TeamOrigin reaction to the AC34 news

External Affairs Director and WSTA Board Member Marcus Hutchinson shares his views

Marcus Hutchinson was in Rome yesterday representing Sir Keith Mills’ TeamOrigin at the first press conference of the 34th America’s Cup. A long term AC pundit, Hutchinson holds the title of ‘External Affairs Director and WSTA Board Member' within the British Cup team.

So what were the most significant things Hutchinson learned today? “We knew a lot of those things, but the most important were the dates, the publication of the Protocol and the class rule and when we’re going to know the venue. That is good for TeamOrigin and all the teams to finally get some clarity and a stake in the ground.

“The neutral management – in the 32nd Protocol, the structure of ACM was not neutral. It was driven by the defender and the challenger movement didn’t have any power. There was a Challenge Commission, but it had no teeth and couldn’t do anything. That is a fundamental - Russell [Coutts] has gone on a lot about changing that.

“Then there’s the process we are going through with the WSTA [which runs the LV Trophy series] – the groups working on the class rule, etc.”

While he sits as TeamOrigin representative on the WSTA board, Hutchinson doesn’t believe that that entity will become the event organiser for the 34th America’s Cup as Bruno Troublé hopes. “I think today BMW are hiring the best people it can get its hands on with an open mind and with a neutral management mandate to get on with it.”

When it comes to the development of the Protocol for the 34th America’s Cup, to date the defender has sent all the teams copies of the 32nd AC Protocol as a working document. “We’ve been asked for our input and what we would change going forward, because that is what they are doing - they [BMW Oracle Racing] are nearly ready to pass their first draft to all of the teams. Over the last three years we’ve been picking through the Protocol to work out what we think works and what doesn’t.”

To date this is the only official contact TeamOrigin has had with the defender although there has been several meeting with Coutts and his second in command, Stephen Barclay (who is also the BMW Oracle Racing rep on the WSTA board). TeamOrigin and BMW Oracle have also held a meeting to discuss their lining up in V5 boats during Cowes Week this year.

So what does he think of the schedule announced today? “The reality is there have been two teams heavily involved in the Cup and all the other teams, including TeamOrigin, have been on the outside for the last three years, desperate for answers and where are we going? It is not three months since the GGYC won the 33rd America’s Cup and some teams may have been disappointed the next day we didn’t have all the answers, but that was unrealistic – it was only 10 days before the match in February that we know the match was actually going to happen! So they are probably doing it the right way. We are lucky we had the intelligence to create the Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas and the WSTA, and there has been dialogue going on for quite a long time. So at present one side want the answers now, while the GGYC and the Challenger of Record are desperate to make sure this is done correctly.”

To us 2014 seems a long, long way away? “Yes, but there will be an awful lot of sport between now and then. Three or four Louis Vuitton Trophy events a year is what people can manage now, but I am hearing that Larry [Ellison] wants five to seven events a year starting next year. And I suspect we’ll be using the new boat from 2012.”

So what type of boat do you think the 34th AC will be in? “I’m pretty sure it will be a monohull. There is still chat of a multihull, but I think it will be 70-80ft inshore version of Ràn, with a canting keel and probably shorthanded 10-12 people on board - which would be fantastic.”

And capable of sailing in 5-35 knots? “How they do that – whether it is with reefed sails or different rigs like the 18ft skiffs? But I couldn’t agree more with the concept of not stopping racing because there is too little or too much wind. So bring it on!”

Russell Coutts has been talking about trying to avoid having purpose built boats designed to race in San Francisco. How would that be possible? “The only way to stop that is in the design rule where you end up with such a tight rule with very few tolerances in terms of BWL and weight, etc so they are all very similar. The concept should move away from being about the ultimate speed from this rule and be more about sailing a boat that is physically very demanding and spectacular to watch. Then there is the way the points are loaded for qualifying that force you to be competitive in a range of environments. If you are sailing in the Med where it is light all of one year but it is going to count for 50% of the points... You have to load it in some way.

“The other significant thing is - what sort of course configuration are we going to be sailing? If the boats are 20-30% faster upwind and downwind and we are already sailing on much shorter courses [in San Francisco Bay], the leg lengths are tiny and if you screw up the start no matter how fast your boat is, you’re done. So it will be more about boat handling and starting than it is about raw speed. So you can design a class rule so that the boats are effectively identical and what matters is that we are all sailing in boats that our branded in our colours, that we built and that we love and have respect for and if his is better in 5 knots in choppy waters, it isn’t that important.”

In San Francisco – the courses will have to be shorter? “It is going that way. We are trying to push it closer to the beach, so that people can physically see it. For half the venues we go to that means some compromise, so the purest nature of what an ideal race course is – that’s gone. The AC courses in 1995 were 18.5 miles long. We are racing not even six miles now in the LV Trophy races.”