Jochen Schuemann on the Cup

The Olympic legend updates us on Team Germany, his TP52 campaign and gives his view on 'the Onorato letter'

Following the recent outpourings of Grant Dalton and of Mascalzone Latino boss Vincenzo Onorato, both rather less than flattering towards the America's Cup defender, so Alinghi's PR machine yesterday leapt into overdrive to redress the balance with journalists being offered the opportunity to speak to the high ranking pro-Swiss among the challengers such as Team Shosholoza's Captain Salvatore Sarno, Desafio Espagnol's Augustin Zuleta or Team Germany's Jochen Schuemann. Understanding that Schuemann is Alinghi's former Sports Director and helmsman, we figured it would be a good opportunity to talk to the East German sailing legend and quadruple Olympic medallist about the fate of the shortly to be defunct German Team he left Alinghi to join last August and of his TP52 campaign.

thedailysail: So what is the state of play with Team Germany?

Jochen Schuemann: Mr Scheeren [Michael Scheeren, Team German's owner] has already announced that he is going to close down the German team on 31 March and that is what is going to happen. [Read the announcement from the end of January here]

tds: Competely?

JS: Yes

tds: Might it restart?

JS: That is hard to stay. I have a certain understanding for the difficulty of the situation of the sponsors who are paying for the team. But at the same time when you have already invested quite a lot of money and time you should not throw it away by closing it down 100%. We know that most of the other teams, except 'the two' are in the same situation to the Germans. Obviously they have found solutions, retainer solutions or others, so they can go on with basic research and keep their people bound by contracts instead of firing everyone. So that is the risky situation we are approaching here, because all that we have done well over the past six months might fall apart and run away, so we lose all our investment, which I think is not the smartest way from the investors and the owner of the team.

As soon as we have more reliability on the future of the Cup I think we will come back and to be honest I think since the German team has so far not been in the leading group of the America’s Cup I think we actually gained some time to have a positive look at the whole messed-up situation. If we could use it reasonably I think it could be to our advantage. Obviously from a different view you see different opportunities: I think when you look at it as a sportsman or as a pure team member, you’d use the time for physical preparation, intellectual preparation, technical preparation and development to put you in a better starting position than you have been in. I think that was our first conclusion and why we started in September/October when we were the only team operating, sailing and catching up quite a bit of ground.

tds: There's a rumour of some of the challengers setting up their own races to keep things going?

JS: We have been the driving force to organise some Grand Prix events, as we called them. Obviously when sponsors pay they want return on their investment so as long as we have no public appearances there is obviously no return on their investment. So we have to create our own events to show that. With the experience, especially from the 2006 Grand Prix in Kiel - with only three teams it was quite an exciting event - I think there is an opportunity still to run one, two, three events in Trieste, Kiel, Valencia, which would give all the teams who are on stand-by or on a retainer situation some public appearance to give their sponsors a little bit of return. I think it would be good for the sailors, good for the media and good for the investors and in the end good for sailing and the Cup to see that we are still alive - that teams are ready on stand-by and interested and that the court fight is not the only fight.

tds: So are you still actively trying to achieve that?

JS: Our sponsors have stepped back temporarily, but as soon as there are activities they promise to come back and when the Grand Prix events are on a good level with the participation of other top teams, then I think they might come back quite soon. So it is like a chicken and egg situation where you have to negotiate with the venues and the teams and none of them are reliable at the moment, yet because they are in a situation which has not grown. So we will see.

tds: Who is trying to set up the regattas?

JS: I think our team was in the lead and obviously we discussed a couple of times back and forth the whole concept of it and we were in close consultancy with Origin, the Spanish and Victory Challenge. Obviously all the teams are in a similiar situation as we are - they have the same interests and problems to solve and one way to solve it is a couple of Grand Prix regattas.

tds: When would they be?

JS: There is quite a clear schedule and we are waiting for a few more answers and if they become true we would announce quite soon that they are going to happen. It will be late summer and it will end in October in Valencia with a kind of World Championship or whatever.

tds: So what is your view on the latest developments in the Alinghi v BMW Oracle fiasco?

JS: From our point of view it is according to expectations. I didn’t expect anything different to what happened. I can’t see any agreement between the two on any point they will discuss. That was my opinion from the beginning. So I think during the consultancy process of the new class rule, the new event rule and new event regulations we have been close enough to agree on common rules and go racing again, but obviously there was no interest to join and to have one rule for all of us and have a normal America’s Cup. Since then it has got worse and worse, and I’m sure whatever they have a dispute about they will need a court and judge to make a clear call. Hopefully the US court will make clear calls so that the whole court **** fight is over soon. I don’t see any point on which these two will agree.

tds: The court needs to define the detail too?

JS: They can’t leave any details for the two to decide on. They must rule on it all and then they can send them out for a fight and then the winner is the new ruler and then we can get on with it again. To be honest I don’t know much about it because I think we are so far away and have no influence and it is so ridiculous that I am not one to be involved. We have to go through this difficult period, but hopefully we will be back on the water at some point.

tds: So this year you're TP52 sailing?

JS: We all expected for some time that this would be a weak period of the Cup and I think we have all been prepared to go racing and keep our sailing talent awake. The TP52 class is providing great racing, the closest possible racing to the America’s Cup. I think most teams and crews and helmsmen from the America’s Cup we will see in the TP52 class and we are taking one of our sponsors, Audi, out there and they are obviously the event sponsor for the MedCup. So I hope that sailing can provide a great marketing platform for a lot of businesses and that hopefully that will strengthen the future of the Cup, because obviously we need sponsorship and I think sailing is still quite a wide field, so we have opportunities. It is a pity that a very very strong beginning here in Europe for the Cup has now turned into a court case.

tds: The boat you are sailing is the new Platoon? It is the same owner [Harm Muller-Spreer], it is a privately owned boat and the same name, but a new team which is mainly the group from Team Germany, the sailors from the Cup team and the other group of our Cup sailors will be on Bribon, mainly the Spanish and Italian guys who were with the Spanish team before and moved to our team. So we have nearly all our sailors involved in the MedCup circuit. That is the only way to keep them busy and keep them trained. Because sportsmen can’t lay down or they won’t get better.

tds: Surely there is time to fit in another Olympic campaign?!

JS: The Olympics is a game for the youth. When you have been an Olympic champion you know how to fight for medals and I know that you can’t jump in a boat and make it in one year. The other guys are investing too much effort and are too good in their classes, so you can’t do that. I don’t want to be 20th or 10th, I want to win and to do that in one year would be wishful thinking.

tds: Are you sailing any other boats this year?

JS: I am sailing other boats but the main campaign is Platoon with Audi and we hope that there will be a few Grand Prix for the AC class in the V5 boats. So it will be a tough season. On the TP52 I will be steering and probably the owner will for a couple of races, but we are a fully professional crew with Cup sailors from Team Germany.

tds: And finally....

JS: I read today the long letter from Vincenzo [Onorato] which I can’t agree on fully. When you want to cover the whole situation you have to write a very very long letter like he did, because there are so many aspects involved.

If you want to go to court you always need two parties and both parties made mistakes. Alinghi winning the Cup made some mistakes by not being precise enough and having too much [he hesitates to find the right word] euphoria from winning the Cup. They were too relaxed in issuing a protocol which was not 100% sealed. So that opened the door to Russell and Larry to try and gain as much influence as they could over the Cup without being the Cup holder. They have a strong, well thought strategy from day one, or before Alinghi won the Cup to push for and to me, surprisingly, they got through the New York Supreme Court pushing their strategy and got all the calls in their favour. For me it is them just pushing for power and ruling the Cup.

tds: [Ouch!] So it was not to do with it being an unfair one sided protocol?

JS: They are using the weak protocol, which Alinghi is in charge of, so that is why Alinghi opened the doors. But there has been a clear strategy to attack Alinghi and the Protocol and the Cup by Russell and Larry and they are closer to the Cup than they got to it on the water. And now they are pushing on time because there is a clear chance that if they keep following their strategy they might win clearly the catamaran race and when they do the next conventional Cup, they’ll win that as well because there is no one really prepared, since everyone has slowed down and fired people and it not up to speed, except the two. So he has got a smart strategy and is pushing hard for it - that is one of the strengths of Russell: he always comes with a clear strategy. But from my point of view, from the sport’s point of view, it is the wrong one because he is only fighting for himself.

Vincenzo tries to put it in a light that he is fighting for the good of the sport and the good of all of us. This is not true. Obviously a lot of people signed the protocol, even if it was a weak one, and we all have been in consultancy with Alinghi and we defined a very nice boat in the AC90 class and we agreed on most of the other rules which were basically nearly ready to go. So if Oracle would have joined at that time we would have had a very fantastic America’s Cup in 2009. But since they are not ruling it and Alinghi was still ruling it, they didn’t agree. And they won’t to agree anything with Alinghi. So they are fighting only to get into power and that is what their whole strategy is about.

tds: They argue that Alinghi have made very few concessions?

JS: For good reason. Alinghi is the Cup holder and when you simplify all the difficult rulings for more than 100 years, the Cup holder rules the Cup. Isn’t that one of the basic rules?

tds: Isn't it supposed to be a more democratic process?

JS: But it was. What can you do more than sit down with the entered challengers, with six or seven teams, and have a long consultancy process over months where we agree details of the class and the racing rules and the event regulations - is that not democratic? All the teams tried to mediate between Alinghi and BMW Oracle and we got very very close. We got a list of 40 points down to two points, but when there is no will to agree - you can’t do anything!

tds: They disagreed over agreeing...

JS: A journalist asked me if I prefer the AC V5 boats or whatever. I said this is not what sport is about. Sport is about having one unique rule and everyone who is interested in joining the competition joins under the same rule. When you raise the question what is more preferable for you or what [boat] is your biggest advantage in because you have the better boat in that or that class, then you never agree and you never get a good competition. To have a valuable win is about having a valuable competition first. When you get an easy win - there is nothing worse. You might look good in the history books because you have a better record, but people who understand know that it was an easy win and it doesn’t count really. So we need to agree on one rule, whatever it is, it can be the old class, the new class, a catamaran, - as long as it is the same rule and everyone knows the rule at the same time, then we have a good competition and all the good ones will come out and will fight for it. When you look for your own advantage that is never going to happen. It will be an exclusive race that these two might have - but it is needs to be ruled by the court, they won’t agree on any terms.

So there...