Team Tyco profile

madforsailing looks at the wooden Volvo Ocean 60, Team Tyco and talks to her skipper Kevin Shoebridge

When it comes to yacht racing credentials, few people have a more impressive CV than 37-year-old Kiwi Kevin Shoebridge.

Shoebridge has flitted between winning Whitbread campaigns to winning America's Cup ones and back again as well as fitting in many many races in the gaps between.

His successes have included sailing with Team New Zealand for the last two Cups and racing in previous Whitbread Round the World Races with Peter Blake on Steinlager II and Grant Dalton on New Zealand Endeavour. This cyclical process has stood him in good stead for the last 16 years.

Now Shoebridge has landed himself the big one - skippering Team Tyco in the forthcoming Volvo Ocean Race. madforsailing spoke to him from the Team Tyco base in Newport, Rhode Island.

Sponsor seeks skipper

According to its website the Bermuda-based company Tyco International, is the "world's largest manufacturer and servicer of electrical and electronic components". It is also world leader in undersea telecommunications systems, fire protection and electronic security services, disposable medicinal products, plastics, adhesives and flow control valves. In short it is a giant company with net sales of almost $29 billion, assets worth $40.4 billion and more than 200,000 employees in 80 countries.

L Dennis Kozlowski, Chairman and CEO of Tyco International is a keen sailor and has a private yacht and it is tempting to think that it was he who signed the cheque. But in much the same way as Kingfisher boss Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy is a serious yachtie and Kingfisher happens to sponsor Ellen MacArthur, these companies are just too big and too public for personal preferences to play much of a part in these sponsorships. Tyco International owns businesses in every stopover port on the Volvo Ocean Race and being such a large, diverse company they want to use their participation in the event as means of uniting their employees, by giving them a common point of interest.

When Shoebridge first sat down to talk to them it was a case of sponsor seeking - the reverse of what normally happens. "The old days of the skipper going to get the money and organising everything has changed," comments Shoebridge on this subject. "They interviewed me in the UK for the position. We had many thoughts in common on how it (the team) should be run and how we'd like to do it."

This included the 'team approach' as opposed to a campaign based around a single rock star. "The whole idea is that the biggest asset is the people. We've got a lot of experience in this race. The crew get their input into the sails, the boats, chosing the other people." He says there are six to eight key personnel who sit round and make such decisions, although he has the final word.

Sailing on board are crew from Silk Cut, Chessie Racing, Kvaerner as well as Merit Cup, on which Shoebridge was watch leader four years ago with Grant Dalton. "It's given us a huge base of knowledge on how to set up the boat, the sails - which is probably the biggest factor - and different sailing techniques," he says.

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