ML:
No. They don’t really care. There was a pretty big group of people there to see the two Omanis race, Nasser who was sailing with us, and the Bowman on The Wave Muscat. Both guys are young, and I’m sure they had their village, and their families and their people behind them. It was awesome when we went to the awards ceremony on the beach, they had 50 guys throwing them up in the air and catching them like a mosh pit! Like a trampoline! It was really cool! They were chanting and waving flags, and it felt really cool to be there and involved.
SR:
So they came out to support their nation’s sailors!
ML:
That’s right. And I know that the event did a big media push with fliers, and flags all around town. There were grandstands on the beach right in front to watch, and they had one of Oman’s top hip-hop singers, on the beach. There was a crowd for that for sure, and some of them were watching sailing.
SR:
So Oman’s not necessarily a high-performance spectating country?
ML:
No. There aren't to many places in the world where watching sailboat racing is a priority. Fair enough.
SR:
Where is sailing a priority, and could the Extreme Sailing Series change that because of its close-racing, arena format?
ML:
I don’t think so. I don’t think that you’ll ever get people out to watch sailboat racing. Bottom line. You know, enough people to draw advertising and sponsors in. There’s a big enough community of people that want to watch it, but they’re not going to travel to Oman. Sydney Australia, is a pretty good spot, but they bet on sailing, so they fill the ferries and go out and bet on boats. They’re mostly there to win the money, not necessarily to watch sailing. They all show up for the start of the Sydney-Hobart Race. More people show up for that every year than... I’d bet, that the last Sydney-Hobart Race, on the 26th of December, more people showed up to watch than every Americas Cup for the last hundred years. But that’s normal. It’s a social thing to do. It’s what you do. Christmas was yesterday, so what do you do tomorrow? Go watch the race with a picnic and a bunch of champagne, hike out into the bluffs of Sydney. It’s a day to go out into nature, and since you’re hung over from Christmas, you keep drinking. It’s a family friendly thing, and they get hundreds of thousands of people out for it.
SR:
I’m trying to get a feel for these events that have 40 foot plus multihulls, in a NASCAR type setting, starting with the ProSail 40s back in the 80s, to the Extreme Sailing Series, and now the America’s Cup on the 45s, they’re all based on the same concept.
ML:
The America’s Cup has copied it to a T. They've tried to hold on to a little bit more of the racing. They have the ability to bring it to the masses with the TV technology, where the Extreme Sailing is trying to bring it to the VIPs that are there. In my opinion, with sailing, if you’re going to make it a public spectacle, it’s for the VIPs, those are basically the ten or so sponsoring companies. They use the event for corporate hospitality. That’s what the 18s did in Australia did, it’s for corporate hospitality. So you bring your execs down, it could be the Indy 500, it could be football, Kentucky Derby, whatever. The sailing’s cool in that respect. Every so often one of the guys gets called up to hop on a 40 for a race. Then he comes back to the table and tells everybody about it. To me, that’s what it’s about. And that’s the special thing about the sport, you know, golf, football, yeah you can get down on the green if you’re a sponsor, but with sailing, you can actually do it! That’s what sailing has to offer, and that’s what they need to embrace really.
SR:
Here it is almost a year down the line from when I was the 5th person on Team New Zealand’s 40 in Boston, and I’m still excited about it.
Exactly! You know the America’s Cup has some hype behind it, and it’s run every few years, so it’s a little bit like the soccer World Cup, you know, people get behind it. They kind of messed it up when they lost the nationalism. I mean look at ORACLE, they’re a bunch of Kiwis and Aussies, and I think one American, John Kostecki. I’m impressed with the Kiwis, they’ve done a really good job at developing their sailing and getting out there.
SR:
Do you think that reintroducing Nationality Rules, would increase interest?
ML:
It would triple it! And would triple the sponsorship. They got rid of the Nationality Rules when Coutts wanted to sail with his crew of really talented guys for Ernesto. Even during the 2003 cup, you had to go live in the country for twelve months, which helped them to become more acclimated to the country, and gain support. Say for One World, it aloud the Seattle Yacht Clubs to meet the guys on the crew, and get behind it a bit more. Until they have a rule where, say, the skipper and a percentage of the crew have to be from the country that they represent, it’s going to be a bit of joke. Sailing’s a great sport, but as a commercial sport, it’s not that great.
SR:
Let’s change gears a bit, I want to talk about sailing the 40s. You had a little incident on the water didn’t you, swapping gelcoat?
ML:
In Oman, one of the first days there when we got into that wreck with Alinghi. Ernesto was sitting at the bar, and apologized for the crash. Funny enough, he didn’t pick up our beers (laughs). He’s a good guy.
Part 2 next week!
