2010 Rolex Commodores' Cup progress report

10-12 teams including a new one from South Africa and some hot shots from Hong Kong expected

It’s April and traditionally this is the time of year we should be showing an interest in one of the premier events being held in the UK this summer. In fact the pressure is off slightly as the date for 2010 Rolex Commodores’ Cup, the RORC’s Admiral’s Cup-lite for Corinthian crews, has been moved on from its normal June-July position in the calendar to 15-21 August.

“I really think that moving to August will give it a firm status,” states Rear Commodore of the RORC, Anthony O’Leary, who is competing once again with the Irish team on board his Ker 39, Antix. “It was very crammed in its previous date and it was only half way through the season. A lot of people said that they would like to make it the pinnacle of the season because that is the status it deserves and it achieves that by being in August. It is very hard running a Corinthian team if you are sailing every weekend from April until July, which was the case previously. At least now you can take some breaks and pick the times to peak.”

At this stage, with entries not due to close until 12 July, the RORC reckon there are 10-12 teams preparing at present. The largest entry looks set to be from France and according to owner Marc Alperovitch, the UNCL/FFV is currently putting together three to four of the three boat teams.

The UK at present may only be able to muster two or three teams. A problem, it seems, has been in finding willing owners to fill the big boat slots. Aware of this in December the RORC lowered the rating band of this slot and now boats with IRC ratings from 1.230 to 1.110 (down from 1.120) are permissible.

“That is the state of the economy,” reckons RORC Racing Manager Ian Loffhagen. “We deliberately pitched the top end low to make it more do-able. Boats like the Rogers 46 - Yeoman is up in the Baltic - but that was above the limit, as is Tonnerre. We deliberately tried to keep it to a not-too-hot 45 footer or a Beneteau 47.7 or something like that. We wanted to keep it as Corinthian as we could.”

With the rating band dropping by ten points, now boats such as Peter Rutter’s new Quokka 8, a Grand Soleil 43, the two DK46s in the country, or a Swan 45 or a Farr 45 could be chosen as the big boat. “It was interesting at Easter that that traditional moan from the Farr 45 class – ‘we can’t be competitive in IRC’ appeared to be nonsense when you get a really good crew on the boat,” says Loffhagen. “Ràn sailed a blinder and the boat had an 2009 mainsail, pretty old kites. They had a new headsail and a bit of a spruce up, but it hadn’t had a real optimisation for IRC or fairing work or change of winches, etc. It had new running rigging and had been tarting up, but it was pretty much the same as the other 45s kicking around. You put some good sailors on board and they will go, especially if it is windy.”

RORC CEO Eddie Warden Owen gives his view: “It brings into question whether the tight bands are a good thing for the event. We did do the overlap to allow 40 footers to jump up or down. We may need to do that at the bottom and top end of two or three, but we won’t do it this time.”

An additional problem for the big boats is the proximity of the 2010 Rolex Commodores’ Cup to the RORC’s Seven Stars Round Britain and Ireland Race, which starts two days after the RCC finishes. This, for example, has taken out John Shepherd’s Ker 46 Fair Do’s VII, the big boat in GBR Red team, winners in 2008.

Previously favourites in past years, Ireland are at present definitely fielding one team, all by coincidence from Cork and comprising Anthony O’Leary’s Antix, David Dwyers Mills 39 Mariners Cove and Rob Davies’ brand new Corby 36 Roxy 6, to be skippered by Andrew Creighton.

“There is a lot of water to go under bridges between now and August,” says O’Leary when we put it to him that it is high time Ireland won this event. “The good aspects I suppose is that you have two boats that have been sailing for a couple of years and we think are reasonably competitive and the third boat is in the water and with the timing of the event has ample time to get worked up and with Corby’s track record one would be hopeful that the boat will be competitive.”

Antix is set to a do lot of travelling this summer heading from Ireland up to the Scottish Series, to the RORC’s IRC Nationals in the Solent, back to Ireland for Cork Week before returning to the UK in August.

However the competition believe that the Hong Kong team will be one to watch this year. In 2008 they finished fifth, but with fire in its belly, fuelled by the enthusiasm of Jamie McWilliam they could well be the strongest contenders in 2010. The team is to be announced imminently but it is believed to include the Corby 36 Rockall 3.

Making their debut in the Rolex Commodores’ Cup this year is a team from South Africa. Their line-up comprises Wind Power, Rick Nankin’s Mark Mills-designed Landmark 43 that is being shipped up from Cape Town especially for the event. She is joined by Mike Bartholemew’s King 40 Tokoloshe and a J/109 chartered by Rick Garratt but to be skippered by David Hudson and crewed by members of his worthy Race Ahead project. Read more about this here.

“I spend most of the summer here,” explains Mike Bartholemew of why they have entered. “Tokoloshe lives here, although my main home is in Cape Town. And we’ve had a hell of a lot of fun here. And David Hudson spends most of his summers here and Rick Nankin has spent a lot of time sailing in the Solent over the years. Solent sailing is very attractive to us and we thought that since we were all basically here it would be a great event to enter.”

In addition to this the RORC are expecting a combined Dutch/Belgium team from Benelux and there is still the possibility of teams coming from Scandinavia and the USA, where obviously IRC is getting an ever increasing foothold.

“I can’t get the Americans to talk to each other so it looks unlikely, because they are from all over the place,” says the RORC’s Eddie Warden-Owen of his attempts to woe the US to the event. “I had some individual approaches and tried to put people together and I am still trying to do. One of the boats is going to be in the UK. One is happy to charter a boat int he UK, so it is a case of finding a third one.”
“We are still trying to encourage people and put people together,” he concludes.

The deadline for challenging teams in the Rolex Commodores' Cup is not until 12 July, so there remains plenty of time for further teams to come out of the woodwork.