Admirals Cup: Day 8 - Minnows take the top two places in the Admirals' Cup
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 31 Jul 01:15 AEST
Peter Harrison at the helm of Jolt 3 - Admiral's Cup 2025 in the Rolex Fastnet Race © James Tomlinson / RORC
In a result that is a hammer blow for the sport and the revival of major offshore teams trophies, Monaco and Hong Kong have provisionally taken first and second in the world championship of offshore racing.
This was no end of series upset, the two countries, not normally ranked in pundits' top five sailing nations, have shown that with good organisation, sound and consistent sailing they can match and beat The Establishment of sailing.
Both had two boat teams backed by the same owner. They locked horns at the top of the points table almost from the outset, the only real question was which of the establishment teams would come third.
In the end it was the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, the challenging club of Italy's first America's Cup campaign, in 1983 and its second in 1987.
Current America's Cup champion Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron was fourth, with 1983 America's Cup winner Australia fifth and top Olympic sailing nation, Netherlands sixth.
To now be part of that pantheon of sailing, the "minnows" can be justly proud.
Yes, they did have the help of some very good international sailors, but the Admirals' Cup donated in 1957 by five former Admirals of the Royal Ocean Racing Club to bring international competitors to Cowes Week, has always been a teams event, rather than centred around the stellar performance of one boat or crew.
Nationality rules in both the Olympics and America's Cup have curbed the ability of the "minnows" of the sport to make the medal podium. Yes, it does happen occasionally but never in the way that it has in this Admirals' Cup, or indeed its forebears.
A standout of the past week or so has been to see the top professionals in the sport, who aren't a full-time part of the America's Cup and SailGP circuits, jousting once again in the arenas of inshore and offshore keelboat racing.
In the Fastnet it is not possible to have the whole crew sitting on the rail for the whole race, and turn in a winning performance. So on the race boats themselves and the country teams, all the cogs have to be spinning smoothly.
Already the Sardinia Cup has been announced as being a revived event, others will also be looking in their trophy cabinets.
Earlier this year, at the life celebration for top Kiwi offshore sailor, Graeme Woodroffe - a long time competitor in the various Ton Cups and the Clipper, it really hit home after some of Woody's many stories were regaled, how much the sport has lost by the reirement of many of the great offshore racing trophies and events.
This Admirals's Cup, thanks to some solid thinking of various factions of the sport and the Royal Ocean Racing Club, has created a simple blueprint for the revival of the major trophies - handing back to the sport a big part of its lost heritage. As well RORC has created an opportunity for new sailors and owners to come into the great sport of offshore racing - where it is again possible to compete against the top sailors in the sport - and hold down a "real" job as well.
That always used to be a strength of the Admirals' Cup, and it is great to see return of that ethnicity.
Of course the other strength of the Admirals' Cup, and the other retired offshore team trophies, is that everyone knows where the next one will be, when it will be, and what the boats and rules are. The success of the IRC rule has had a big impact on the revived Admirals' Cup - giving a stable rating rule, as did its forebears - the RORC rule and the IOR.
A sobering observation of the Admirals' Cup was to look from the photoboat across the Solent to see two great clubs now side by side - the Royal Ocean Racing Club, in its new premises on the Cowes foreshore, and the Royal Yacht Squadron established in 'The Castle" in 1826.
The former is in the driving seat of one of the great revivals in sailing. The latter - for the want of a signature on an America's Cup Protocol, is pulling the most prestigous event in sailing, down a rabbithole and into oblivion, in a way that does not reflect at all well on the Club.
That contrast of light and shade underscores the outstanding achievement of all involved in the revival of the Admirals' Cup, their ability to put aside petty differences and rules niceties, to re-create one of the great events of sailing in a new form without losing too much of the old. At the same time the RORC has shown the way for the revival of other similar events around the world.
The new Admirals' Cup, and similar events are also a great shot in the arm for the marine industry, providing a stage where once again we can see different manufacturers competing on a race course -and we have the return of that healthy competition and development of sails, spars, winches and all manner of marine gear - that does have a real trickle down into the rest of the sport, in a way that wingsailed foiling catamarans and monohulls have never been able to do.
It is too easily forgotten that some of the powerhouses of the current marine industry started out as minnows, backed by an enthusisatic owner, and began their international careers off the back of a stand-out performance in an Admirals' Cup. The competitive battle between North Sails and former minnow Doyle Sails, was one of the features of this Cup, and while the dust is yet to settle, your average owner and maybe racer, will be a winner from this competition. We just need more of it.
Even looking back to the 1981 Admirals' Cup, where top offshore racer Ian Gibbs (NZL), another Admirals' Cup "minnow", decided to take a different approach to a campaign and strategy, winning top individual boat on his first attempt. Others like Owen and Robin Aisher have had a similar impact in different ways for the Brits, by just being there year after year and providing essential continuity.
The rockstar sailors often take the glory for their performances on the water, and quotes afterwards.
But the owners have been the real heroes of this Admirals' Cup as they have been in the past, and it will largely fall to their shoulders to continue and expand the momemntum that has been built over the last couple of weeks and years.
Attracting 15 teams to the revived Admirals' Cup shows the level of enthusiasm and thirst for this style of racing. With that start the sky is surely the limit.
The innovation of requiring each crew to have a Youth and Female participant worked, in that it forced this level of thinking into team composition, however some would have had both on their crews in the absence of a quota requirement. By having Admirals' Cup participation on their CVs, their sailors move up several rungs on the open selection ladder, and will be selected again in the future. These rules are essential to ensure the expansion of the sport and break-down the "old boys" network. They have worked well in Round the World race crew composition, aside from the fact that the in the last couple of years, two round the world races, in open competiton, have been won by female skippers.
The only disappointing aspect of the Admirals' Cup and SailGP Portsmouth which preceded it, is that the mainstream media and big chunks of the sailing media just do not "get it". The Admirals' Cup despite being a major sailing event, received no coverage in the daily British media that we saw, and similarly for SailGP. Some put this down to a lack of a naming rights sponsor for the Admirals' Cup, but the media facilities at both the Admirals' Cup and SailGP were excellent.
They had no excuses, aside from lack of access to the top sailors, in a workable way, at the end of each day's racing - and maybe that is a work-on for both events.
Additional Images:
Tracking: There is still plenty of racing for smaller boats who are not part of the Admirals' Cup fleet. Track the fleet via Yellow Brick Tracker to use the YB Tracker which you can download as an App on your phone or mobile device. To use the Tracker deselect the yachts you do not wish to view. The default view is for the whole fleet to be shown.
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