - then costs in the class could take a quantum leap.

Interestingly the MedCup fleet is unique in having a mix of sponsored boats, as most of the Med-based campaigns are, and private owners. This year it has been the privately owned boats, in particular Artemis and Mean Machine, who are believed to have had the biggest budgets.

Looking ahead

The 2008 MedCup calendar for the TP52s will differ greatly from 2007 in that there is no America's Cup to conflict with the series. As a result it will start at least a month earlier, with the first event in May, rather than the end of June as it was this year. The MedCup organisers have been hanging on waiting for ACM to announce the dates of their 2008 Acts, but in the end have had to get with their planning. One hopes that ACM will be smart enough not to schedule their 2008 Acts to conflict since so many personnel from their event will racing the MedCup.

The 2008 circuit will comprise six events, three in Spain, three out of Spain, most probably in Italy, France and Portugal. "We need to improve the logistics in terms of boats going from A to B and C and not up and down, because deliveries up and down the Med in September or in April is not good," says Nacho Postigo.

The MedCup circuit is likely to start in Italy, then go to France (or vica versa), then Spain before finishing in Portugal. The season will then conclude with the Global Championships in the Canary Islands at the end of the year. While not part of the MedCup, around ten TP52s, mainly Spanish boats, are competing in a regatta in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote in the middle of this month as their conclusion to the 2007 season and to prepare them for next year's championship.

Bigger game

Most noticable about the MedCup circuit this year is how much bigger it feels than in 2006, not just in terms of boat numbers, but in the shoreside razzmatazz. To give some indication of the size - at the first regatta of the season in Alicante around 1000 people were involved in the event from crews to shore crew to organisers and their ground staff to media, etc.

According to Fernando Inigo, the MedCup' Marketing Manager and who joined the trio of organisers (including Nacho Postigo and Ignacio Triay) following a tie up between the circuit and the Spanish sports marketing company Santa Monica, the overall budget for the MedCup increased six fold for the 2007 season compared to 2006. And he adds they are looking to double this again for next year to around the 10 million Euro mark. For this season the organisers themselves invested heavily - around 2 million Euros - in the circuit, as Inigo puts it - "we thought this year was really important for the product to get to the level we want to have it at."

Inigo is at the sharp end of the negotiations with a new title sponsor for 2008 and on. Present sponsor Breitling has the option on this. The current deal is with Breitling in Spain and the Swiss watch manufacturer is believed to be trying to get more support for the circuit from their parent company in Switzerland. If not Breitling then Audi is the most likely contender. "At a dinner in Palma we had the no2 of Audi AG and he said clearly that they want to be involved in sailing and the MedCup is for them," says Inigo. "So that is really strong for us. They are a great partner, it is perfect for the circuit for other sponsors, they are really really serious in the way they work and we are really happy to have them next year if it is possible."

Inigo is keen to develop the shore-side of the regatta further and to get the host ports more involved. Already this year they have had the boats moored nearer to the centre of towns and have a giant tent for sponsors and crew and other interested parties to come and schmooze before and after racing. He wants to up the game further next year by having a giant screen ashore to display a tracking system like Virtual Eye (as used for the America's Cup) combined with live commentary. He reckons getting live TV is probably a step too far given that TV broadcasts haven't shown much interest in it. "Obviously it would be interesting if TV needed it, but they don’t need live sailing," he says. "I have had a lot of talks with Spanish television who did all the America’s Cup and they had huge drawbacks with this situation. Live sailing for TV - sailing has to find the budget."

Another potential conflict of interest of the marketing and promotional side of the event, but one that has yet to rear its head, is due to the mix of privately owned boats and those that are sponsored. The latter obviously are looking for a PR machine to realise value for their backers while the former have little reason to be interested in this, although they must surely like being part of the bigger jamboree that sponsorship has brought.

"There are some boats which aren’t interested in having a commercial village, communications, etc. but I think it is important to have private owners and if to have a good level you need private owners, for me it is okay," says Inigo. "The combination has worked until now, so we need to continue in this way, but obviously I would prefer to have more sponsored boats."

TP52 class

As to the TP52 class itself - which remains independent of the MedCup - power has devolving away pretty much entirely from its roots in California to the Mediterranean. At the beginning of this year control of the class was passed over to Rob Wieland, who is now Class Manager of the TP52 Class (it is no longer called an association). For Wieland most of this year has spent getting the TP52 house in order ready for its recognition by the ISAF.

"Before the President, Tom Pollack, was running the class on its own and then a couple of years after he started it, when it became bigger and bigger there was an Executive Committee with a Chairman but on paper Tom could still overrule any decision," explains Wieland. "And we wanted to join ISAF and we wanted to write by-laws that were really giving the rights to all the owners together. Nobody foresaw that the class would grow so big in such a short time, so we are running a bit behind in cleaning up our house."

The recently re-worded constitution was approved by the owners last week at a meeting in Porto Cervo where Cristabella owner John Cook was appointed Class President and an Executive Committee was elected.

Aside from sorting out the class infrastructure Wieland has also spent considerable time this year re-writing the TP52 rule. While the TP52 has its own box, many of its rules were based on the 2005 iteration of the IMS. With Wieland's rewrite of the rule it is now totally autonomous from the IMS and as he puts it "IMS has two books, rules and regulations, and basically from 120 pages of rules we are now down to 40." But from now on rule changes must be approved by ISAF and then the class.

According to Wieland the rewrite hasn't fundamentally altered the rule, but has tightened up a lot of detail. "IMS over the years has made some slips, so we have had a lot of interpretations that we have worked into the rule and there are a lot of little frustrations that we had that I have tried to clean up and a lot of rewording. Because IMS is a rating, I have replaced a lot of '5% of xyz', by an actual number. So standing headroom is no longer a percentage of God know’s what, it is an actual number and volumes are fixed volumes so it makes it much easier to read and to work with. In IMS a lot of details for sails and rigs are spread all over the rules. Now if you want to know about sails it is only in the chapter about sails." For example previously the rule included much about symmetrical kites which were simply never used by the boats. This has been removed and now the boats can only carry A sails.

Aside from this the only major change to the class at the owner's meet last week was that professional drivers are now allowed to compete at the Global/World Championship (until now it has been owner-driver, while the MedCup has allowed pro-drivers). "That is a good one because we will get a lot more boats now. The sponsored teams will be more inclined to send their teams in," says Wieland.

One aspect of the rule which many people including Russell Coutts and Mark Reynolds have said they want changed is the single backstay - a hangover from IMS or a Farr 40-style feature designed to make the boats easier to sail. According to Wieland a technical committee has been set up to look at this issue, although for 2008 it is unlikely they will go the whole hog and allow twin runners and square-topped mainsails. "They could be getting slightly bigger roaches on the jibs, it could be that we define the roach of the mainsail rather than the backstay defining it. That could still change. It is again a cleaning up action."

While these changes are likely to be relatively minor the class has set themselves the task of spending the next 12 months studying ways to turbo the TP52. The backstay issue will certainly be resolved in the turbo version, but the boat is also expected to be lighter (at present newer boats carry around 800kg of correctors, which could be shed) and Wieland reckons they will also refine rig details. "Although the box will be changes slightly, the old boats will still fit in the box. The new boats will be not far way from the ones we have now, so we are not making a complete new box, but it will be a much quicker boat all round."

The ugly coachroofs, dictated by the minimum coachroof area requirement within the IMS is also set to be remedied. "At the moment it looks like someone played with Lego blocks!" admits Wieland. "The rest of the boat looks really nice, so we don’t want to change freeboard height, width-length ratios - it looks good, but a lighter, stiffer boat will be quicker all round and that could be exciting. We are really making steps forward instead of slowly seeing it getting older and older. It is a brave move from the owners. They all voted in favour of this."

And so it seems here, we have not only a class at its zenith at present, but a group of reasonably like-minded owners smart enough to put an organisational infrastructure in place that will allow the class to do that one thing that is often so difficult in box rules - to evolve.