Russell Coutts' Cupdate

The Oracle Racing CEO on Ben, AC34 challengers, the World Series, AC35 consensus and TV developments

Russell Coutts, Oracle Racing CEO and one of the principle architects of the new format America’s Cup, was in London last week to welcome new recruit Ben Ainslie into the fold of Larry Ellison's defending team.

One often forgets, thanks to his monumental America’s Cup record, that Coutts himself has a Finn Gold medal from the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and this is perhaps additional reason why he holds Ainslie in the utmost regard: “Ben is a proven winner and we like partnering with winners at Oracle Racing. He is obviously a very determined sailor. He has a track record second to none. He is very determined and very talented. I think even though these boats [the AC cats] are different I have no doubt he will adapt to this new format well. It suits very good sailors at the height of their skills.

“Ben is the top of the top. It was pretty clear as soon as he jumped on board the boat [the AC45] he has a great feel. He is a great sailor, but the fact that he is four Olympic medals doesn’t guarantee anything. There are times when you could end up with a bit of egg on your face. These boats are pretty challenging to sail. Things happen faster, so, for an old sea dog like myself, you have to react faster. That is why they are ideally suited to these younger more athletic Olympic sailors. To be honest British sailing is in a fantastic position in the future to mount a very very competitive America’s Cup challenge.”

It is now 23 months since the American team’s giant wingsail trimaran USA 17 dispatched Alinghi 5 off Valencia to win the 33rd America’s Cup. 16 months ago the AC72 rule was first unveiled and a year ago the first AC45 was launched in record time, work only having started on its design four and a half months previously. Since then there have been three America’s Cup World Series event in Cascais, Plymouth and San Diego, as the Cup teams, both defenders and challenge, embark on building their new AC72 wingsail catamarans, the first boats due to be launched on 1 July this year.

“We have made some good progress,” says Coutts. “Now we have got three events under our belt. It is a tough world out there commercially at the moment, but frankly I have never seen a more positive situation inside the America’s Cup sport. We are starting to make real inroads both in the broadcasting sense and also commercially, with people actually looking at the race footage and going: ‘WOW – now I get it, now I see what this can be and will be’. And that is a big change from where we were six months ago.”

At present the 34th America’s Cup seems to be a contest between the three big teams – Oracle Racing, Emirates Team New Zealand and Torbjorn Tornqvist's Artemis Racing. Patrizio Bertelli's Luna Rossa has joined the party late, getting into bed with the Kiwis in acquiring their design package, although, following a recent decision by the International Jury, the prospects of the teams first generation AC72s two boat testing seems to be an option no longer.

While currently there is the disappointing prospect of a three boat Louis Vuitton Cup, Coutts is more optimistic. “I think there will definitely be more than three boats. I think it will end up being six teams, maybe seven.” So we can expect to see another two or three AC72s come into existence. However it would be a major blow if anyone other than Artemis Racing and Emirates Team New Zealand ended up in the LV final.

“It is fantastic that Luna Rossa is in the game and I think they have made a smart move in buying the Team New Zealand design package,” continues Coutts. “It is obviously going to be good and it will make them competitive straight away. But I wouldn’t rule out some of these other teams as well. I think the ACRM package is a good package and obviously some of these teams in the game know multihulls and multihull design well and they could easily enhance that package.”

So the four teams are currently building their first AC72s. Coutts believes that Artemis Racing will be the first to launch. Oracle Racing has its first cat under construction in the USA at a new secret facility, although the moulds are being produced by Janicki Industries, which provided much of the tooling for USA 17. Coutts says that certain components of their new boat will be built in New Zealand, presumably at their Core Composites facility in Warksworth, where the AC45s were initially created.

In terms of AC72 design, Coutts reckons there won’t be as much advantage to be gained in the wings as was initially imagined. “A lot of this will be about the way you manoeuvre the boat and the way you sail it and the choices you make with things like foils. I don’t think there will be as much in the rigs as we all thought in the early days."

He expands on this: “Wing expertise is no black science - there are a lot of people who know how to design wings. Without trivialising it, the whole technology and understanding of wings is not new. There are choices to make in terms of how to use the wing and how to depower it - that will be important - and how to build it structurally, but in terms of things like shape and the amount of force that is produced from the wing, that is more exact than dealing with a soft sail, which is why we may not see the huge differences that everyone was predicting.”

Coutts says that as the stability of the boats will be the same (as laid out in the AC72 rule), so hull shapes too might have slight variation but these will be relatively minor compared to those you might find on an equivalent monohull. “You will get boats that are slightly better upwind or downwind, but I think those differences are probably less.”

One of the principle areas of development will be in the foils, Coutts believes. So one imagines there has been much work carried out to progress the strides forward already made on the 33rd America’s Cup maxi-multihulls. While typically on French trimarans such as ORMA 60s or Banque Populaire or Groupama 3 there is a daggerboard in the centre hull and retractable curved lifting foils in the floats, on a catamaran the roles of the daggerboard and lifting foils must be combined. Remember the curvy S-shaped foils, which caused the Swiss maxi-cat nearly to flip on one occasion? Meanwhile as USA 17 gradually evolved from conventional trimaran into a catamaran with a central hull, so her central daggerboard was abandoned in favour of fitting retractable foils on her floats that could prevent leeway as well as generate vertical lift. The big black tri eventually ended up with boards in her floats with some curvature to them, the crew also having the ability to adjust the pitch of these foils.

“Sailing will be very important on these short courses, handling the boat and so forth,” continues Coutts. “We are seeing that on the AC45s - even on identical boats certain crews are starting to dominant. It is interesting and that will be magnified in the AC72s.”

Coutts suggests that one of the interesting compromises with the design of the AC72s will be between ultimate speed and handling ability on the ultra-short courses. “You have to recognise that these 72s, they are probably only going to be on a tack or a gybe for two and a half minutes, maybe three, so it is not like the old format where you had boats straight lining for 10 or 15 minutes. And manoeuvring will be critical because if the boat is doing 35 knots and you slow down to say 15 knots in a gybe, obviously you had better make sure it is a good gybe because [if not] the other boat will be gaining a lot on you very fast.”

America’s Cup World Series

While there is no ACWS event down under, the series resumes in Italy with two events - Naples, over 7-15 April, followed by Venice over 12-20 May. The circus then moves to the ‘spiritual home of the America’s Cup’ - Newport, RI - over 23 June to 1 July, concluding the 2011-12 America’s Cup World Series. Racing continues soon after with two AC45 regattas in San Francisco over 11-19 August and 27 August-2 September followed by two more events, in October and December at venues yet to be announced.

According to Coutts, America’s Cup Race Management is talking to the teams about what may happen after the 34th America’s Cup. “There is discussion going on now to decide on getting some fundamental points agreed. All of the contestants are out there and one of them is going to win, so we could actually agree now on some of those things,” he explains. 

Frankly - Hallelujah if they can get consensus and can make it stick. Due to its nature, where the Defender and the Challenge of Record can fundamentally alter the nature of the event, forward planning has never been a strong suit of the America's Cup.

One item on the agenda is the future of the America's Cup World Series. “Iain Murray is talking to the teams now about whoever wins, having some sort of format to carry on because it is pretty key that we have to have a regular series to give our commercial partners the return they need and you can’t do that with an event every four years. You never know – the World Series might actually grow to a point where it is at least equal to the Cup. I could easily see that developing over a number of cycles. And the ACWS could become very very important with the Cup almost a bonus...”

One also wonders whether the America’s Cup World Series and the main event itself will always remain linked. Already it is possible, as Ben Ainslie demonstrated last week, to campaign an AC45 on the ACWS without having to enter the America’s Cup itself.

“I think they will always be linked,” says Coutts. “There is no doubt that the people on the AC45 circuit would like to do the Cup and they are trying to build their brand and build awareness but before they take the next big plunge, it gives them a platform to get out there and prove themselves, which is why you are getting some of these new teams coming in.

“I think in the future beyond this one, you could easily see a linkage between the ACWS and qualification for the Cup. So I don’t think the two will be disconnected.”

Another item on Murray’s agenda with the challengers is discussion over the boat likely to be used for the 35th America’s Cup – whether the AC72 is the right equipment, the right size, etc. “You might end up using AC72s for the World Series and then you have the Youth America’s Cup in the AC45s and so forth," says Coutts. "Obviously you have to do the numbers on it, but all those things are possibilities.”

“One of the things that the teams might consider in the future is: are there some elements on these boats that could be one design? Is it really adding value for us to be producing everything differently? Or could we have certain elements that are controlled, like the tyres in Formula 1. That might make the racing better even too. There are a whole raft of things like that that the AC community could start considering and discussing it now to make the sport better in the future.”

Getting a date in the diary for the 35th America’s Cup is also on the agenda. “2013 fits quite nicely into the sporting calendar, between Olympics and the World Cup. And 2017 will also be a nice hole whoever wins."

TV deal

A significant development, that will help take the America’s Cup to a more global audience, is the announcement, due imminently, of a substantial television deal for the America’s Cup believed to be with a US-based network.

“I think the TV is going to get a lot better,” says Coutts. “We had a review meeting with some of the people at the end of last year, looking at the TV footage and there are a whole lot of items we can get a lot better. Everyone says the television is very good, and I am talking about broadcasters as well as people watching. But the exciting thing is that I think by Naples there will be another quantum leap again.”

Coutts says this will particularly concern the graphics, depicting where boats will go next, the choice of TV angles, improvements in the commentary, etc, with the aim of making the racing as understandable to viewers as possible.