Cowes dynamo - part two

Mark Turner gives his views on what is happening in the French offshore classes

To read part one of this interview - click here

Open 60s

IMOCA, the Open 60 class association, is hardly a small affair. Including the new builds for the next Vendee there are presently 33 measured IMOCA 60s, which is without doubt the world's biggest fleet of sizable offshore racing yachts. "There is no other fleet that has that depth and the fact that the unfortunate clash remains between the Around Alone and Route du Rhum in the calendar but that those two events have co-existed - one with seven Open 60s and the other with 18 - is impressive," says Turner. "There is no other fleet of ocean racing boats which has achieved that."

Unlike the ORMA trimaran class, where the design of the boats has evolved over recent years into a new generation with larger cockpits and sail handling gear more suited for inshore racing, IMOCA is keen not to lose its direction between the offshore and inshore bias of its yachts. Key to this is maintaining a tight rein on the rules, so that, for example, furlers are not removed for grand prix events.

"The concept of the grand prix is largely misunderstood," maintains Turner. "There has never been any intention to mirror the multihull situation in any way. These boats are ocean greyhounds but in terms of sponsorship fulfilment there is the need to have some events that allow media, sponsors and general public to have closer contact with the boats - where you see boats at the beginning and end of the day and can put people on board.

"They [the grand prix] are serious racing and they will be inside the championship, but their co-efficient will always be very low. The class has firmly and repeatedly established the fact that it’s primary raison d’etre is singlehanded transocean and global racing and it will stay that way otherwise it will fall between two stools, which is the ORMA dilemma."

Turner says that in both the trimaran and Open 60 classes, the grand prix have proved to be costly to run and uneconomic in terms of return they generate for sponsors. "What makes it pay and what makes these fleets are so successful - and the trimarans included - are the shorthanded offshore races. You can try your life to change that, but you probably never will," says Turner.

In TheDailySail's view the failure of the grand prix in media terms, in particularly ORMA's case, has been the class' inability to exploit it adequately. Seeing 10-15 60ft trimarans sail around the cans is one of the must-sees in yacht racing.

Meanwhile IMOCA has recently seen a complete change of management. "There have been plenty of positive changes happening," says Turner. "The entire committee resigned at the AGM a couple of months ago with a view to creating a clean slate going forward. A new president was elected - Jacques Guilvaud - so for the first time we have a non-professional sailing president which is a very positive thing and he is making waves."

The new regime at IMOCA is much more commercially driven and will have increased influence with race organisers, the ability to determine its own calendar (which has been doing for the last year and a half already) and negotiate a more effective agreement with its sponsors, in order that all IMOCA members get a greater benefit from the existence of the class.

Previously some purists, most notably Thierry Dubois, have been actively against heavy commercialisation of the class. "We are working in a world where all the sailors have to raise a lot of money to be out there racing and the class needs to have a better way of supporting those people. So it is a very positive move forward and to have someone [Jacques Guilvaud] who has time to apply himself to the task is a positive thing."

Aside from sitting on the main IMOCA committee Turner also heads the events committee and has come under fire recently for a possible conflict of interest now that he wears both competitor manager and event organiser hats. "I offered to resign that position on taking on the STAR, but my resignation was unanimously not accepted. I registered the potential conflict of interest, but the committee wished I stayed."

One of the interesting developments this year is the decision by the Volvo Ocean Race management to come up with a new boat that in many ways is similar to a slightly larger Open 60. Turner feels that if the Volvo Ocean 70 can get established it will be a good thing. "Sailing is so confusing to the outside, so if we are looking for growth of the sport through sponsorship then there needs to be some sort of move towards more consistency and simplification."

Turner feels there is adequate differentiation between the Volvo Ocean 70 being the 'fully crewed' offshore boat despite IMOCA's drive over recent years towards more fully-crewed Open 60 events.

Turner points out that sailing an Open 60 fully crewed with five on board and a VO70 with 9-11 are different arts altogether. "When you sail two-up, or four or five-up, it is a fundamentally different experience for the sailors, than sailing 9-11 up. When you sail five up there are probably only two of you on deck, so when people talk fully crewed in Open 60 terms, it is still very shorthanded. So I think it is a different discipline without much overlap."

What Turner isn't a fan of is the cost of Volvo campaigns. "An interesting quote from Glenn Bourke was that one third of a Volvo campaign budget being the people. I don’t think that is necessarily a healthy thing for the growth of the sport if you are talking about $15 million budgets. It can exist, but you’re not going to have 30 boats.

"The thing with Open 60s is that we have got the potential to have 15-20 boats on any start line because the budgets are still relatively small and that is very important to maintain." With a maximum of five Turner says it is just not possible to race an Open 60 effectively without for example the use of furling sails. "There is a stigma attached to furling sails that is dissolving fast which is a good thing. Technology is helping as well - PBO headstays have significantly reduced the weight penalty."

In the Volvo furled sails are now allowed but the general consensus among Volvo sailors thedailysail has polled is that no one will use them because of the added weight aloft of the furled sail and that having furled sails is not 'grand prix' enough. In our view Volvo should be making them mandatory. Guys - why make life difficult for yourselves?

Figaro

The international development of singlehanded offshore racing's one design class is a project close to Turner's heart. As a class, the Figaro is extremely sound, they have a new one design that has been relatively well received despite initial teething problems and while there has been an increased amount of involvement of non-French competitors in the Mini and Open 60s class, this and the 60ft trimaran classes are still heavily French dominated.

"The Figaro is an extraordinary event and much like the Mini needs significantly increased profile," maintains Turner. "I think the Figaro is the stepping stone for those people who don’t yet know they want to do some solo racing. If you put the Neal McDonalds and those guys in there and they saw first hand what those races are like and the intensity of the boat for boat racing I am certain that the Figaro circuit can become something quite amazing internationally. We’ve all talked about that for some time."

Offshore Challenges have been instrumental in supporting Sam Davies and putting her into the Figaro class. They also brought on Skandia to fund the campaign. "Skandia have been a fantastic partner for Sam. They went into it with open eyes and all expectations have been exceeded on all fronts - sporting and otherwise," says Turner.

Part of the deal with Davies when she first signed up for the project was that it would need three years of commitment. "From a pure sporting point of view, you need at least three years before you can challenge for a top 10 place," says Turner of how they viewed going about the project. "When we agreed to take Sam into the team it was on that basis, because we would endeavour to give her the means to take that on in the long term." Turner adds that it is also quite a relief not to have everyone in their sailing team wanting to do the Vendee...

Davies' involvement in the Figaro has yet to inspire other non-French sailing professionals to take it up and Turner has his views on why this might be: "In France there is a sponsorship market in sailing, in the sense that there are companies who are involved every year in the Figaro and have been for a decade. So the professional sailors don’t have to be extraordinary sponsorship hunters to go and find themselves a budget for a Figaro campaign. It is not easy, but outside France there is isn’t the culture among most professional sailors to go and get themselves a sponsor. They are dipping into big professional campaigns that pay very well and they aren’t taking it on themselves and I think that is actually the missing link. They are not missing the want to do it - it just seems too difficult to do it even if the budgets are £100k and not £10 million. The sailing itself - it would blow them away. And the fact that Sam has come from more of a background where those other people are from, I think will start to influence people once they see that."

Turner believes that possibly pushing Anglo-Saxon pros into two-handed Figaro events like next year's Transat AG2R is the way to go. Turner is a former competitor in this event and a big fan. "It is fantastic racing, it is a good human story, it gets good coverage in France already and could do in other countries."

"The Figaro and Mini Transat can talk about being positive about the internationalisation of everything, but the reality is that the only way that can happen is if those not in France get up and doing something about it. Hopefully we did our bit on the Mini Transat. We would quite like to do a similar thing on the Figaro."

Aside from Davies' active participation another shot in the arm is the possible inclusion of Portsmouth as the UK stopover in a subsequent Solitaire du Figaro race.

Minis

Turner's most sentimental memory is unquestionably of his and Ellen's participation in the 1997 Mini Transat, but he says the Mini is not a class into which Offshore Challenges is channelling its resource. "The Mini's great. I love it. It will be one of the most important chapters in my entire life regardless of what happens between now and when I die - which probably won’t be very far away - but you have to decide which areas you concentrate on."

A major problem faced with this year's event was the over-subscribed entry list. As a result neither Chris Sayer nor Britain's Nick Bubb made it into the race. Turner has mixed views about this.

"I have a lot of sympathy with the class trying to organise an event like that under French law. I sympathise with Chris Sayer and Nick Bubb, but under French law it is illegal to sail those boats more than 12 miles offshore. Full stop. If you take that into account and understand that the race organiser has to go to the Minister of Transport and get special dispensation which says they are allowed to break the law, and every time there has been a disaster of some kind or a rescue, they are hauled back in front of the Minister to justify why the race should still go ahead, you might understand why it is harder than it might seem to manage that event. People tend to forget that a lot outside of France."

Equally he adds that one of the major problems is that if you are trying to do the race is that you can’t tell a sponsor that you’re definitely going to be able to do the Mini Transat even if you’ve got your act together the year before. "That is a shame and quite difficult. If the demand is that much greater than supply, then it is time to adjust the supply."

Maybe the Mini Transat should be run every year - an event on Bob Salmon's original course from Penzance in the UK (where it is not illegal to race a Mini offshore) to Antigua would seem to be good plan.

Following his Transat Jacques Vabre with Nick Moloney in 2001, Turner says there are no plans for him to be donning oilskins again in the foreseeable future. "It did occur to me that one day when I am old and grey I might go back and learn how to sail again and do the Figaro. But it is not in the plans at the moment and if I did it I would be very happy to be anything but last."

No interview with Mark Turner is complete with something about Ms MacArthur and Turner confirms that despite their company taking on the STAR Ellen won't be taking part. "She won’t have a boat designed for that and I think if you win a race it is not good to go back in any case. Ellen has a very clear objective to take 18 months out and take a different tack and a different set of challenges. There is plenty of time in her life and career to go back and have another go at the STAR and the Vendee. I don’t think any of that is ruled out in the future.

"Ellen’s sailing program is determined by what she personally wants to take on, subject to us finding the funding for that. It is not determined by us having involvement in an event. The Offshore Challenge’s group is partly owned by Ellen, so therefore she is likely to have some sort of involvement in the promotion of the event, but the 2004 event she won’t be competing in. I’m looking at it from the international point of view and with 40 professional skippers, there are plenty of other stars to bring the event to life."

Clearly even with what to date has been a disappointing year for Ellen with a dismasting in her Jules Verne attempt, a pitchpole in the Course des Phares and even an inadvertent knifing during the Archipelego Raid, public interest in her is far from waning. To date 100,000 copies of the paper back edition of her book have now been sold.

What will Offshore Challenges next acquisition be?