(Newport, RI)- Terry Hutchinson has accrued a track record of being a winner.
He gets involved in big-time keelboat racing programs and makes them
better. However, the basis for what he does today is deeply rooted in
extremely tough one-design racing at a world-class level.
After sailing
FJ’s and 420’s in college and became a College Sailor of the Year, Terry competed in J/24s for a long time, ultimately winning the J/24 World Championship.
Like other J/24 World Champions, such as his colleague Ken Read at
North Sails (now its President), Terry also capitalized on his know-how
on what it takes to win and proceeded to help Quantum Sails Racing
program, first in one-designs, then later in big boats.
It is now through his work as tactician for Hap Fauth’s Maxi72 Bella
Mente and Doug DeVos’s TP52 Quantum Racing that Terry has brought these
two successful owners together, alongside New York Yacht Club, to
challenge for the 36th America’s Cup. Here Terry discusses this new
campaign.
CL: Let’s start with some background.
TH: It’s an incredible opportunity in front of us. I’m incredibly
mindful of the history and the tradition that the New York Yacht Club
has for the event, and so from the team side, it’s an honor to be a part
of New York’s effort in this 36th America’s Cup.
This campaign probably started five years ago with Doug, and three years
ago with Hap, as our sailing relationships have evolved over that
period of time. When it became obvious that Team New Zealand was going
to win, and after having discussions with them and their Challenger of
Record where they indicated what they were going to do with the boat, it
seemed like an opportunity to at least sit down and discuss if this was
a challenge we wanted to take on.
The more myself, and Doug, and Hap talked about it, the more it became
apparent how our goals were aligned in what we wanted to do, what we
wanted the team to look like, and if we’re fortunate enough to be
successful partnering with New York, to make the next match another step
towards what we feel is represented in the sport. To get to this point
has been about six month’s worth of work and it’s just on the front side
of a lot more.
But I think when I look at our team and where we’re at, we have a lot of
great sailing infrastructure already in place, and that component of
the program has been operating at a reasonably high level for just over
the better part of five years.
So under Hap’s and Doug’s leadership, they’re helping us get the
business infrastructure in place and I think Hap summed it up best when
he said, “Being successful in the America’s Cup is as much of a sailing
venture, as it is a business venture,” and so it’s going to take an
absolute team effort from all of us to be successful.
CL: Any particular vision for the team?
TH: For starters, we have two great principals. We have Doug and Hap.
Then we have a third partner with the New York Yacht Club. But we are
going to need to continue to find commercial and private funding to help
support this challenge. Additionally, an important point to make is how
this is going to be a US team. It’s a US flag team.
When you travel and you race the 52s or the 72s, you realize there is a
massive gap in sailors from my generation, or slightly behind, to people
in their early twenties. So as a team, we want to return the America’s
Cup back to the base of our sport and garner support in that manner. In
all of our minds, we want to represent the United States in the manner
we feel is appropriate and do it through hard work and good results on
the race course.
Is the team going to be 100% American? Probably not, but again, it’s
going to be born and bred here. The way the Protocol is written right
now, the sailing team must be comprised of 20% nationals and 80% have to
be residents. I’m expecting the residency clause to be a pretty
difficult to achieve by bringing in outsiders, so our goal is to have a
team that is US based and using and developing sailors in our country.
When you talk about winning and then defending in the grand scheme of
things, if we’re successful enough on the water this is time around, the
goal would be to have developed a team of younger sailors that can then
defend it. If you think about it in the big picture world, if it’s a
nine-year cycle, I will have probably aged out of it by then. And that’s
why we have to do a good enough job developing the younger generation.
That’ll likely be a combination of American sailors and international
sailors, but as the skipper of the team and as an American, my feelings
and thoughts are in this is going to be an American team. Is every
single person going to be an American citizen? Probably not, but we’re
going to definitely wave the flag proudly.
CL: Any details at this time about team members?
TH: It’s a bit too soon for specifics but I will say that my role is
team skipper and not helm…. though in the America’s Cup you never say
never. If you break down the timeline, and start working backwards from
when the actual match, there’s not a lot of sailing time in the boat
itself. But there’s some great young American sailors right now pursuing
various avenues, so there’s a lot of talent that we have to go and
cultivate and see who is going to be the right fit for this campaign.
It’s pretty simple when the underlying agenda is winning, which it is,
and then doing it in a manner that’s going to make us all proud. When
you work backwards from there then the cream will rise to the top. We
just have to make sure that we then have a structure in place that
allows us to pick the best sailors and execute on the day.
CL: What do we know about the boat?
TH: In all the discussions that we’ve had with the defender, we have a
sense of the direction but it’s premature to know the full scope as
there are a lot of variables that need to get addressed. The challenge
for the organizers is how they want to make sure they have a great event
that has participation and that brings people to New Zealand, and that
brings the event back to where the base of the sport feels like it
should be. Within all that the America’s Cup needs to maintain its
position as the pinnacle of the sport.
So this is a tricky challenge. They want participants, they need to
control the costs so it doesn’t become a ridiculous arm’s race, yet it
needs to be the pinnacle of our sport. Having been in the loop of the
conversations and email exchanges with Grant Dalton, I see clearly how
he’s in a tough spot. While he’s in a great spot because he just won the
thing, but he has got a great responsibility as well. I know they’re
not taking any of it lightly.
CL: What have been some of the lessons you’ve learned in the past that are now directing you out of the blocks?
TH: With regard to the game itself, you can make extremely complicated,
so lesson number one is to seek simplicity and focus on the priorities
which is to design a fast boat and race it well with good people. If you
keep those principles you can make it an easier game.
Significant to keeping it simple is getting the right people for the
job. As I’ve evolved in my sailing, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be
tactician for some really great teams, and what you learn in those
experiences in how vital it is to have the right people for the jobs
ashore and on the water. So we will be focused on bringing together
those people.
One of the strengths for Bella Mente and Quantum Racing programs is to
have great teams from bow to stern, where everybody works hard and
respects the process that’s in place. We have a great system sailing
where we evaluate our performance each day and we critique it and we go
back out and we do the same thing the next day. We look forward to
continuing this approach with this new campaign.
When the club announced this challenge, Hap made mention to how the
event would now embody “a more traditional style of yacht and the
windward-leeward courses with which the vast majority of racing sailors
are intimately familiar…” Does this infer the America’s Cup got off
track with the previous few additions?
I wouldn’t say it went off track. In fact, I’d say there was some great
things as a show. The last America’s Cup, as a visual spectator, was
pretty darn impressive. The organization did a really good job of
producing a broadcast product that was pretty exciting to watch.
However, I’m not sure it’s the vision I would’ve followed but that’s not
really my position to say because we weren’t in their situation. They
followed what they thought was a correct vision to take sailing to a
different part of the sport. And that’s what they did. Team New Zealand
has won it now and as competitors we follow their vision.
Four years from now, if we’re fortunate enough to be the defender, our
vision will likely be a variation of several of the recent America’s
Cup. But without question, the vision going forward is to do what we can
to broaden our sport.” Thanks to Scuttlebutt Sailing Newsletter for this contribution.