GBR
Challenge training session is over (12/21/02) (Source
: GBR
Challenge)
The crew of GBR Challenge completed their training
session in Auckland and the team is now busy packing
the boats up and de-mobilizing the operations base which
shuts down as the activities relocate to England by
the end of January.
For the last 3-4 weeks the Team have been completing
their two boat testing programme between GBR 70 and
78 and the testing programme is now complete. GBR 78
sailed for the last time in this campaign on Tuesday
17th December with Peter Harrison on board.
GBR 52 already shrunk wrapped and in storage and GBR
70 off its keel and being prepared to travel. The three
Yacht belonging to GBR and containers will now being
shipped to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight.
The team members are starting to scatter now with quite
a few doing the Sydney to Hobart, a few others off to
Key West, some more flying back to UK for Christmas
and some staying out here and off touring to explore
this beautiful country of New Zealand.
There will be a team of around 10-15 people staying
here in Auckland working for GBR Challenge to the end
of the event overseeing the pack-up, keeping a close
eye on racing, entertaining guests on the hospitality
boat and continuing to learn and live the experience
of the Louis Vuitton Finals and America’s Cup Match.
"The team achieved such a great deal in such a
short time period and the key to continuity is to make
sure that we can move forward again", GBR said.
"The key to the challenge progressing will be for
us to find sponsors and additional financial support
the next time around to support Peter Harrison in his
quest to bring the Cup back to Great Britain".
Three years is to go before the start of the next Louis
Vuitton Cup (commencing 2005), and each hour of work,
both at sea and on shore, is extremely valuable for
the team in their mission to reach the goals that have
been set.
Life along ‘Syndicate Row’ changes daily with now only
3 challengers left in and the biggest shock a few days
back with Prada being eliminated.
Mascalzone Latino are long gone and their base is being
used as a great party venue for many Auckland functions,
the French and Swedish have pretty much packed up by
now and intend to be out by Christmas.
GBR Challenge and Stars and Stripes are into pack-up
mode but will have a presence here till the end of the
event, and Prada have yet to announce their plans but
are still getting over the emotion of it all.
GBR
Challenge bid still afloat (11/26/02) (Source
: BBC)
GBR Challenge are back on the water and their America's
Cup future is still afloat despite a disappointing quarter-final
elimination by Team Dennis Conner in the challenger
series.
Team tactician Adrian Stead said that "a lot of positives"
had come out of Britain's first Cup campaign for 15
years and, although GBR finished only seventh of nine
boats in the Louis Vuitton Cup, he expects the bid to
bounce back strongly when the event is next held in
three or four years.
"The short-term plan is that we'll sail in Auckland
for the next three weeks, evaluating our two boats and,
in particular Wight Magic, which we never got to race,"
said Stead. "Then we'll pack up here, ship everything
back to Cowes and go from there".
Syndicate boss Peter Harrison has indicated that he
wants to keep GBR Challenge going, so the Team will
spend a lot of time debriefing.
"We'll find out what we did well and what we could have
done better. "And we'll make sure that we make the most
of all the knowledge that we've gleaned from this event."
Stead admits that the team will now break up to an extent.
"It's unliklely that we'll all keep working beyond Christmas.
It's up to GBR if they want to rehire certain people.
"Some may be looked at by other syndicates and some
may choose to do other things", he said. "We'll
have to wait and see."
But the experienced tactician strongly believes that
it is worth mounting another America's Cup Challenge.
"We've done our learning curve to get back in the game
and now we need to sit down and discuss what needs to
be done to take it to another level", he explained.
"We need to be prepared to buy in designers and information
in order to cut years off the development process."
Stead knows that knowledge comes at a high price, as
evidenced by the high-profile signing of skipper Russell
Coutts to Swiss bid Alinghi.
"We've spent about £22m this time and Alinghi have spent
almost three times that. But they have greatly increased
their odds of success."
Whatever decisions Harrison now takes for GBR Challenge,
he knows that his next chance to win the Auld Mug is
a long way off.
"If the Kiwis keep the America's Cup, I imagine we'd
be looking at the next event being staged in Auckland
in three years time," said Stead. "But if victory goes
to Alinghi or Oracle - who I rate as their biggest challengers
- timing is up to them".
"It may take four years and the event would be staged
in the Mediterranean (Alinghi) or off the California
coast (Oracle)".
"We won't know until the end of February."
British
and French are ready for the next Cup (11/18/02) (Sources
: BBC&
NZ
Herald)
While the Swedes broke out the bubbly after their
win in the quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton challenger
series, supporters of France's Le Défi Areva
and Britain's GBR Challenge yesterday struggled to hold
back tears of realisation that their America's Cup dream
was over.
For the French, semifinalists in the last series, this
event has not gone anywhere as smoothly. Their fluorescent
green yacht FRA69 was always down on speed and they
were unable to cement a strong afterguard.
Off the water the French struggled to find funding -
their budget was small - and, when they did, their Areva
nuclear sponsorship got them offside with Greenpeace,
whose inflatable protest boat collided with the yacht
at its launch in Lorient, France.
Le Défi head Xavier de Lesquen confirmed his
team’s interest in challenging again but added that
it was too early to make a definite commitment.
Indeed, it is too early to know where or when the next
America’s Cup will be held. The winner of the Cup, whether
Team New Zealand or a Louis Vuitton Cup challenger,
will decide the venue and the time frame.
"It has been wonderful to be part of this regatta. We
have been late with our programme for sure, but now
we have to think about the future," he said. "We know
to compete with the other teams we have to be better
prepared."
Undeterred, GBR Challenge boss Peter Harrison said his
team was ready to go anywhere in the world in its quest
for the Cup, whether it involved challenging or defending.
He insisted that Britain's first America's Cup entry
for 15 years had laid solid foundations for future success.
Despite the disappointment - and the massive outlay
of cash - he was determined to take GBR Challenge to
the next America's Cup.
"I'm planning on continuity, definitely," he said. "I've
taken lots of decisions within the team, which will
enable that to happen. The key thing I wanted to do
was kick-start Britain back into what I call the World
Cup of sailing".
Businessman Harrison stumped up £22m to revive Britain's
involvement in the competition but he stressed it was
money well spent to help put Britain back on the America's
Cup map.
"The only disappointment is that we didn't bring GBR
78 here early enough and were always going to be a one-boat
programme", He said. "So if there's any lesson
it's to start early and to get your boats here early.
But we'll have a better opportunity next time."
"The key to continuity is hopefully we have shown,
where we've got major global companies and British companies,
that there is value in supporting and backing us for
this World Cup of sailing".
"Given that, I am prepared to put in certain additional
monies and carry the campaign on. But I do need partners
and sponsors to join me."
Harrison said the GBR team would stay in Auckland until
December 31 and start preparing for the next cup.
GBR
Challenge to opt for Wight Lightning (11/07/02) (Source
: sport.telegraph.co.uk)
Fresh winds yesterday continued to erode the available
time for America's Cup teams to test their boat changes
ahead of next Tuesday's start of the Louis Vuitton challengers'
quarter-finals.
Although time on the water has not been great, Peter
Harrison's GBR Challenge seem to have made their pick
and gone for GBR 70, Wight Lightning, used in the first
two round robins, ahead of their 'joker', the unconventionally
keeled GBR 78, Wight Magic.
GBR 78 was air-freighted to Auckland in August at huge
expense but differing technical problems have seen the
boats barely sailing. Electing to go down the radical
design route was a bold step for a newcomer short on
experience.
Once GBR 78's severe handling difficulties became known,
requiring rearrangement of mast and keel to get the
boat back in balance, the GBR Challenge have had to
maintain their focus on making detailed incremental
improvements to GBR 70, the boat they have actually
raced.
David Barnes, the general manager, said: "I think the
programme is big enough for us to keep all the balls
in the air. Yes, we've got two different configurations,
but we're quite happy with what we see as the way forward
to ultimately give us the best result. We will race
with whichever boat will give us the best result."
That choice has homed in on GBR 70, which underwent
a subtle bow-shape change in the last round.
GBR 78 was not sailed on Tuesday and yesterday its mast
was moved into GBR 52, the 2000 generation boat acquired
from the Nippon Challenge and which has been quickened
up by Derek Clark's design team.
The sailors are sanguine about the choice. Simon Fry,
the sail trimmer, said: "I don't have any qualms about
racing 70 or 78 - so long as we pick the right one."
He knows that GBR are striving to raise their game for
the next round.
"Within the sailing team we set ourselves a target in
Round Robin One and achieved that target. For Round
Robin Two we also set ourselves a target and didn't
achieve it. That's a simplistic but revealing way of
looking at our performance. It tells us, tells the public,
that we were a little disappointed in our performance."
GBR Challenge will race Dennis Conner's Stars and
Stripes in the quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup
in Auckland and several questions remain unanswered.
The one on most people’s lips is which boat will GBR
Challenge be using.
"To get further we desperately need to squeeze
more speed from our boat, mast, foils and sails",
said Ian Walker. "The margin between winning and
losing can be measured in tiny differences of boat speed
and these can come from any of these areas".
"We have had our moments in this series but these
have largely come from good crew work, brave tactics,
good starts or good strategy. In only one race, against
Mascalzone, have we drawn clear at the start and slowly
extended to a comfortable victory by speed alone".
Peter Harrison's team have a week to test their GBR
70 against GBR 78 with her unconventional tandem keel
- it will be a choice between a boat better-understood
by racing rivals against an unproven concept which has
already required major corrective surgery.
"We believe 78's concept has enormous potential but
until we can quantify what we expect to see, we can't
make that decision," Barnes said. "We will race with
whichever boat gives us ultimately the best result.
There's are a number factors in that: boatspeed, tactical
advantages, starting ability and so forth."
British
contemplate radical change of boat (10/23/02) (Source
: sport.telegraph.co.uk)
Will Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge sail its second
boat, GBR 78 known as Wight Magic, with its radical
tandem keel, in November's quarter-finals? General manager
David Barnes suggests it might.
The second yacht, which will race as GBR 78, will be
tested again this Thursday, GBR's scheduled lay day
in Round Robin 2, to see if re-location of her goal-post
shaped keel, with steerable struts, has cured the boat's
balance problems.
Despite GBR 78 being portrayed as a late 'insurance
policy', the decision to build one conventional and
one radical boat was made when the design process was
frozen on November 1, 2001 after a six month research
and development effort.
The tandem keel is shaped like an inverted goal-post.
Conventional appendages split the steering functions
of a rudder whereas the tandem has two keel fins joined
by the lead bulb, combining steering, lift and stability
in one suite.
"We realised that we'd never see her full potential
unless she was re-configured," confirmed Barnes. He
remains coy about the precise keel design but Barnes
is an unabashed advocate for the tandem keel used by
the New Zealand Challenge 1992.
Then, Barnes said, its potential was masked by the hull
deficiencies - the boat was too wide, too light and
with too little sail area - but that GBR investigated
the form from day one.
"The concept's got enormous potential; it's one of those
things that could be a trump card," he said. "It could
bring you the America's Cup, but unless you manage to
extract that potential, it probably won't."
It is this gap between theoretical and realised potential
that divides opinion inside the team.
