Shosholoza, the South
African America's Cup Challenge's training yacht was
moved to the V&A Waterfront where she is being prepared
for the fitting of her massive 22 ton keel and stepping
of the vast 36 metre carbon fibre mast.
The 25 metre yacht, which is standing on the quayside
just across the lifting bridge from the Cape Grace
Hotel, is currently wrapped and strapped in heavy
duty black plastic sheeting in an attempt to keep
her spectacular new graphics secret.
The yacht has been based at the MSC Container Depot
in Woodstock for the past three weeks where she was
stripped of all Prada signage, repainted black and
"redressed" in the colours of the South African Challenge.
The bold graphic, which stretches across the entire
length of Shosholoza's hull, originated from designs
perfected over many months by none other than Captain
Salvatore Sarno who is not only chairman of MSC South
Africa, but the driving force behind the SA America's
Cup Challenge.
Passionate about the project being an all-inclusive
"African Dream" Captain Sarno has incorporated influences
from Zulu and Ndebele bead work into a dramatic wave
pattern, which is portrayed in the vibrant colours
of the South African flag.
In further collaboration with advertising agency Saatchi
& Saatchi the designs have been worked up for use
in a range of logos and signage that will make the
South African Shosholoza Challenge instantly recognisable
both at home and around the world.
The South African America's Cup Challenge will be
officially launched in the V&A Waterfront in Cape
Town on Monday 19 April.
According to a report
by Tim Jeffery in The Daily Telegraph today, it is thought
that the South African Challenge will lodge their bid
plus the €1 million "performance bond" required with
the Swiss as soon as next week.
This would make the South African team the first formal
challengers after Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing
Salvatore Sarno said the South Africa America's Cup
Challenge 2007 would have a budget of about €20
million. This is small change compared with the budget
of the current holders and defenders of the cup, Swiss
team Alinghi, of €100m and of an Italian challenge
at €120m.
But a lot of the money spent by those teams would go
towards the salaries of the extremely highly paid "Hollywood
stars" of sailing that these teams acquire as part of
their strategy to win.
"We will have no such stars, but we will have dedicated
people who will give that extra 10% that might make
the difference," Sarno said.
World-class Cape Town yachtsman Geoff Meek will skipper
the South African entry. He has won many big-boat events
in his career, including the Fastnet Race, Cowes Week,
the Sydney Hobart Race, the SORC Race Week in Miami,
Block Island Race Week off New York, Sardinia Cup, the
Southern Cross Cup in Sydney and the Onion Patch regatta
in Newport.
He has also won every major offshore regatta in South
Africa and holds the record of 20 Table Bay Race Week
championship titles.
Sailing crew signed up so far are Ian Ainslie, David
Rae, Golden Mgedeza, Ashton Sampson, Marcello Burricks,
Marc Lagesse and Guido Verhovert. The full crew will
be selected during trials held throughout the year.
"We plan to start sailing with our training boat on
April 1 with 10 local crew," said sailing manager Paul
Standbridge, who did the same job with the GBR Challenge
in 2003.
Mafika Mkwanazi, former CEO of Transnet, has been appointed
president of the SA America's Cup Challenge. Its legal
affairs would be managed by top law firm Shepstone and
Wylie, known for their maritime law expertise.
South Africa, led by Cape
Town, is to mount a challenge for the 153-year-old America's
Cup, the most prestigious yachting event in the world.
A local syndicate has already bought a yacht, the Luna
Rossa ITA 48, from Prada, the Italian challenger in
previous races, which will be the training vessel for
the South African crew. She arrives in Cape Town on
Sunday and will be berthed at the Victoria and Alfred
Waterfront for the next three years.
The dream of challenging for the America's Cup is that
of Captain Salvatore Sarno, chairperson of the Durban
based Mediterranean Shipping Company. Sarno, with other
South African businessmen, has formed the South African
Challenge syndicate which has bought the Luna Rossa.
Salvatore Sarno said the Luna Rossa will be refitted
and re-rigged in the official SA Challenge colours:
a black hull with a beaded wave pattern in the colours
of the South African flag.
World-class Cape Town yachtsman Geoff Meek, who has
won a string of races in his career, will skipper the
South African entry, Shosolosa. The city's Royal Cape
Yacht Club has been nominated as the SA Challenge club.
Meek, long regarded as one of the very best short course
yacht racing skippers this country has yet delivered,
said a permanent crew of eight or nine sailors would
form the core of the challenge team, with positions
available for the best young sailors around the country
to compete for.
"It is such a big, big thing, it has not yet sunk in,"
said Meek. "It will be a life-changing project. Suddenly,
I have to plan to be a professional sailor over the
next three months. There is so much I will have to do."
America's Cup history will also be made. This will be
the first time in the race's history that a black crew
will take part. Thinking long-term, Sarno started to
train young black crew members several years ago.
"We will have six or seven highly trained, wonderfully
skilled black crew on board the Shosholoza," Sarno said.
The next step is to build, at the Southern Wind shipyards
in Cape Town, the yacht on which South Africa's hopes
will be pinned, the Shosholoza; and designs are already
in place.
Meek said a young British designer, Jason Kerr, had
been invited to lead a team of mostly South African
naval architects to work on the designs of the final
South African challenge boat. Kerr is to move to South
Africa with his whole office and will work from here.
The two yachts will be built in Cape Town. The first
will be subjected to every test and nuance of the seas
and the design will be adjusted, again and again. Once
perfection has been achieved, the second, and ultimate,
Shosholoza will be built.
Big guns, like minister of sport Ngconde Balfour, have
already put their weight firmly behind the project and
experts from Stellenbosch University, the University
of Cape Town and Denel will help develop what will hopefully
be the fastest and most sophisticated maritime racing
machine in the world.
If South Africa wins in 2007, it will be able to host
the following event and all indications are it would
take place off Cape Town.
Cape Town Tourism head Sheryl Ozinsky said a South African
challenger in the America's Cup would lead to "enormous
spin-offs" for the city and the country, including massive
media coverage. The event would also showcase the yacht-building
industry in the city, as well as emphasise the strong
mari-time tradition Cape Town has built up over the
years.
Rick Taylor, chief executive of the Cape town Convention
Bureau, said if South Africa managed to win and host
the next race, it would "catapult Cape Town into the
stratosphere of world tourism".
"It would have a cascading affect and increase the warm
accolades we are receiving from all over the world because
of the competitive tourism product we already offer
visitors."
Salvatore Sarno, a native
Italian who now is general manager of the "Mediterranean
Shipping Company" in South Africa bought ITA 48 for
€uro 525,000 to train a South African team for the
2007 AC.
He's putting together a team down there, with people
he's used to sail with. Team Manager (and trimmer)
will be Jeff Mick, head of North Sail South Africa.
They won't sail with Roy Heiner (After last Volvo,
Heiner was rumored to discuss with South African businessmen
for a 2007 AC challenge).
South African designer Kurchick was to be Head Designer,
but he signed with TNZ. They are now looking after
a young designer.
They don't want to go to Valencia "only to be the
most friendly team," but they definitely want to "beat
the French, the Spanish, the three or four Italian
teams, and the pair of American teams which might
show up." They want "to prove there are other good
sailors than Australian and New Zealanders".
Francisco de Angelis will stay (for free) with the
South African team for a month. They will train in
the rough seas and windy conditions out of Victoria
and Alfred Water Front (near Cape Town).
Grant Simmer, coordinator
of the Alinghi Design Team, said in the New Zealand's
newspaper Sunday Star Times there was the possibility
of South Africa's first-ever America's Cup challenge.
The South Africans had made inquiries about buying
one of Alinghi’s old boats. Presumably the boat the
South African’s were enquiring about is SUI-59.
