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.