A little room for the GBR
Challenge (03/02/04)
(source : Las
Provincias)
The
Real Club Nautico de Valencia and their 3000 square
meter which was the Desafio Español base for
the Louis Vuitton Cup 2000 is the place where you
must be.
After Alinghi, Oracle, le Défi and the Luna
Rossa Challenge, it's now the Peter Harrison's Team
which came to an agreement
with the Spanish Yacht Club to begin a training session
in Valencia as soon as possible.
If
anyone thought Britain's last America's Cup bid was
hibernating one year on from Auckland, they would
be wrong. Founder Peter Harrison has endowed it with
£4.5 million (€6.5 million) to enable design
work and fund-raising to carry on, while tank testing
resumes next week.
Furthermore, Harrison has vowed to fund up to 50 per
cent of the projected £40 million (€60 million)
budget for the 2007 cup while removing himself from
the role as figurehead and most visible face of the
GBR Challenge.
GBR Challenge Mk II, will have a chief executive -
Keith Mills was interviewed before taking up such
a role with the London 2012 Olympic bid - and a board
of directors. Harrison will have an executive role
on the board, but no more than that.
"He was hurt in the 2003 cup by the accusation that
we didn't get significant sponsorship last time because
of his personal role," explained Leslie Ryan, who,
along with design boss Derek Clark, has been running
GBR Challenge since the team returned from Auckland
a year ago. "Yes, Peter had a dominant role but that
wasn't the reason we didn't get sponsors. Rather it
was the reverse."
Harrison spent £22 million (€30 million) during
the 2003 cup, though included in that were his considerable
purchases of river frontage in Cowes, and is prepared
to invest a similar amount for the cup in Valencia
in early summer 2007.
So does this mean Harrison is the chicken or the egg?
"Peter's investment is a huge benefit to us," said
Ryan, who is working alongside outside sponsorship
consultants. "The advantage we have is that Peter
is prepared to put in his personal money as well as
us going out to the market. Sponsors are saying this
is good value given the amount being put in but the
total is much bigger".
"The title partnership rights [offered at £3.25 million
- €5 million - a year for four years] are a very
good value proposition." Ryan believes a cup in Spain
is much more attractive to one in distant New Zealand.
"The America's Cup coming to Europe does mean there
is a global sporting event that companies can't really
afford not to be in. They want to hear about it and
that's a big difference from last time in Auckland."
Previous GBR backers Land Rover and P & O Nedlloyd
seem keen to continue their relationships. For the
big money, Formula One is being targeted.
"We are talking to Formula One sponsors who might
be dissatisfied with the visibility they are getting
relative to what they are putting in," Ryan said.
"We are being told by people who have to raise a hell
of a lot more money for Formula One than our budget
that the America's Cup is the biggest sporting chance
of the century," Clark added.
Peter
Harrison, of GBR Challenge, has set September next year
as his target for finding up to double the £30 million
he spent in his first challenge. Harrison has kept on
15 people, only on the design and fund-raising side.
"I have made it clear that I require partners and certainly
won't carry on over this four-year period without sponsors,"
Harrison said.
Ben
Ainslie, Britain's double Olympic gold medallist, yesterday
gave a compelling demonstration of his talents which
may lead to an America's Cup berth in 2007.
Ainslie served as tactician and bowman for Dean Barker,
the Team New Zealand skipper, in the King Edward VII
Gold Cup match series in Bermuda and they eventually
outsailed Ed Baird in the deciding fifth race.
"This is a good opportunity to sail with Ben",
Barker said. "Obviously our priority at the moment
is to raise the funding in order to be a viable challenger,
but we are looking at new team members. Ben's record
says he's one of the best sailors in the world."
Ainslie is taking a rare breather from his bid for a
third Olympic medal, having won the Finn class world
championships in Cadiz two weeks ago.
"All I can say from my side is that I haven't made any
decisions about what I'll be doing after the Games yet,"
said Ainslie.
He harbours a desire to lead a British America's Cup
bid, but has already spent a year with the Seattle-based
OneWorld team in the last Cup to boost his experience.
"Obviously, if GBR Challenge ever gets it together and
someone puts some serious money behind it, that would
be great, but perhaps joining another team is an option,"
admitted Ainslie.
"Definitely the America's Cup remains a major objective.
Whether I get involved in the next one remains unknown
at this stage", he said. "Another Olympic
campaign or the Volvo Ocean Race remain options. I'm
seeing how things pan out, but the focus remains very
much on next year."
Chris Law want to get involved
with Harrison (08/09/03)
(source : Yachting
World)
Currently
sailing in the Cowes Week (on board his old friend Kit
Hobday's Bear of Britain), veteran British match racer
Chris Law makes no secret of where his ambitions lie.
"I would like, in the future, to be part of an America's
Cup challenge", he said. "I would love to support the
British as a coach, boat driver or sparring partner
but unless some kind of commitment is made pretty soon
I already have negotiations with two other challenges."
Today GBR Challenge announced that Iain Percy,
currently campaigning for Athens 2004 in the Star Class,
is to join Britain's 32nd America's Cup bid as a core
member of the sailing team.
He will be involved in the early strategic planning
stages and will support the sponsorship search programme
for GBR Challenge during 2003 and 2004. After the Athens
Olympics, he will join the sailing team full-time.
"It has always been one of my ambitions to sail for
Great Britain in the America's Cup and I firmly believe
that we have the talent to win this event and bring
the Cup back to Britain", Iain Percy commented.
"GBR Challenge now has the experience and foundations
on which we can build and I am really excited about
this new step in my career".
"It is important for me to get involved in the
campaign planning at this stage when so many key decisions
are made. Obviously my key focus for now is the Olympics
in 2004."
Since completing the last America's Cup event in Auckland,
New Zealand, the GBR Challenge team has been planning
for the next edition of the event.
"Work has been carrying on to ensure that the correct
foundations are in place so the team moves forward into
the four year build-up programme for the 32nd America's
Cup event", Peter Harrisson, Founder and Chairman,
commented,
"A key part of that process is recruiting the best
people in each area. In Iain Percy we have secured a
fantastically talented sailor who is also capable of
adding value to a number of strategic areas."
Wainting for Ben Ainslie now...
Iain
Percy and Ben Ainslie with GBR ? (07/08/03)
(source
: The
Times)
According to Ed Gorman, Iain Percy and Ben Ainslie,
two of the world's top Olympic dinghy sailors, are
now in negotiation with Peter Harrison, who funded the
last British campaign, the GBR Challenge, and some predict
a deal is likely.
The
move will be seen as an imaginative and exciting progression
for Harrison, whose last team did respectably under
the leadership of Ian Walker in finishing seventh out
of nine challengers at the last Cup in Auckland.
Percy and Ainslie are great friends and are regarded
as being in a class of their own among the present
generation of British professional sailors. Both in
their mid-20s, each has already acquired an impressive
pedigree in the toughest school there is, the Olympic
Games, where Ainslie has won silver and gold medals
in the Laser class and Percy gold in Finns.
Having each moved on since the Sydney Games in
2000, the two have sparkled in their new disciplines.
Taking over in the Finn after a year
with the Seattle-based OneWorld syndicate,
Ainslie has ripped through the international rankings,
winning European and world titles in his first season,
and he now looks a virtual certainty to win a medal
at the Athens Games next year.
He is the natural leader. A confident
and at times outspoken individual with an economics
degree from Bristol University, he is popular and
charismatic and brings a refreshingly uncomplicated
approach to his sailing, arguing that the sport is
far simpler than many make out.
Percy, meanwhile, has revolutionised the complacent
world of Olympic Star sailing, winning the World Championship
last year alongside Steve Mitchell, and few would
bet against him winning another medal in Athens.
He also has an astute tactical and technical mind.
On shore he has shown that he knows how to handle
sponsors and he has the wherewithal to hold his own
in a boardroom.
One highly influential power broker in the sport said
recently that he could imagine Percy in the sort of
leadership role Russell Coutts performed for the Alinghi
Swiss Challenge team when it won the Cup in February,
while Ainslie might sit alongside him as sailing team
manager, in a similar role to that performed for Alinghi
by Jochen Schuemann, the triple Olympic gold medal-winner.
Some remain sceptical that Percy and Ainslie will work
with Harrison, who is not everyone’s cup of tea. However,
one well-placed source said that he thought there was
now a “90 per cent chance” that Harrison, Percy and
Ainslie would be in business at the 2007 Cup.
A
winning combination for UK Team ? (05/10/03)
(source
: Sport
Telegraph)
Ben Ainslie and Ian Walker, medallists at the last
two Olympic Games in Sydney and Atlanta, are to form
a potent partnership in the Royal Ocean Racing Club's
team for the Admiral's Cup in July.
They
are teamed aboard the Rodman 42 class yacht in the RORC
team led by Peter Harrison, who backed GBR Challenge
in the America's Cup in Auckland, where Walker was skipper.
Walker competed in the Admiral's Cup in 1997
and 1999 but this will be Ainslie's debut. He will
be helmsman, with Walker the skipper/tactician. Stuart
Childerley, another two-times Olympian who continues
to win major world titles despite retiring from professional
sailing, is the alternate helmsman/tactician.
The second boat in the team is Harrison's Farr
52 with his long-standing skipper, Mark Fitzgerald,
heading that crew.
Problems
on the GBR
Challenge road
(03/01/03)
(source
: Times)
Peter Harrison, the man who funded the GBR Challenge
in the last Louis Vuitton Cup, is facing a deeper and
serious malaise afflicting the heart of his campaign.
The man is a great enthusiast, he is passionate about
sailing and boats, patriotic and loyal to his employees,
but he has lost the respect of his own sailing team.
For all his qualities, Harrison is an egotist. He is
embarrassingly open about his desire for official recognition
in the form of an honour of some kind. He finds it hard
to listen and learn from people, he can be inflexible
and he does not seem to understand that an opposing
view is not a threat to his position.
Along the way a lot of the people working for him have
become exasperated and fed-up. As one key observer put
it: "Just because you have a £300 million fortune
does not mean people respect you — you have to earn
their respect."
Modern racing sailors, by their very nature, tend to
be bright, articulate and switched-on people who see
themselves as at the cutting edge of a technologically
advanced sport. The best are fluid and creative thinkers
with a realistic sense of how to go about achieving
their goals.
Many of the GBR Challenge team have achieved excellence
in other fields of sailing and are modest individuals
who find it difficult to reconcile their own values
with those of Harrison.
The comparison between Harrison’s relationship with
his sailors and Bertarelli’s could not be more stark.
The Swiss billionaire has created a team and a marketing
concept from nothing in three years.
One of the cornerstones of his success is the genuine
and unforced respect that he enjoys from his sailors
and designers. Bertarelli has developed an open-minded
and creative atmosphere, he has raced on his own boat
as of right and he has trained with his team just like
anyone else.
The problem is that Harrison presented himself two years
ago and said, in effect, “this is my campaign and my
campaign is me”. As a result, many of the GBR Challenge’s
strengths and weaknesses draw directly on his own strengths
and weaknesses.
These have become more obvious as the campaign has progressed
and especially so in recent weeks as it has begun to
unravel after its elimination from the Louis Vuitton
Cup.
One of the biggest obstacles to further progress is
the difficulty that Harrison has had, and is going to
have, convincing corporate partners to join his personality-led
outfit. He is going to have to work exceptionally hard
to convince the corporate world to join him.
He must also think again about the manner in which he
manages his team and how to create a working relationship
with which his team feel comfortable.
