Visiting the Oracle

The Daily Sail caught up with Oracle CEO Chris Dickson and helm Gavin Brady at the recent Bermuda Gold Cup

Bermuda recently for the Investors Guaranty-sponsored King Edward VII Gold Cup match gave us the opportunity to hook up with the Oracle BMW Racing team in the form of CEO Chris Dickson and helmsman Gavin Brady.

Despite the America's Cup being three and a half years away still the significant pieces of Larry Ellison's team are now falling into place with the appointment by Chris Dickson of key personnel such as helmsman Gavin Brady, tactician John Kostecki plus a number of the key people in the sailing team, confirmation that the team will once again be working with the mighty Farr Yacht Design and most recently that they are to set up training camp in New Zealand far away from prying eyes and, conveniently, where most of the team live.

The team appear to have learned greatly from their participation in Auckland and an impressive display this summer in the Moet Cup in San Francisco, which Dickson admits was the first sailing he'd done since Auckland, may have been a taster of what we can expect to come from the team. "We have had a small budget to operate this year. So we were able to go and do the Moet Cup, which was a great regatta to do, great for Alinghi and it was fantastic racing and fantastic competition. It came down to the last race and it could have gone either way..."

While rumour has it that Oracle BMW Racing are already pumping significant sums of money into their 2007 challenge, Dickson says that this is not excessive. "Like any other team we are waiting to see where the venue is and when it is and only then can we firm up on budgets. And we are working hard on securing our funding just as every other team is. Fortunately we have been able to operate on a very limited basis this year." If a 'limited basis' describes the effort that Oracle BMW Racing put into the Moet Cup, then their Cup program this time round must be staggering.

"For the Moet Cup, when we were racing, we had fewer than 50 people and probably only half of those were full time," continues Dickson. "A full time operating America’s Cup team would be close to 100 people. This year we are operating with probably only 20 people."

He justifies the numbers: "We’re an international sporting team and the America’s Cup boats are incredibly physical. You do get injuries - you get muscle injuries, you get damage from heavy gear, etc. For a top international sporting team we need to have flexibility in people and we are working hard to make sure that we have a team that can operate at the top level and doesn’t hang on any one person - that means more than one skilled person for each position."

At the Moet Cup, their afterguard comprised Gavin Brady, Chris Dickson, Larry Ellison, John Kostecki, Matt Wachowicz and the UK very own. Steve Hayles. On trimmers/traveller the squad comprised Ross Halcrow, Robbie Naismith, Sean Clarkson
Noel Drennan, Bob Wylie, Joey Newton and Dirk de Ridder, while working the foredeck
were Kevin Batten, Phil Jameson, Brad Webb and Kazukiko Sofuku. On grinders were Matt Welling, Craig Monk, Brian MacInnes, Ian Gordon and Scott Crawford while working the pit/mast were David Brooke, Jamie Gale and Robbie Young and finally Rodney Daniel and Chris Cantrick on the runners.

Gavin Brady expands: "We have got quite a reasonable squad of guys building up now. We have a regatta coming up in Newport in June next year. We could go sailing tomorrow in our Cup boat, but we are not in a hurry to sign up 32 sailors, two boat loads of people - you don’t need to do that right now. But we want our key sailors in place and get the ball rolling. We have to get the right people, set them up in the right roles."

They will not be out there throwing money around to buy all the assets they can lay their hands on. "Oracle did that last time so did OneWorld and Prada - grab, grab, grab, grab - all those teams did that , but it didn’t make them smart teams," says Brady. "Russell [Coutts] went in there and got some structure to his management and went out there and won with a boat, SUI64, that had been around the block by the time the first race came up."

Oracle BMW Racing was not off the pace in the last challenger series when they took the runner-up slot to Alinghi and the competition was far closer than the final result showed, but Brady says there were some big lessons learned regarding the management of the team. "That was one of the first things Larry [Ellison] and Chris [Dickson] worked on - the structure of the team with Chris set up as the CEO and skipper and getting a helmsman to relieve him of those responsibilities and the day to day grind of sailing ever single day. Then there's Larry's input to the team plus John Kostecki, Ross Halcrow on the trimming side... So the steps Oracle BMW have made so far this time have been pretty methodical and the structure is there this time. Everyone in the team would agree that the structure was a little bit messy last time but they still got the job done."

This time round the management structure will be much more clearly defined and there will be more delegation of responsibility. Significantly Brady maintains there will not be the same dog-fighting taking place within the upper echelons of team and harmony is vital if they are to survive what will be four years out of their lives. "Chris and I have a strong relation. We are friends as much as we are sailing companions."

Back in the 1995 Cup Brady was the nipper on board Dickson's TAG Heuer. Since then he has become a skipper in his own right and he and Dickson have been known to train with each other prior to match racing events. "There is pretty good trust there and with the big names it sometimes doesn’t work like that. They didn't get that last time with Paul [Cayard] and Chris and [John] Cutler. And now we have JK [John Kostecki] in the mix as well and that’s working out really well. I’ve sailed half a Volvo with him and we’ve won two Mumm 36 World Championships together."

While Brady is the Oracle BMW Racing helmsman, Kostecki and Russell Green run the sailing team. "We share an office and I give my input and all that, but for example if we’re racing and we’re over the line in one or two races, I’ll go and sit down with the bowman and watch the videos or I’ll go and sit down with the designers and talk about what’s going on with the boat," says Brady. "Chris is a great helmsman - he could drive the boat no problem at all, but he knows that to focus in and be at the level you need to be in the America’s Cup in four years time it’s like ‘Gavin get in there and get good at what you need to get good at, don’t worry about the colour of the T-shirts or where we’re ging to be based or what time we go to the gym in the morning'. That’s how it should be."

At the Bermuda Gold Cup recently Dickson was helming with Brady calling tactics from the bow and with new recruits Ross Halcrow and Dirk de Ridder (both of whom sailed with Kostecki on illbruck) in the middle of the boat. Dickson says that they plan to do more on the match racing circuit to help them work out how to get the best out of one another. While the team came second to Peter Gilmour in Bermuda, they are moving on to the Nippon Cup in Japan at the end of this month where Brady and Kostecki will be running the boat.

"I don’t need to drive every week," says Brady. "I can sail with Chris and we both learn together and next Bermuda Gold Cup who knows, Chris might be doing mainsheet for me."

This is in contrast to Coutts' approach with Alinghi where the afterguard and trimming roles have been clearly defined for years. "We have that too," says Brady. "We have a good base line. We did the Moet Cup and all got into our positions - Chris and John with the tactics and strategy and myself driving and Larry in the mix too. Larry is doing a lot of sailing - a lot more than people think."

After relinquishing his position on board during the last Louis Vuitton Cup, Larry Ellison this time round seems to be taking an afterguard role on board similar to that taken by Ernesto Bertarelli in Auckland. Brady says that Ellison excelled in the owner-driver part of the Moet Cup. "He outstarted Ernesto in nearly every race in the owner-driver series. He is no dummy. A lot of people put these people into the category of ‘owners’ but it is like George Collins on Chessie Racing in the Volvo: in all but one leg when we got a top three George was on board the boat. It is not that they call winning shifts, but they bring maturity and drive…"

Ellison has had a long and fruitful relationship with the Farr office since the days of his maxi Sayonara. Brady says that Farr did a top job with USA76. "76 proved herself in the Moet Cup and can beat Alinghi. She is an outstanding boat. Alinghi has her little quirks as well - they all do. And both those boats will be considerably quicker in the next 6-9 months too. "

This time round the role of Farr Yacht Design will slightly change. Rather than running the show they will be part, albeit the most significant component, of the Oracle BMW Racing design team. "We have huge input from Bruce and Russell and Stephen and the rest of the Farr Yacht Design team but Oracle is going to have a design team this time. It won’t be a case of ‘give us a drawing in three years time and we’ll build the boat’," says Brady. He adds they are looking for a highly pro-active relationship with their design team and they want the designers to be out sailing with them regularly.

Oracle BMW Racing is the present Challenger of Record and the view is that this can be a mixed blessing. Aside from getting into the America's Cup cycle this early requiring a significantly larger budget, such a long run into the Cup can lead to implosion and the campaign getting stale. No one knows about this better than Brady who was with Prada last time round.

"Prada spent a ton of money last time, more money than even people know and it was an incredibly unsuccessful challenge in many ways. So my feeling is that you’ve got to be real careful because money can just as easily make you good as it can make you stupid. All of a sudden you are ripping bows off boats. This and that and that and it’s all design and there’s no structure. Which is why the first thing Larry Ellison did is appoint Chris Dickson as CEO/skipper, so it is a sailor-driven program. So yes, we will spend a lot of money but we have to spend the money in the right area and not just be stupid. We could go out there right now and say ‘right we’re going to buy the OneWorld boats and take the OneWorld boats off the market - go in there and spend $10 million and buy them - but that is not smart money and it won’t win you the Cup."

With a good management team a campaign can make better use of its assets and as Alinghi proved last time it enables a campaign to stand while others are falling apart.

With Alinghi spending a reported $72 million and Oracle BMW Racing getting little change from $100 million, it is hard to see campaign costs being any less this time round. So hence there is a move to try and make America's Cup campaigns better value for sponsors in other ways.

"I think it is a different era now - the fact that the America’s Cup has gone to Europe for the first time, the fact that Alinghi has been so pro-active in taking the event to a new level," says Dickson. "Our position as Challenger of Record has been supportive of what Alinghi wants to achieve in having more racing, more competition, to have better public and media access and to have a better circuit. And our thinking is in line with Alinghi’s on all that. We have worked hard on cost savings and a better return for sponsors to take the whole game to a whole new level. Between us we are working hard to make a better event."

Costs will again be limited to the numbers of boats and the changes that can be made to the boat - at least the same or more than before, says Dickson. "Doing more events gives more return to sponsors. We are working hard to keep the costs under control and at the same time to give more value for sponsors, media and owners and to give more racing for the rest of us. The format of having four or five events like the Moet Cup every year is going to make for a fantastic circuit."

In the meantime they, as with everyone involved in the Cup, wait on tender hooks for the announcement on 26 November about the venue for the next Cup, Brady contemplates whether or not his role at Oracle BMW Racing will allow him time to do a Star campaign for Athens with Craig Monk, while Dickson refutes rumours that he is the most highly paid sportsman in New Zealand... "You should know not to believe everything you read in the press…"