The return of the Admiral's Cup

Eddie Warden Owen on his first year as General Manager of the Royal Ocean Racing Club

It was only a matter of time… Less than one year into his tenure as CEO of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, Eddie Warden Owen has plans afoot to revitalise the Admiral’s Cup.

Like so many from both the UK and abroad, Warden Owen cut his teeth as a professional sailor in the RORC’s one time flagship event and we get the impression that if he wishes to leave any legacy from his work at the RORC, it will be in coming up with a successful 21st century solution that returns the Admiral’s Cup back into being on of the highlights of the international yacht racing calendar.

Obviously in terms of economics at present, times are hard, but Warden Owen says that he is currently working towards holding the next Admiral’s Cup in 2011, in the Solent.

“If you look at this year’s Rolex Commodores’ Cup - it was incredibly successful with three boats teams,” he says. “The competitors were saying to me ‘this is a very successful format’. It is really hard for three boats to get together and sail as a team and work as a team and the English team that won this year did work as a team: They wanted to sail together, they operated as a team, they helped each other, they organised their sailing program. I went down to do the Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup and I spoke to Francesco de Angelis about the Admirals’ Cup and he was saying ‘it is the most technical sailing regatta we’ve ever had in offshore boats.’ Because the weather, the wind and obviously the tide and the offshore racing - there is no place in the world that gives you what you used to have with the Admirals’ Cup. There is a need there for a high quality, professionally run event, for professional sailors and I think that is the Admirals Cup.”

One problem with the most recent attempts to run the Admirals’ Cup was that it was hard to differentiate it from the Rolex Commodores’ Cup. It seemed to be the same boats competing in both regattas. And while the Commodores’ Cup is a supposed amateur, Corinthian event, there were teams, notably from Ireland and UK, who were competing in purpose-built yachts. Surely this is Admirals’ Cup territory?

“The Admirals’ Cup will be in bigger boats, more the top end of the game, so embracing Mini Maxis, professional sailors and probably longer races to suit the boats,” insists Warden Owen. “It will be quite different. The Rolex Commodores’ Cup is much more of an amateur environment, Corinthian sailing and they love it, that is what they want.”

Significantly Warden Owen remembers that the Admiral’s Cup was once the ‘offshore world championship’ at a time when it culminated in the Fastnet Race. However increasingly over its later life it became more inshore focussed, with the Fastnet controversially being removed from it.

“The Admirals’ Cup is the offshore world championship, but they lost sight of that because the demand of the sailors was more for inshore,” says Warden Owen. “It is cold in the UK, but for Christ’s sake - grunt up! Francesco de Angelis is Mediterranean through and through, a day racer, but he said ‘I love the offshore racing. It is really really tough. And last time I saw him he was just about to start the Rolex Middle Sea Race on Moneypenny. It is a different mentality. And Tomasso Chieffi… The Admiral’s Cup was a big deal for them and they want to come back and I think there are a lot of young people out there who would get involved if it comes back.”

Obviously there are numerous hurdles to get over. Goalposts have moved. Warden Owen seems keen to make the Admiral’s Cup a tough event again, however 20 years ago the world was a much smaller place, a time when competing in the Fastnet Race was considered one of the ultimate achievements in sailing. Today if you want tough you look at the Volvo Ocean Race, the IMOCA Open 60 events, any number of transatlantic races. Now there is not a year that goes by without at least one round the world race taking place. Plus the numerous Clipper round the world races and Global Challenges that have taken place over the last 20 years may not be grand prix events, but they have bred a considerable number of sailors who consider a 600 mile long race to be a walk in the park.

So, if the new Admiral’s Cup is to be genuinely challenging then it needs to include some long, hardcore sailing so we would suggest at least one 1000 mile race taking in the Fastnet, a 24 hour race, a round the island race, with the gaps filled in with some highly tactical ‘Cowes Week’ style courses around the Solent including reaching and not solely windward-leewards (just think – the TP52s might actually get some use out of their little used reaching inventory…) As a result the event would probably have to be 10 days long rather than seven.

As to the boats, then Warden Owen is certainly looking more at the pro-fleets, although other than the Mini Maxis he won’t specify exactly what he is considering. The Mini-Maxis and STP65s are the obvious kit for the job, typically sailed by pros and the latter in particular are designed to go offshore. On the other hand, Audi MedCup TP52s are entirely not designed to go offshore unless they are heavily modified. However there are such a significant number of these boats that have been exported from Spain to the four corners of the globe where they have been beefed up to compete in RORC races or the Sydney-Hobart, that they too would be the obvious choice. So we would imagine a big boat class for Mini Maxis racing under IRC, a much tighter class for modified TP52s and a smaller boat. The question is what? Warden Owen mentions in passing the Class 40 and that could be a good choice, it being a class with good international take up and some pro sailor involvement.

Obviously our mind starts racing towards fabulous fantasies involving any combination of G-Class maxi multihulls, Open 60s, monohull supermaxis, Volvo 70s, Class 40s, ORMA 60s, all the way down to Minis, etc. However for an event that must combine offshore long-leggedness with reasonable fleet numbers and international take-up, most of these classes are quickly discounted (G-Class – too few; Open 60s – not international enough; mono supermaxis – not enough of them; Volvo 70s – fit the bill, but there’s not enough of them and they’re too expensive; ORMA 60s – only French people know how to drive them, Minis – too small). Besides we can’t make it too easy for the French to win… Also an issue true of Open 60s and half of the supermaxi monohulls and G-Class fleets is that they are typically rotten boats to manoeuvre around short courses. Then of course there is the argument – if the Admiral’s Cup is genuinely the offshore racing world championship, why race them inshore at all?

Anyway back to what Warden Owen thinks: “We are having interesting discussions about the whole thing to try and find the right balance that works. I have a strong view, but we want to make a regatta that people really want to come and compete for. At the end of the day it has to be something that is very challenging as a team event and they really want to embrace it.”

Also important is the timing of the event. Traditionally it was held during Cowes Week and culminated in the Fastnet. Then it became detached from Cowes with racing being held in Christchurch or Hayling Bay and then separated out from Cowes Week entirely with the removal of the Fastnet Race.

One idea might be to hold the Admiral’s Cup in the late spring so that it allows boats to take part between Key West/the Caribbean season and before racing gets going down in the Med.

Clearly the right sort of boats are available today (which they weren’t even five years ago) and there is a demand from their owners to race offshore. But the nature of the new event must put butterflies in the stomach of its competitors in a way that the event of old did.

What would certainly galvanise the re-emergence of the Admiral’s Cup would be a major event sponsor coming on board.

Readers can email their thoughts on this here



Other races

Eddie Warden Owen is already making his mark on the RORC’s 2009 calendar. This includes two new races - the RORC Caribbean 600 and the Autumn IRC Regatta.

“It was an idea of some people in the Caribbean, who wanted us to organise it,” says Warden Owen of the former, which the RORC are co-organising with Antigua Yacht Club. Key was the timing, he says, and taking place over the week commencing 23 February, it squeezes in before Heineken St Maarten regatta. The race does the rounds of the central Caribbean, starting in Antigua, goes up to a turning mark (sponsored by the local North loft) off Barbuda, then a zigzag around Nevis, Saba, St Barts and around the turning mark of St Maarten, then a long leg back south to Guadeloupe before returning to the Barbuda turning mark and thence back to Antigua.

“So 605 miles of really interesting sailing. You have a lot of islands and turning marks and it will be a test. It will be warm, guaranteed wind. You know it is going to start on Monday and finish on the Friday.”

Entry doesn’t officially open until 5 January, however the RORC have already had around 42 expressions of interest and the high profile among these include Mike Slade’s newly enlarged Leopard and Alex Jackson’s Juan K supermaxi Speedboat/Virgin Money , the first occasion the two monohull giants will line up… The STP65s are also said to be considering it along with larger boats such as Peter Harrison’s Sojana and Windrose.

“If we get more than 25 boats doing it I will be happy, so from our point of view it is already a success,” says Warden-Owen

Boats will race under both IRC and Caribbean Sailing Association rules provided, Warden Owen warns, they comply with Category 3 safety regulations. They are still looking for a sponsor for the event and as to the future, to date they have committed to run the event annually for the next two years and then will see what the take-up has been like as to whether they hold it annually or biennially from there on.

Back in the UK, the new Autumn IRC Regatta will comprise two days of racing on 26-27 September 2009. “At the beginning of the season we have the Red Funnel Easter Regatta and in the middle we have the IRC Nationals…if you think we had near 90 boats for the Red Funnel Easter Regatta and we had a record entry for the IRC Nationals - there is a demand for inshore races.” The Autumn IRC Regatta is hoped to be a similarly popular conclusion to the RORC season in the UK.

However in addition the RORC wish to promote the event as having a youth theme, giving more sailors aged 28 and below the opportunity to compete.

Of course 2009 is a Fastnet year. “It is looking very good. I think there is a lot of unfinished business from last time round. We limited it to 300 boats and I think we will achieve that again this year, because a lot of boats didn’t make it and want to go back again.”

Back on land

Meanwhile in the RORC’s office in central London the racing team has been changed around for this year with the perennial Janet Grosvenor attempting to step into the background with the capable Ian Loffhagen promoted to her old role as Racing Manager. Grosvenor comes out to lend support and experience at major events. Meanwhile Nick Elliott has taken over Loffhagen’s former job as Deputy Racing Manager.

“From my point of view, the club is very lively, it is used much more than I expected it to be on a daily basis. On the hotel side, the rooms are high occupancy” says Warden-Owen.

IRC

Via the Rating Office in Lymington, IRC is today international sailing’s most popular rating system, adopted by most of the major regattas around the world. While in recent years there has been strong take-up in the US, this year has seen IRC adopted for the first time by Spain’s leading regatta, the Copa del Rey.

“They want to make it more international and they see IRC as being a more international rule,” says Warden Owen of the Mediterranean’s answer to Cowes Week. “They adopted it and promoted it this year. There are still pockets of ORC. We are not marketing the rule that aggressively, it is just the sailors want, they like it, it is easy to understand. IMS is trying to be the perfect rule but no rule is perfect.”

Meanwhile Warden Owen says that he is in regular contact with Mike Urwin at the Rating Office as they attempt to keep the rule up to date with the latest trends in the racing world. “Mike is not only in touch with the various things that are going on around the world, but people feed back information to him, to keep in touch and to make sure that the rating recognises what is going on in sailing - big headed mainsails, lighter faster boats. The rating office is monitoring what is going on and trying to account for that when they make changes to the rating rule.”

We point out to him that the situation Urwin has always dreaded is with us - that with the Mini Maxi class, we have America’s Cup sailors competing under IRC, the worry being that it will place too much pressure on what is supposed to be a racer cruiser rating system. Warden Owen counters: “The professionals like the boats that are coming out under IRC. Those STP65s and the Mini-Maxis are fantastic, they are lovely boats, they are a delight to sail, the pros love them. We have to be mindful that we look after them and make sure they are properly rated and the tweaks take into account what they are doing. And the rule seems to be doing a good job. No one seems to be coming back with big complaints.”

We point out that Numbers seems to have done rather well this year under IRC and this might not solely be down to the calibre of her America’s Cup winning crew? “ Numbers is a good boat, but if you look at the Rolex Commodores’ Cup and the newly designed boats under IRC - it is not like you can buy a new boat from a designer and suddenly blow everyone away. Does that say that there is a certain strength in the rule? If you read the IRC rules, it says ‘IRC is designed to protect the fleet’. But obviously you have to take into account developments that are going on and between Mike and Jean Sans in France, they are very good at tweaking the rule.

“In essence the reason that IRC is strong is that people like its simplicity, easy to understand and administer and it seems to be producing good results at the moment. I did Key West earlier this year on Murka, the Swan 45, and we were sailing against IRC optimised boats and we were winning or losing races by 15-30-45 seconds and you could look back and say ‘I did make a mistake there or there was a wind shift on the last beat’. So it is doing the job that is required of any rating rule – and no rating rule is perfect. So I think IRC right now is answering the demand that is out there.”

So no Grand Prix rule in the offing just yet then. But generally everything seems to be moving in the right direction at the RORC.