25 May 2004

The South African America's Cup Challenge 2007 has made some significant strides forward since Captain Salvatore Sarno announced it earlier this year. In fact it's probably fair to say that many have been surprised by just how fast and efficiently the challenge has evolved. In a very short space of time they have a top international designer contracted and moved to Cape Town, a training boat on the water and a full team of sailors employed. They also scored a bit of a coup in securing the services of top international yachtsman Paul Standbridge as the team's Sailing Manager. Paul recently took a bit of time out from his hectic schedule to talk to Smooth Sailing about the campaign and his role in it.

SS: You have been a professional sailor for how many years now?

PS: 25 Years

SS: What has been the highlight of your career to date?

PS: It's all been one big highlight!

SS:In the last America's Cup you were with Team GBR, a first time cup AC Challenger, what was your role there?

PS: Sailing Manager

SS:As a first time AC challenger was Team GBR happy with their result in the last cup?

PS: Yes, we achieved our goals.

SS: Undoubtedly it's harder for a first time challenger to be competitive in the AC than an experienced team. Having done the hard yards with Team GBR last time round would you not rather be involved in theirs, or another second time campaign or is there an attraction in being able to start with a clean sheet?

PS: The attraction with Team Shosholoza is to be with an African team. But yes, it is harder doing it first time round. We are starting with a clean sheet, however, we do have a limited budget - so the clean sheet is slightly irrelevant.

SS: I am sure in a campaign like this there are lots of dead-end roads that a new team can find itself going down. What lessons have you learnt from your experience with Team GBR that you will be able to apply to the SA Challenge that will save us time or money or make us more competitive?

PS: Yes, there are lots of dead end roads, which is why I can help Team Shosholoza to cut huge corners, which will save time and money. One of our faults at GBR was trying to be greedy with our second boat, which was radical.

SS: A fairly large team has already been assembled in Cape Town. How was this team selected?

PS: The team were primarily selected by Captain Salvatore Sarno and Geoff Meek. All of the sailors are much younger than me and I didn't know them. I was first in securing Henri Hiddes as our Shore Manager, being a long-term friend and associate of mine and of the same generation. I am now involved in the further recruitment of people now that we have a team to build on.

SS: An invitation for interested parties to apply for positions on the team was widely distributed. How many applications have you had and how do you plan to deal with these? Will you be trailing more sailors or simply assessing the merits of their applications? Does the team have the capacity to employ any more personnel at this stage?

PS: We've had hundreds of applications and we are very pleased with the response. I am trialing 2 potential crew per week and will continue to do so for one year. In year two, we will assess our crew situation. We do have the capacity to employ more people, but we are going to do this over an 18-month period. We have to be careful that we get the correct people because we intend to keep everyone to the end.

SS: Team GBR was able to draw on a large pool of extremely talented sailors for their last campaign in particular having a strong pool of Olympians to choose from. SA doesn't have this luxury. Can that be seen as us starting from an already disadvantaged position or are you confident that we can get the guys up to speed by 2007?

PS: Only using sailors from South Africa is a disadvantage from looking globally. However, we want to try and keep it exclusively South African and we will maintain this policy for the first year. After that, if we are not achieving our goals, I will look globally for people with America's Cup experience.

SS: You have a training boat and a full sailing team, what's the program for the rest of the year?

PS: For the first year we want to be sailing in Table Bay, four days a week, which will include crew trialing and promotional sailing. We intend to go to at least two overseas regattas and we hope to secure a charter on an IACC yacht for the regattas at Marseilles and Valencia at the end of this year.

SS: How do you see the structure and program of the team differing from its present form a year from now?

PS: A year from now the team will follow a similar structure, but at a much higher level and our overseas regattas will be on our boat or either a modified RSA or perhaps our newly designed boat. We are obliged to go to these three regattas in Europe, which is the start of the selection process for the Louis Vuitton Cup.

SS: Finally, what do you see as being the short-term priorities for the SA AC Challenge?

PS: Short-term priorities are fundraising, crew selection and research and development for our new boats.

SS: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us!