America's Cup-lite

We look at the Louis Vuitton Trophy and speak to its principle architect, Bruno Trouble

The Louis Vuitton Trophy Nice Cote d’Azur, which concludes this weekend, represents a welcome return to competition for the America’s Cup teams, a positive distraction from billionaire titans slogging it out in court over the minutae of their forthcoming multihull event.

The atmosphere in Nice is somewhere between that of the Acts held prior to the 32nd AC, and the World Match Racing Tour, with teams intermingling at the event’s tented base on the west side of Nice Harbour. Significantly different to the Acts is that the teams are not racing their own boats. Instead they have Mascalzone Latino’s V5 boats ITA-90 and 99 racing in one pair and TeamOrigin’s GBR-75 (formerly Alinghi’s SUI-75) and FRA-93 ALL4ONE (ex K-Challenge/Areva Challenge).

Nice in November has proved not to be the optimum choice of venue for such an event given at this time of year the generally light conditions off Nice and shortage of daylight hours, however it has been a good opportunity for an ‘America’s Cup-lite’ event to take place, for the existing teams to practice and for both existing and new teams to cohese. For in addition to the three new campaigns - Torbjorn Tornqvist’s Artemis, the Russians on Synergy (both already campaigning TP52s on the Audi MedCup circuit) and the Yacht Club Costa Smerelda’s new Azzurra - pretty much throughout the campaigns there have also been personnel changes.

In alphabetical order – the ALL4ONE team is an amalgamation of the former K-Challenge with German Olympic legend and former Alinghi afterguard Jochen Schümann. Their sailing team is almost completely new and includes another ex-Alinghian in Spanish 470 Gold Medallist Jordi Calafat and tactician John Cutler, who was with Desafio Espanol in Valencia.

Artemis features a crew largely brought over from their TP52 but with a monster US afterguard including Terry Hutchinson steering and Kevin Hall navigating (both having been with Emirates Team NZ in Valencia) and with Morgan Larson as tactician and Paul Cayard as skipper, who, bizarrely, has spent most of his time on the water suspended aloft.

The Italians in the combined YCCS/Joe Fly Azzurra team have plenty of ex-Cup talent to pick from with Mascalzone Latino presently disbanded, in terms of their Cup activity at least, and Luna Rossa/Prada having started from scratch with their sailing team (now focussing on their STP65 – although Patricio Bertelli was in Nice last weekend roaming the dock with an ‘I should be here too’ expression on his face). They have ex-Prada/Luna Rossa afterguard Francesco Bruni helming. Aside from Cup activites, Bruni has been part of the Joe Fly team that are ex-Farr 40 European champions (and second at the Worlds in 2008) and 2008 Melges 32 World Champions. Their afterguard includes Tommaso Chieffi, who was with Shosholoza in Valencia, another ex-Luna Rossa in American Tom Burnham and +39 navigator Bruno Zirilli.

BMW Oracle’s line-up might be considered their ‘B-team’, but in terms of combined talents this is every bit as A-list as the competitors. Due to commitments in San Diego and particularly in New York over the last days, Russell Coutts has handed over helming duties to Gavin Brady. Their crew line-up is mostly Kiwi, with Hamishes Pepper and Willcox as tactician and strategist. and ex-Luna Rossa afterguard Michele Ivaldi navigating,

Emirates Team NZ has mostly their familiar posse, but with the new and familiar face of Jules Salter, riding the crest of a wave following his Volvo Ocean Race win, as their new navigator.

The Synergy team bares little resemblance to the TP52 sailing team with many new non-Russian hired guns. Cameron Dunn, who has raced their TP52, has made a much overdue graduation up to BMW Oracle Racing (where he is on traveller in Nice) while Karol Jablonski (Desafio helm in Valencia) is driving, Chris Main is (you guessed it...) on main, Hamble’s own son Jim Turner is grinding for him, US, ex-Alinghi, Cup veteran Josh Belsky is in his normal realm in the pit and they have Bernard Labro and Mikael Lundh working the bow.

As reported last week, TeamOrigin have Ian Moore and Rob Greenhalgh back in their afterguard now the Volvo Ocean Race is over. TFS-Pages Jaunes has some factionalisation in it at present management-wise between Bertrand Pacé and Marc Pajot, but Pacé seems to be running the show in Nice and has the cream of French match racing supporting him in the afterguard - Matthieu Richard strategist, Philippe Presti tactician and Damien Iehl on traveller - all of whom have skippered their own teams on the World Match Racing Tour in the last year.

Louis Vuitton Trophy

The Louis Vuitton Trophy events are run by an organisation called the World Sailing Team Association, established this the spring from the initiative of Larry Ellison, Louis Vuitton CEO Yves Carcelle, Grant Dalton, Bruno Troublé and Russell Coutts, following the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in February.

While the WSTA is headed by America’s Cup veteran Laurent Esquier, the man pulling the strings is of course the charismatic Frenchman Bruno Troublé, himself a former America’s Cup helmsman, but better known as co-ordinator of Louis Vuitton’s activities around the America’s Cup and specifically the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series, dating back to 1983.



The WSTA comprises eight preferential shareholders including Emirates Team NZ, BMW Oracle Racing, Artemis and Synergy (each of which paid 1 million Euros for this privilege) while K-Challenge and TeamOrigin are normal shareholders. The preferential shareholders are represented individually on the WSTA board while the normal shareholders get one vote between them.

"The idea from Vuitton and my idea was because after so many years in the America’s Cup we wanted to bring the sailors, the family back on the water," says Troublé of his latest baby. "You don’t realise that but by having the duel [the AC33] about 3,000 people including the sail makers, etc, like a big company is down. 3,000 people are out of work. Here maybe we employ about 500-600 people, which is not bad."

He continues: "The concept works. Because of the economic situation, providing the boats rather than asking teams to build boats or transport boats, the budget is minimal. Teams come with shirts and foul weather gear and they buy a genniker for us, so they are all the same gennikers. We take care of the branding, so when they jump on the boat, suddenly the boat becomes their boat with branding." While the hulls remain in the colours of the team that provided them, stickers are put on the mainsail in the reverse order the boats will be sailed and simply peeled off with each change of team.

"Also in terms of ecology it is good to reuse the America’s Cup Class boats, because 100 of them were built and there are many boats, many pairs of boats with a lot of masts and sails. So the concept works well. For sure we are limited to 10 teams, even here we decided to only have eight teams because of the weather conditions. We’ll go back to the normal format with 10 teams in March in Auckland."



According to Troublé the present event in Nice came together at the 11th hour when it became apparent back in June that the Louis Vuitton Trophy event due to have taken place this month in Hong Kong was not going to happen since their base there wasn’t going to be finished in time. The green light to go to Nice came just two months ago in record time, thanks to the support of Nice’s influential Mayor and French politician, Christian Estrosi (above left, with Louis Vuitton's Yves Carcelle centre). Nice has also this year hosted the IMOCA class’ Istanbul Europa Race.

Going forward four more Louis Vuitton Trophy events are set for 2010. These are:

Auckland – 6-21 March
La Maddelena – 20 May-6 June (La Maddelena being an island off Sardinia’s Costa Smerelda)
Newport, RI – August
Hong Kong – November

In Auckland they will once again use the Emirates TNZ and BMW Oracle Racing boats, while for the northern European events Troublé says he hopes to have the present four they are using in Nice plus another pair, so that they can either run six boats per flight or have two boats in reserve. He is uncertain as yet whether the northern European boats will be used for the Newport event. In fact the Newport event has still to come together. "We have to find the finance to go to Newport/New York because it is extremely difficult to raise public money in America. It is a country of freedom and they never get private money for so-called ‘private events’ like Louis Vuitton. I am a member of the NYYC so we might raise money from some of the rich members of New York YC. We will try that!"

For Nice, the format of racing has also seen a change. In Auckland, Emirates Team NZ, as winner of the previous Louis Vuitton Cup {and thus its defender], was fast tracked directly through to the finals. In Nice it is simply the top two boats that will end up in this weekend’s final. Troublé says he prefers the Nice format and has yet to have ‘the conversation’ with Emirates Team NZ boss Grant Dalton about which will be used in Auckland. "We’ll have some tough discussions on that. He will be willing to reproduce what we did last year, but I think that is not fair. It is not the America’s Cup. It should be open to everyone on an equal basis."

While the events are in the process of being set up, more teams are also looking at joining up for 2010's events. In Nice for example there is no China Team, Damiani Italia Challenge, Luna Rossa, Team Shosholoza or Greek Challenge that raced at the Louis Vuitton Pacific Cup in February. While they may return there are new prospects from the second Russian TP52 teams, Valars, while Troublé may or may not be joking when he says that has been contacted by Alinghi’s un-employed grinders who are thinking about setting up a team.

America's Cup

No conversation with Troublé is obviously compete without his airing his views on the America’s Cup and we attempt to lead the conversation without getting swamped by the present quagmire.

"I think this duel [the two boat AC 33] is necessary as soon as possible, so we can go back to what the Deed of Gift says “a friendly competition among nations”. So the sooner the better," he says. "If the Ameirca’s Cup goes back on track, and I hope it will, she is an old lady but she is great, I hope they will bring back some nationality rule. Because to have a Swiss boat with no Swiss on board, means nothing. Those boats need to carry some national pride. So I am very much in favour of that. But then I have no say.

"So I think this event [the 33rd AC] will be very interesting in terms of technology, mainly for us French, because we have always been interested in multihulls. For sure to see those multihulls with no limit of budget and focussing on sailing in light airs - which is not the case with those that go across the Atlantic - it is very interesting in terms of technology and it is zero interest in terms of sport. The first race is 20 miles, 10 up, 10 down. If there is one minute of difference at the weather mark - which is not much - it is over 1km. So you need two TV screens to watch the racing because the boats won’t ever be close. They are even talking about having two starting lines so that they don’t fight before the start. They might have umpires in helicopters because they can’t keep up on the water. The boats could sail at well over 40 knots."

So if not state of the art multihulls - what would his preference be for a boat for the 34th America’s Cup? "I would do an America’s Cup immediately in 2011 on these boats [V5s], allowing any team to buy an existing boat, because at this moment you have to build the boat in your country, etc. But if you buy secondhand, for new teams, we should do that to open up the game. So we have a race in 2011 on ACC boats and then we change to a new class. I would recommend that."

As to the new boat itself he reckons it should be lighter but he still is in favour of boats that are “stuck in the water”. “When you have a boat that can jump from 10 to 20 knots by luffing 10 degrees, this is not match racing. We can have some very good boats, faster, more spectacular, less crew, a big bowsprit, whatever, but those boats should not accelerate because then the leader would fly away."

And his views on an independent organisation for the America’s Cup, as championed most recently by Paul Cayard? "That is a dream, because that means we have to change the Deed of Gift and to do that is nearly impossible, because you have to get the support of all the previous Trustees, etc. And I don’t see that happening unless the teams agree."

Trouble adds that if you could do that, maybe the marketing should be driven by the defender to make more money or a commercial company with more shares for the defender (he suggests 60%). "So they work on the PR and press side of it. But I think the sport should be totally independent, which isn’t the case at the moment. It smells when one of the soccer teams is naming the umpires."

The million dollar question of course is what will happen to the Louis Vuitton Trophy should the America’s Cup resolve itself in Feburary 2010 or after another round or two of costly court proceedings thereafter.

"I see that there are three scenarios," says Troublé. "i) America winning - we are back to monohulls, open to the countries. We, Vuitton, already have a deal with them. So that is the traditional America’s Cup. Then we have two scenarios with Alinghi winning the Cup. It will be difficult if Alinghi win and go back to monohulls, as they will try to stop us and I don’t think we should try to survive. Either Vuitton will be back with the Louis Vuitton Cup or we’ll be out. The third scenario is Alinghi winning and staying on multihulls, and if that happens then there is a chance for this series to survive.”

So if BMW Oracle Racing win the 33rd America’s Cup there is the likelihood that the Louis Vuitton Trophy series will become the equivalent of the Acts for the 34th America’s Cup.

And the Louis Vuitton Cup? "It depends on the budget and other things," concludes Troublé. "The decision would be made a year from now and you never know what happens. But the America’s Cup is in the blood of Vuitton."