Team Aqua goes two hulled

Jim Turner tells us about Chris Bake's doubleheaded RC44 and Extreme 40 campaign

A slight surprise this year was the appearance of Chris Bake’s Team Aqua onto the Extreme 40/iShares Cup circuit. Coming from seemingly nowhere, Bake’s Team Aqua competed in the first proper season of the Russell Coutts 44 circuit last year - and won it. This year Bake’s team intends to continue with the RC44s, returning to the circuit to defend their title in the all-carbon inshore racing monohull, but at the same time is now also going catamaran.

Bake himself has sailed previously, but over recent years has focussed on his profession culminating in his present position as Managing Director of energy giant Vitol, in Dubai. While Bake backs Team Aqua, the campaign is run by former Team New Zealand B boat driver Cameron Appleton and Britain’s own Jim Turner.

“Chris saw the RC 44s at an exhibition event in Dubai,” recounts Jim Turner. “He chatted to Russell, ordered a boat and Russell put him in contact with Cameron who at the time had left K Challenge. So he was available to manage the program and get it all running and set up. He put together a good bunch of guys and they won the first proper season in the RC 44.”

However over this time Team Aqua has become more than a fancy name for Bake’s sailing team. “Chris has given Cameron and I the chance to create a professional sailing team under the Team Aqua brand,” says Turner. The original plan for 2008 was to compete not only on the RC 44 circuit and iShares Cup but to field a Team Aqua-branded team on the World Match Racing Tour too. “At the time we made the decision, last October-November, the schedule was looking perfect," says Turner. “As it turned out a lot of events changed dates and clashing, such as Lugano and Austria, where we ended up with Cameron and Andy Escourt, sailing on the RC 44 in Austria.”

So why the Extreme 40s? “There was a lot of chat about it in the RC 44 fleet last year, particularly with Oracle and Alinghi getting Extreme 40s,” says Turner. “With no America’s Cup going on it is a pretty good class to get into. It is not super expensive - it is not a TP52 commitment. It is a good televised circuit, like the RC44, which will get our name around, because we are courting sponsors under the Team Aqua name.”

According to Turner the sponsor hunting is going well and if the Extreme 40s do end up sailing in the Volvo Ocean Race stopovers around the world, then they have a backer who will pay for them to compete.

In the fact the Volvo Ocean Race is a slightly thorny topic for Turner, who during his time with Areva Challenge in Valencia was attempting to get a VOR campaign together out of Singapore and had even paid a preliminary entry fee to the race. This Turner says was a move to get into the management side of campaigns. “The best way to do that was to do it off my own bat. So I spent a year creating a team out of Singapore. But I wanted to do it with all the blocks in place before I made an announcement. (Mean Machine took the opposite approach – announcing first they found funding). I wanted to say ‘here’s our team, here’s how much money we’ve got, here’s who’s involved, etc’.”

According to Turner they had managed to round up more than 50% of what he describes as a ‘good level budget’ at the time when they had to make the call over whether or not to start building. “It was a case of do we or don’t we? We took the decision not to, because if it was the first project I was managing properly I didn’t want to run out of money half way round and having to spend the next five years having to build my reputation back.”

It should be pointed out that Turner’s Volvo aspirations were prior to his involvement with Team Aqua. “I am good friends with Cameron, we’ve been match racing together,” continues Turner. “He knew I was doing that and I knew he was doing Team Aqua. He said ‘why don’t we club together with Chris and not necessarily do the Volvo, but start off with the Extreme 40 and the RC44 and whatever classes develop in the future.’”

So the idea is to make Team Aqua into a business. “We are fully aware that without Chris we couldn’t have done it and we are all fully aware that it is a pretty hard time to find sponsorship money," continues Turner. "But we think that by building our brand and being professional and hopefully doing a good job on the water that we can go to companies and say ‘here's who we are and what we’re doing - want to be a part of this?’ As opposed to saying ‘we’d like to do this’ we can invite them to events and show them we’re doing it. So it is a good opportunity for us.”

While there will be a nucleus of sailors - principally Appleton and Andy Escourt who will sail both the RC44 and the Extreme 40, there are other crew who will only sail on one or other of the boats. For example Alistair Richardson will only helm their Extreme 40 throughout the season. While they missed Lugano, Appleton and Escourt will sail the remain four iShares Cup events while Turner will be doing three (due to his commitments to John Cook’s Cristabella campaign) while Dan Johnson and Jonathan ‘Boycey’ Taylor will be doing two each. Richardson, Johnson and Boycey had a various times sailed as part of the now defunct Basilica team, last year’s winners and were brought on board as both Turner and Appleton recognised that coming in afresh they needed some crew with Extreme 40 experience.

Aside from the involvement of the AC teams, the iShares Cup and the way the circuit has been set up with its fifth man positions is potentially good for involving sponsors. However for Appleton and Turner there was also an element of wanting to try something new. “On Cristabella - I think it is my 10th season, sailing at the same events in the same locations," says Turner. "I love doing it and the racing’s great, but it is nice to be doing something completely different. With this you are learning to sail on two hulls, 12 minutes short races, and doing something out of our comfort zone.”

As to the iShares Cup, Turner says it is superb. Team Aqua’s first exposure to the Extreme 40s was a week spent sailing in the Solent in sun and a consistent 10-15 knots. “The last fast boat I sailed was an International 14, when we won the Europeans back in 1997. I have been under 10 knots for the last 11 years, so this is welcome back.”