Newport 2012

FROM AUGUST BAY AND DELTA YACHTSMAN MAGAZINE

In front of large, enthusiastic crowds, the final event of the 2011-2012 America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) on Narragansett Bay off Newport, Rhode Island, was nothing short of a resounding and unequivocal success. With the overall points championship on the line, Oracle Racing Team Spithill (USA) captured the sparkling new ACWS Trophy by winning the fleet racing and speed trial’s titles in a hard fought and close battle with Emirates Team New Zealand (ENZ) and Team Artemis (ART) from Sweden. Artemis represents the Royal Swedish Yacht Club and is the Challenger of Record (COR) for the 2013 America’s Cup. Paul Cayard, the team’s CEO, is originally from the Bay Area. Artemis captured the match racing title portion of the championship. Newport was home for the America’s Cup for 53 years until 1983. The whole road show now makes its way to San Francisco, CA., for the opening event of the 2012-2013 season. The first ACWS regatta here will be from Aug. 21 to Aug. 26. Oracle 4 skipper Jimmy Spithill outpaced his counterparts Dean Barker (ENZ), whose catamaran was in trouble all week, and Terry Hutchinson (ART) to win the series’ first championship. The final tally was 102 points for USA, 93 for ENZ and 82 for ART. Led by Spithill and tactician John Kostecki from San Francisco, Oracle 4 accumulated enough points throughout the week to win the championship even with a relatively disappointing final day. “Consistency had been the key,” Spithill said. “We were the last team to arrive here, but we came out and performed under pressure. For us it was very satisfying to see us step up and the other guys fall back when the pressure came on.” Ironically, it was Oracle Racing CEO and teammate Russell Coutts’ win on Oracle 5 over Spithill in the match race championship that clinched it. Coutts, perhaps egged on by being the “old man” on the team at 50, dominated the start of the race to take the win in what is clearly becoming a young man’s game. “It’s been quite awhile since I’ve won anything,” said Coutts, who is one of the most successful skippers in America’s Cup history with an astounding overall record of 17-0 and is currently tied with Dennis Conner with four “wins.” The 34th America’s Cup is clearly becoming a nod to the young, with the daunting prospect of the powerful new AC 72 Class catamaran on the horizon and the recently announced Red Bull Youth America’s Cup Series. The Red Bull series is a Coutt’s “brainstorm.” “Yes, absolutely this is a game for the young,” exclaimed Coutts, who then went out and took Spit-hill to the woodshed in the final match race. Coutts clearly shook off any cobwebs that he may have had after being off the boat and in the office for the last eight months. No “team orders” for Oracle Racing on this day. Leading up to that match race against his boss, Oracle 4 spent the previous afternoon quickly “turning the tables,” as Spithill put it, on Team Artemis skipper Terry Hutchinson. The 45-foot Oracle catamaran showed the quick bursts of acceleration and maneuverability that is characteristic to this exciting new class of boats. “That’s what you can do in these boats,” Spithill said. “We can’t wait to show San Francisco what this event is going to do for the city!” What about sailing in the soon-to-be-launched AC 72s? “The loads are going to be insane,” said Spithill, who, like the other skippers here, speaks with an air of excitement and a little caution. “These boats are going to be so powerful with the winds on the Bay.” Adding that “outside the Bay would be rough,” luckily the race course doesn’t extend past the “safe” confines of the Golden Gate and, hopefully, there will be no Deed of Gift (DoG) match challenge here. When asked the ultimate question on everyone’s mind in Northern California, Niners or Raiders? Spithill reacted with the same coolness he displays on the race course. “Well, we just took out MC Hammer the other day, so I’d have to say Raiders.” But, clearly the winner this week was the America’s Cup and the city of Newport. With network coverage from NBC for the first time in 20 years, the former Cup host city showed that it was at least the city “that knows how” on the East Coast. Rhode Islanders, along with spectators from several surrounding states, turned out in droves to watch, evaluate and judge this brand new America’s Cup event. The Cup has been re-energized with this exciting new multi-hull formula and judging from the numbers, the young, as well as the old gave the new format a resounding thumbs up! The waters of Narragansett Bay were turned and churned into a stupor as the pedestrian “walleye chop” of hundreds, if not thousands, of spectator boats paid homage to the “Auld Mug” under the vigilant, watchful eye of the Coast Guard. The savvy, smart yachting crowd filled the confines of historic Fort Adams to capacity every race day. Locals also lined the hills of Fort Wetherhill in neighboring Jamestown across the way on Conanicut Island to encapsulate and turn tiny Rhode Island into the East Coast’s capital of stadium sailing. The “Ocean State” has always presented a challenge to America’s Cup Race Management CEO Ian Murray, first as an up-and-coming young skipper in 1983 on Alan Payne’s radical light air 12-Meter Advance and now with a firm hand on the controls as the race director. Murray, who is from Australia, was the skipper of Kookaburra 3, which lost the America’s Cup to Dennis Conner on Stars & Stripes in 1987. But clearly this is Murray’s finest hour. Murray has “many fond memories of Newport in 1983” and is “delighted” that it is again part “of our contemporary version of the America’s Cup.” The 2013 America’s Cup so far may mean many different things to many different people, but from a race management and organizational perspective it is being well run. One of the most important pieces of the puzzle is to have a “secure race course”; with this and on Narragansett Bay, Murray had his hands full. The Kiwis collided with a committee boat one day and capsized the next. Coutts on Oracle 5 had a small collision, too, and was forced into the “pits” for repairs and then, after returning to the race course, was sent back in again by the Race Committee, ending its day. “We had a bad time with anchors, and a lot of lost lobster pots here in Newport!” joked Murray, though his biggest question to the fans of the America’s Cup would be: “Are you liking what you are seeing?” The game has been changed for 2013 with a bold new idea to bring sailing back from the open ocean and close to shore where everyone can watch the race. “We’ve invented a new wheel, to join the old with the new,” Murray said. “This is a new form of an America’s Cup; we’re in the entertainment business, it is turn style sailing and it costs a lot of money. “The AC 72’s are going to be exciting and terrifying!” Murray said. “You may see horizontal as well as vertical wings on the foils and centerboards. There are going to be all sorts of bits and pieces under the water. “The race course in San Francisco has been modified a bit. It has been moved so that the center of activities for racing will be in front of the Marina Green. The ACEA was hoping to have more fan-friendly facilities at Crissy Field, but the National Park Service (GGNPS) was going to charge a substantial fee for their little piece of land,” said Murray. “It was outrageous!” The balance here in the Bay Area between organizers, GGNPS and environmental activists is a precarious tightrope. All sides have endeavored to work hard in respecting the other as the event forges forward. The bar has now been raised for the Bay Area to turn up and out, as the entire ACWS circus heads west by railroad to San Francisco for its first visit. The actual America’s Cup final begins on Sept. 7, 2013. In San Francisco, the center of activity will be on two fronts. The racing will take place on the “magic mile” off the Marina Green with the AC 45’s being moored on the waterfront during the week and the team bases will be centered on Piers 30-32 downtown. While in Newport, Rhode Island, I sat down with America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM) Chief Operating Officer Andy Hindley to discuss what is possibly coming our way next month and beyond. Hindley comes from Hampshire, England. His experience in managing these massive “sea shows” comes from running the Volvo Around the World Ocean Races in 2001-02 and 2005-06. Logistically, it is his task to plan, negotiate, schedule, organize, move and transport the ACWS around the planet and, according to Hindley, that is just a “small part” of his duties and responsibilities. Newport was the ACWS sixth circus. In addition to shipping the 45-foot catamarans, with their 75-foot fixed wingsails, around and about multiple venues from Portugal to England to San Diego, then back to Valencia, Spain, and Italy, there are more than 150 forty-foot containers of parts and pieces to transport. “When we travel around the world we have to coordinate the timing of the event to where we are winter/spring/summer/fall,” Hindley said, “so that we have a spectating side on shore and a wind (sailing) side on the other.” In Newport, the event was centered at Fort Adams on shore, with a reliable summer “smoky” southwesterly breeze blowing consistently across the course in the afternoon. In late August, strong winds in San Francisco are a given, but the challenge for Hindley and company may be where and when the fog creeps in. Not only does the ACRM have to coordinate the racing activities on the water, they have to simultaneously launch multiple helicopters to provide the thrilling footage to the TV and YouTube audience. Then add to the equation: working with all of the local, state and federal authorities; coordinating with the Coast Guard to clear the race course from spectator craft; and keeping the shipping lanes clear. And the FAA! I am sure, especially here in the Bay Area, the list goes on and on. After San Francisco events in August and again during Fleet Week in October, the ACRM is hoping to add three events before the series moves back to Italy next spring. While not commenting on where, Hindley said, we “have a signed contract with one.” Costs for each event run about 5 or 6 million dollars, plus shipping and future events will be fee based with the host venue providing some revenue backing. As Golden Gate Vice Commodore and ACEA event emcee Tom Ehman puts it: “With live TV and Larry’s (Ellison) money we are doing what we can do.” “We would like to see the series continue in 2014,” Hindley said. “But, after the next America’s Cup in 2013, if the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) doesn’t defend. There have been some discussions and one of these teams will be the next defender. We have no idea what they will do.” The yacht club that wins the America’s Cup can make up all the rules for the next event with the mutual consent of another bonified yacht club, providing they hold an “annual regatta” on the sea. Right now, Emirates Team New Zealand, Artemis (Sweden), Luna Rossa (Italy), and South Korea have committed to compete in the Louis Vuitton (LVC) challenger series next summer. It is hoped Team Energy (France) will join them before the Aug. 1 deadline. As far as San Francisco goes, there is a lot of work to do. Besides packing up everything in Newport and moving it out west, the recent fire at Pier 29 didn’t help. While it didn’t affect directly the facilities under development, it didn’t help. With the Golden State Warriors making a grab for Piers 30-32 for a possible new arena, it really creates a dilemma for the ACEA for a future beyond 2013. “Piers 30-32 is a lost potential for us,” said Hindley. “Where the hell are we going to go?” With an 11th hour lawsuit filed and some would say a constant restructuring of the city of San Francisco’s commitment, the ACEA pulled up stakes and backed out of a preliminary agreement to provide the necessary funds to rehabilitate the aging piers in exchange for future development rights. “We (ACEA) should have done a holding contract on Piers 30-32 until after the Cup,” Hindley said. As far as the often-mentioned structural analysis that was done on the piers by the ACEA, it isn’t going to be free for the Warriors. “They have to buy it from us,” boasts Hindley; and who knows, “it might all fall through.” (The deal, hopefully not the piers…) That all being said it is really important for San Francisco to step up to the plate and let the world know that the America’s Cup belongs here in the future, because with Larry Ellison holding the keys to Lanai in Hawaii and Newport’s enthusiastic show of support (Larry has a mansion there, too), it is important to take nothing for granted. Mr. Ellison has made an incredible investment here in the Bay Area for this event and is passionate about having the America’s Cup here become a resounding success for everyone. As Oracle Racing spokesman Tim Jeffrey put it, “We’re going to let the sailing do the talking.”