As teams begin to fall by the wayside on the road to the 32nd America’s Cup, it’s great news to hear that some are already beginning to make plans for the next time. Team Shosholoza may have missed the cut for the final four in the Louis Vuitton Cup, but the South Africans have covered themselves in glory, and syndicate head Captain Salvatore Sarno said they would be back.“Most probably Defender Alinghi will win again and if they do,” said the Captain. “It is not final but 99 per cent sure, the next Cup will be in Valencia. If this is the case I hope that we will be able to launch RSA 101 by February next year and have it ready for the first Acts in May. My plan is that we have a two-boat programme.”
One team that we can be fairly sure won’t be making a re-appearance at the 33rd Cup is +39 Challenge. If anyone was in any doubt about the team’s future, jib trimmer Stefano Rizzi (pictured above) left us in no doubt at the media zone. It’s well known that there is no love lost between the sailors and their management, but no one has voiced it quite as explicitly as Rizzi.
“I would never have thought that at the age of 40 I would be involved in such a badly run project, but this campaign will give me the drive to do another one, because it can’t be worse than how it went here, it’s impossible. This is the America’s Cup, and you have to do it well, like in any great sporting event.
“I don’t want them [the +39 management] ever to get involved again. Everything was wrong, from the poor fundraising to the lack of organisation. The +39 project was a blueprint for how not to do the America’s Cup. This project was on the wrong track from the very beginning. We have been dealing with people with not enough experience and too much arrogance. They didn’t want to learn from the people who had experience and there was a lack of humility on their part.
“It’s a pity, because the sailing crew is excellent. I wanted to quit the America’s Cup after this edition, but now, to wash away the dirt from this campaign, I must do another one, even if I don’t get paid for it!”
2 comments:
Hmmmm - if you were putting together a new syndicate would you want to hire someone who was so negative and vocal about his previous employer?
Hi Tillerman, love your blog by the way. I think Rizzi is releasing a lot of bottled up emotion from the past two years, and most people in Valencia are giving him big respect for saying the unsayable. The +39 guys have been really mucked around by their management, and I don't think Rizzi would have said this about anyone.
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