Bring on the Cup teams

Race Director Nacho Postigo talks us through the TP52's Audi MedCup circuit for 2008

The global economy may be on the verge of meltdown but joining the newly rechristened Audi MedCup, for the circuit’s fourth season, will be an impressive eight brand TP52s. Like so many of the top race boat circuits at present, the MedCup is benefitting from the present America’s Cup hiatus and with teams in Valencia still twiddling their thumbs waiting to hear their fate, so even more Cup sailors will be taking to TP52s this year.

Among the first to announce he would be building new once again was the 2006 MedCup winner, Peter de Ridder. As was the case with the Monaco-based Dutchman’s previous TP52, the boat – de Ridder’s 22nd Mean Machine race boat - is a design by Judel-Vrolijk, built by Cooksons in NZ. De Ridder has a long term tie-up with Team New Zealand and with reports of mass lay-offs within the Kiwi Cup team, so his mostly Kiwi crew led by Ray Davies have been able to channel all of their attention into de Ridder’s latest steed.

“Peter, if he makes a new boat I am scared,” commented Audi MedCup Race Director Nacho Postigo as he assessed the 2008 form for us. “Peter is a fantastic sailor and Ray is my idol - one of the top tacticians on the circuit. This boat is one to have on the list of the most promising boats of the year.”

Once again Judel-Vrolijk seem to be getting the lion’s share of new boat design commissions for 2008.

Having previously campaigned a second hand TP52 called Anonimo, Italian Riccardo Simoneschi has a new J-V boat currently in build at Hakes Marine in Wellington, NZ. The new boat has the catchy name of Audi Sailing Team powered by Q8. Sailing with Simoneschi will be Tommaso Chieffi and Philippe Presti.

After years of loyal allegiance to Botin & Carkeek, even Vasco Vascotto’s latest Mutua Madrilena is from J-V. Postigo, who is Vascotto’s regular navigator explains: “Last year we were not disappointed with the designer and don’t blame them for the bad season we had - it was all our fault. But we saw that Vrolijk made a bigger step last year and we wanted to see if he could do the same for this year. And the owners were more inclined to go for a Vrolijk boat rather than another Botin. Despite of Vasco’s efforts in trying to get them to continue our tradition with Marcellino, they wanted to try something different.”

The Mutua sailing team is also to be rejigged slightly with Flavio Flavini taking the helm and Vascotto, the skipper, moving into the afterguard (the same combination Mascalzone Latino used last year for the Cup). Aside from that they also have some new trimmers, says Postigo.

One of the 11th hour campaigns has been the Spanish AC team, Desafio Espanol, who only made the decision to join the MedCup circuit shortly before Christmas. They bought the 2007 generation J-V moulds that Bribon had been built from at King Marine and took them to their base in Valencia, only starting the build in the New Year… Given that the first regatta of the season is in May this will make for a three and a half month build time, possibly a record on the circuit. The moulds have been upgraded and the boat is expected to be campaigned by Paul Cayard and John Cutler.

Another powerful Cup team joining the MedCup circuit with a new J-V design is Team Germany. The boat is to be skippered by Jochen Schumann who sailed a little on the German TP52 Platoon last year. The team plan to use the Audi MedCup circuit as a training platform while the America’s Cup situation resolves itself.

After using Judel-Vrolijk to design last season’s MedCup winner, Torbjorn Tornqvist's Artemis, so this year the new Coutts boats are being designed by Reichel-Pugh. One wonders if this has anything to do with a possible AC conflict of interest with Rolf Vrolijk being Alinghi’s Principle Designer?



The new Artemis is being built at Cooksons and with Coutts now fully ensconced at BMW Oracle Racing, the build and project management of the Swedish campaign is being run by Jared Henderson.

The new Team Oracle boat is a sistership to Artemis but is being built in Spain. Details of it boat are heavily guarded but it seems likely that Larry Ellison himself may drive the boat and when he is not available it is likely to be a combination of James Spithill driving with John Kostecki calling tactics.

The only new build to come from Botin & Carkeek this season is Team Quantum, a joint venture between the Warpath and Windquest teams (ie Steve and Fred Howe/Doug de Vos). The campaign is being led by Terry Hutchinson but quite how the owners will divide up their time on board remains to be seen.

While these are the new boats, the ever powerful Caixa Galicia team have put their 2007 generation Botin & Carkeek boat through some radical rebuilding. Allegedly the team were not happy with the performance of the boat over 12-13 knots of wind so B&C have designed some modifications that have resulted in the deck being widened at the stern and a new bow section being fitted from the mast forward… They have also changed to a new three spreader mast from Hallspars. Last year the team were changing tactician from race to race - John Kostecki was among them - but this year they are looking to get someone permanently committed to this role.

Modifications, although not quite so dramatic, are also being made to Alberto Roemmer’s J-V designed Matador who have a new rig from Southern and are beefing up their sailing team from the Cup sailor surplus. The team have identified that the greatest areas of development are still the rig and sails and are focusing on this along with a maximum amount of training time before the Audi MedCup gets underway.

The upshot of all this, according to Nacho Postigo is that this year there are 10 boats all of whom are aiming to be in the top five. “Last year I think there were eight boats with a chance to win, but all of them wanted to be in the top three...”

A sad loss for the fleet is the Anglo-Irish contigent with Stuart Robinson racing his TP52 in the UK while Patches owner Eamon Conneely is focusing on his involvement with Ian Walker on the Irish Volvo Ocean Race campaign, Team Green. “He is a fantastic guy and he has told us that after the Volvo is finished he’d probably like to come back to the circuit,” Postigo says of Conneely. “Look at the result - last year the boat wasn’t the quickest boat in the fleet, but he was very consistent and they finished third.”

The circuit

As to the circuit as a whole the big news is that the MedCup have a new sponsor in German car manufacturer Audi (hence why possibly Team Oracle have been rechristened, shedding the name of another German car manufacturer…) Audi were involved with the MedCup circuit last year, displaying their wares at each event, and from 2008 have taken over the title sponsorship position in a deal lasting until 2010. Breitling, the circuit’s original title sponsor is still involved but in a more minor way as official time keeper.

The three year deal brings security not only to the class but to some extent to the sailing world too, says Postigo. “After what has happened with the America’s Cup, it has been a difficult winter for all the boats trying to secure sponsorship or even for us to try to commit with the cities - it has been difficult because of the rumours and changes and the insecurity that the America’s Cup has given to the world of sailing.”

With no conflict with the America’s Cup this year - last year the first MedCup event was mid-summer to avoid a clash with Valencia - so the circuit is back up to six events with more taking the boats out of Spain.

Once again the circuit kicks off in Alicante, where there will be yet another clash of car brands - Alicante is already fairly heavily branded with the advertising of a Swedish car manufacturer who’s round the world race starts from there later this year.

It then travels to Marseilles, where Postigo says they were having trouble finalising the deal due to local elections. “The MedCup loves France and we would love to have French owners. We were impressed last year when we went to Hyeres by the support of the public. People were going down and asking for autographs. That country is incredible. The passion of the people for sailing is really impressive.”

The third event is in Cagliari on the south coast of Sardinia. So why there rather than Porto Cervo? “We chose that because first of all we want to have, wherever possible, a city involved with the event and we want to have people around and we want to bring sailing closer to people,” explains Postigo. “If you go to place like Porto Cervo, which is my favourite place in the world for sailing, it is fantastic for the sailors but it is not that good for the sponsors or for trying to communicate sailing to the public. I have never sailed in Caglari but everyone tells me it is a fantastic place, where there is a lot of vision and passion for sailing.”

From there the circuit continues back to ‘unavoidable Palma’, as Postigo jokingly refers to it, for the Breitling Regatta in Puerto Portals. The Copa del Rey for the first time doesn’t feature on the MedCup circuit due to a clash with that event’s organisers, the Real Club Nautico de Palma, who, not surprising given that it is already Spain’s largest regatta, were unable to give the MedCup circuit enough space for mooring and hospitality or for that matter a race committee that could speak English. However the MedCup includes the Breitling Regatta the week before Copa del Rey allowing teams to have their boats in the right place should they wish to compete. Aroud 14-15 are expected to do so. Postigo says that last year Copa del Rey was the only event on their circuit that they didn’t organise specifically for the MedCup.

From Majorca the boats head for Cartegena, a place that personally holds some scary significance for Postigo as he carried out his national service here. “When I was there I promised myself I would never in my life put my feet in that city again! 15 years ago it was looking more like Africa than Europe! So when I was invited this winter to go there and visit the city and see how it has changed, I was reluctant. ‘No matter how many doors you have painted or streets or how much you have cleaned that city, it will still be the city I knew 15 years ago.’ But I couldn’t believe what it is now. I was absolutely impressed.”

Cartagena has been a military port and with all the resultant security surrounding it, it has not been traditionally a good place to hold big boat regattas, even though dinghy championships have recently visited including a Laser Europeans. However now they have a new marina and all the necessary infrastructure says Postigo.

The MedCup rounds off in Portimao in southern Portugal.

In terms of race format there is no real change from last year however once again there may be a slight reining in of the ‘coastal’ element. “The race committee has been told to be a little bit more flexible with coastal races and not necessarily having to have two coastal races at each event. If they can do them, they will be there, but if only one can be done then they won’t sacrifice a good day of windward-leewards for running a coastal that isn’t that good,” explains Postigo.

Around 20 boats are expected to be regularly campaigning the MedCup circuit this year and, if it is possible, the bar looks set to be raised even higher. However with the arrival of the Cup teams one wonders how long it will be before regular owners get priced out of the game or the effects of the general downward trend of the global economy start to bite. It will be interesting to see how many of the smaller teams stay on the circuit this year. Certainly at present the TP52's Audi MedCup circuit shows no sign of being toppled from its position as the pinnacle of large keelboat fleet racing.