The UK's most prolific sponsor

Andrew Pindar talks to thedailysail about his wide ranging interests in the sailing world

While Sir Keith Mills and Charles Dunstone may have waded in with their large cheque books to back the TeamOrigin America's Cup campaign, no one company in the sailing world, in the UK or overseas, comes close to supporting such a diverse range of yachting projects, as Pindar.

The Yorkshire-based print and electronic media company, Pindar plc, is not FTSE 100, but is no minnow either. Their 2006 annual report talks of turning over £110 million and employing 1,500 people in UK, USA and India and this has since expanded with a new business opening in New Zealand. The company first got involved with sailing when they supported the North Sea Race 21 years ago. They subsequently signed up with Chay Blyth and the Challenge Business in 1995, before Chairman Andrew Pindar met Emma Richards.

"The expensive bit started with Emma but what a great place to start!" states Andrew Pindar of their fateful first meeting eight and a half years ago, that would over the course of six years send the modern day Mrs Mike Sanderson across the Atlantic several times in an Open 50 and a 60ft trimaran and round the world in an Open 60.

Following Around Alone, Richards' interest in singlehanded ocean racing waned and the reins of the Pindar Open 60 were passed to Mike Sanderson who finished third in The Transat in 2004, his first and only major singlehanded race. Sanderson's arrangement with Pindar was a supremely flexible one, and enabled him to take the best part of two years out to skipper ABN AMRO One to her resounding victory in the last Volvo Ocean Race.

While ABN AMRO was going on, Pindar began the build of a radical new Open 60, designed like ABN AMRO One by the ever innovative Juan Kouyoumdjian. But, with unfortunate timing, as this was nearing competition so Sanderson got offered the un-turndownable job to head TeamOrigin. And so it was that at the end of last month Brian Thompson was appointed skipper of the new Pindar Open 60. The appointment worked for everyone. Thompson sailed part of the Volvo Ocean Race with Moose on board ABN AMRO One and has known Andrew Pindar for a long time.

"He and I talked at the start of the last Vendee," says Pindar. "We have always wanted to find a way of working together. He represents a lot of the qualities Emma has as a person: He is understated, he never blows his own trumpet, he has immense competeence - none of that bravado stuff comes out with him." He adds: "This boat [the new Pindar Open 60] looks and behaves in many ways more like a multihull and he of course has the experience in both."

The birth of the new Open 60 has not been without its problems. The week before she was supposed to compete in the Rolex Fastnet she dismasted (read about this here) during a routine race in light conditions around the Isle of Wight.

While the incident was possibly the most painless ever dismastings of a large yacht - minimal damage to the hull, the wingmast broke cleanly and they were quickly able to scarf the pieces back together - the Open 60 has also had to have an area around her keel beefed up, although not to the horrific degree some other websites have reported. "Apparently the keel was about to snap off which was a load of balony," says Pindar. "When we built it there was a recommendation by Juan to construct in a certain manner, using certain materials and that had been missed when they had built the boat. So they put in place what Juan had originally suggested. It was something that needed to be flexible, but it was the tiniest of things."

Since then the boat has been relaunched and Thompson and Will Oxley, co-skipper for the Transat Jacques Vabre and previously navigator for Thompson when they won the Oryx Quest, have successfully completed an incident-free qualifier.



Looking beyond this year, Pindar says they are contemplating two programs for the Open 60. Thompson will be returning from the TJV in the B to B singlehanded race and it is not out of the question that he might compete in next year's Vendee Globe. Part of this will rest upon the result in the TJV. "We’ll just keep our powder dry at the moment if the Vendee fits in," says Pindar. "Brian has been reignited in his passion for being out on the boat. He says he has never sailed a better balanced boat in his life. I think Juan has brought potentially us a masterpiece, but we won’t know that until we line up."

Master and apprentice

Aside from his qualities as a competive racing skipper, Thompson has also be signed up by Pindar because of his teaching skills. "He is a great giver of knowledge," continues Pindar. "He is very encouraging of other people coming through. In the way that we want to develop our program, we want people to stay with us for a longer period wherever possible and be able to impart their knowledge to others. We are thinking of it as a master and apprentice-type scenario."

The apprentice in this case is 27 year old Lancashire lass Jo Royle. "She has a steely hunger and resolve and determination that belies her blond blue eyes," says Pindar. "The only draw-back is she’s from Lancashire." Yorkshire and Lancashire have a rivally dating back to the 15th century War of the Roses. "She is a smart girl. She has done some amazing sailing with the expedition stuff down to the south Atlantic. She has sailed all over the place. She has also just written the university degree course in sailing at Falmouth." A degree course in sailing???

Royle was initially introduced to Pindar via Henry Chappell of Pitch PR when she came touting with a Class 40 proposal. And so it has come to pass that Royle has ended up competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre with French Mini sailor Alexia Barrier on board a Pindar Class 40 chartered from Patrice Carpentier.



So what will happen after the TJV? "If this works with Jo - she’s very aspirational with sailing the 40 - at some stage she may well wish to step up. But if we could make the numbers make sense for us, then clearly it would be great to contemplate owning a 40, because it is a great development boat for other people coming through." Longer term there is the prospect of Royle competing in the Vendee Globe in 2012.

Pindar's vision is that Royle will not be the sole apprentice, but be one of a series. With Gosport becoming something a centre for Open 60 campaigns with Hugo Boss, Pindar and Dee Caffari's Aviva Challenge all based there, he talks of a solo offshore sailing school operating out of Gosport along the lines of Port la Foret Pol Atlantique Figaro school type set-up to nurture the right talent.

While having two boats competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre might seem excessive, if sailing is a company's chosen sport then having representation in a number of classes make a great deal of sense. This has proved a recent trend with several French sponsors, such as Brossard and Banque Populaire, who back boats in the ORMA 60 trimaran class, the Figaro and in the former's case the Mini too. Pindar reckons that in addition to the 60 and the 40, a Mini could well fit into their program to in the future.

"Our aim is just to keep on building projects that bring opportunities, with sailors who might otherwise be struggling to get involved with campaigns, because they can’t find the money, or they can’t find boats," says Pindar.

Women's sailing

Sponsoring the Class 40 with an all-female crew is also a return to Pindar's roots in backing women's sailing. "It reminded me both in Antigua this year sailing with some great people and when I was on board Roxy with Sam Davies, Sharon Ferris and Miranda Merron and so on, that I enjoy what some of these great women bring to sailing. So we are going to re-engage ourselves more heavily with sailing with girls on board."

The holy grail of course is to achieve what Ellen MacArthur managed and be able squarely to take on, and frequently beat, male counterparts. It is not missed on Pindar that pretty much all female teams who compete in sailing tend to be underfunded compared to their male rivals.

Pindar says there are parallels in his business. "We’ve changed from being an 80% male business and much smaller than we are to eight years - we had our half year sales meeting where there were 38 people in the room and it was 50-50 men and women. So our industry has moved on and developed."

There are other benefits to backing women's sailing too. Pindar is unashamed by the fact that backing women sailors has consistently delivered a bigger PR return. "If that is something that the guys get fed up with, then I’m sorry. As much as they have the advantage of being naturally stronger, wouldn’t it be great for women to get something back in their favour."

Bang for buck

While Pindar's approach to sailing sponsorship might seem like philanthropy, this is far from the case and they have processes in place to measure their return on investment. "My board is acutely conscious of any spend that might be potentially discretionary, so an on-going task to deliver on is what value we are getting out of it," he says. "Are we improving our business as a result of this or is it money off the bottom line? Liz Rushell when she started consulting for us four or more years ago now, that was very much part of her brief, looking at the measurement of that and ways we could improve our delivery and impact. So far it has been good results and measureably beneficial to us. We know we can always do better with it. Certainly our costs have risen over the years and we need to make sure we can bring along and equal measure of benefit."

And with a brand new Open 60, their spend has greatly increased. According to Pindar a new Open 60 on the water now costs in the order of £2 million and then there are running costs on top of that. "To run one is solely dependent upon the number of sails you are going to buy and how many shore crew you have and how much you pay them. There has been an escalation of salaries within the game," he says.

So are Open 60 costs going up so much that the class will crash and burn like the 60ft tris as many have warned? "It is costing more, but it is not a quantum leap. If you look at the development of Open 60s, they have always continued developing and that is the nature of an open class. I also think it is a self-limiting thing, because if it becomes too pricey for sponsors they’ll stop doing it. We haven’t spent any more on ours than the others like Generali or Temenos and at the moment you can’t get enough Open 60s.

"The other issue with the trimarans was the huge amount of breakage. From a sponsor perspective whether it is breakage or a higher chance of someone having a major issue, injury or worse... The Open 60s although they are getting more powerful, the Class Association [IMOCA] is working well putting some constrains on developments. For example you can’t use hi-tech materials in the bulb because that saves money. I’ve heard stories on the value of the Aviva campaign. It sounds pretty well funded, but why shouldn’t it be? Dee’s got to come up from nowhere in a hurry and it is good for sponsors like Aviva see value in the class and individuals. Our turnover is a rounding number in Aviva’s accounts. Does that put us off? Well, if at some point if we can’t afford it any more, we’ll carry on in the sport, but we’ll do something else."

Something else

While Pindar is best known for sponsoring their offshore campaigns, the projects they back are considerably wider reaching. One of the most successful they support is Ian Williams' match racing. Pindar came across Britain's most successful Tour match racer when Peter Holmberg introduced them at the St Moritiz Tour event in 2006. "I saw Ian had no sponsorship and I thought that was crazy. So we got into a discussion and agreed an 18 month term with him."



As payback Williams sailed on the Pindar boats in Antigua and will be on board the Open 60 for this Saturday's Transat Jacqes Vabre in port race. "His skill and logic and his thought process is just superb. He is a thinker. He is very straightforward. He has been clear about his ambition. He wants to be a winning America’s Cup team helm. Good for him. I think he will acidulously work his way through until he can put himself in a position where he can do that."

While Pindar have been involved with Williams he has risen to be the no1 ranked match racer in the world, the first time anyone from the UK has achieved that accolade.

Pindar's most worthy sponsorship is of quadraplegic sailor Hilary Lister, who only has the use of her head. While Lister sailed across the Channel last year, next year she plans to follow Geoff Holt sailing around Britain aboard an Artemis 20. "Her passion and desire is to promote the freedom that sailing provides for people with disabilities up to the level hers are. You can’t get any more disabled than the wonderful Hilary. She is just so keen to be a spokesperson and someone to show what is possible for people with disabilities," enthuses Pindar.



Recently Pindar chartered Tenacious from the Jubilee Sailing Trust and did a trip down the Thames. "There we were with Hilary on the joystick being able to helm Tenacious with her chin doing 8.5 knots on a square rigger down the Thames underneath the Queen Elizabeth bridge. It was just a fabulous experience," says Pindar.

Another up and coming sailor to get backing from Scarborough's finest is the talented Hannah Mills, now at university. Mills is presently in the RYA Development Squad having made the step up from the 420 to the 470. "Her results and her learning curve make her think it is worth putting up with missed parties in Bristol," says Pindar.



Pindar also sponsor Emma Richards' brothers in their 18ft skiff campaign with co-sponsor Radii. "The world is fascinated by 18ft skiffs and for us getting value out of things, it is great to have a program like that - they keep kicking out results. It keeps our name out there." The Richards brothers currently lead the UK 18ft skiff fleet.

Finally Pindar was a reasonably quiet supporter of Pete Goss' Seacart 30 campaign for the Round Britain Race last year. "There are very few people in my life I put into hero status, but he is right up there for me. I think the world of the man. He challenges the easy jump to convention on the way people think about things. He has a lovely way of making you think differently. He has been so good with Cornwall - Playing for Success. It is hard when someone like him calls us to say no."

Getting others on board


PR and column inches are only part of what Pindar consider return on investment. A large draw to their sailing is corporate hospitality, taking customers and suppliers afloat, and recently they have been focussing on this side of their set-up all the more heavily.

This was part of the reason for employing Thompson, says Pindar. "I’ve seen it in some of the other programs across all types of racing that the sponsor and their guests sometimes become a bit of a nuisance. 'What are we doing here? It’s just a corporate.' I can’t afford that. I need to have sailors who understand that is meat and drink to what we do."

Pindar's corporate logo is the Arctic tern and they have recently set up 'the Tern Club' that will inevitably become a business to business entity, Pindar learning from how successful this proved with the Challenge.

"We are involved with so many different projects nowadays that we are in the process of launching an affinity program where by subscribing people and corporations can get involved with us and can come and experience sailing with us. A lot of customers and suppliers, they contact us each year asking when is it that they can take their teams out. They all use it for team building. They are doing it as a way to reach out across their own businesses. That is part of what we are doing with our Tern Club - is to say particularly to our customers and suppliers - join in with us.

"People want to come sailing with us. They want to meet the likes of Ian and Brian. So we are going to be delivering sailing experience to guys who would otherwise look at our boats and say ‘wow, how do I ever…?’. Well, they can become part of it. They can come and experience it. And if guys want to go and do offshore races, they look up to someone like Brian - we are going to provide that opportunity for people."

Pindar also own a Volvo 60 which does the rounds of the world's top regattas as a corporate entertainment entity and is the main device for the Tern Club. They have recently entered into an association with charter company OnDeck to help farm this out. The boat is shortly to be heading off on the ARC and will take part in the Caribbean season of regattas. The association with OnDeck is set to work in both ways - if the Tern Club require more berths than the Volvo 60 can provide then OnDeck's fleet of Farr 65s can be brought into play.

As part of the Tern club, Pindar will asking its members to sign up to their environmental program with EarthWatch, the environmental activation science-based organisation. Pindar now sits on the charity's board. "Since they were established they have had 83,000 volunteers who have gone and done projects with them. They have loads of projects on around the world. It is all about how through science you can look at creating a sustainable future. And that is something we are committed to do within our business - to see what we can do to be part of a sustainable future. And that is our message for this edition of the TJV." Both the Open 60 and the Class 40 will carry EarthWatch branding in the TJV.

To conclude

To run such an extensive operation Pindar has recently had a change of guard in his management. William Perry, who used to be in charge of sponsorship at HSBC is now chairman of the company running Pindar's sailing program, while capable Kiwi Nick Crabtree is 'Team Director' with the even more capable Kelly Gilkison Team Administrator. "They are bringing this all forward. In that sense, we as a business are a client of it even though it is part of ourselves," says Pindar.

It has all got pretty big... "It is big and it is exciting and what I’ve discovered with it. As to value there are so many people I do business with in different parts of the world now - we set up businesses in the States and New Zealand and we are known." Case closed.