Team Shosholoza riding high
24 May 2006
South Africa's Team Shosholoza made big waves at the latest regatta leading up to the America's Cup final in 2007, finishing sixth out of 12 teams - fifth out of 11 challengers vying for the right to battle the America's Cup defender, Swiss Team Alinghi, for sailing's highest crown.
Racing against the world's top yachts and crews in the 11th Louis Vuitton Act in Valencia, Spain over the weekend, Shosholza racked up two fifth-place, one sixth-place and two eighth-place finishes to end on 12 points in the 2006 season championship rankings, tied for sixth place overall with Spanish team Desafío Español.
Outracing the big guns
The South Africans beat a number of the big guns in the course of the five races, achieving individual race positions ahead of Alinghi, Italy's Luna Rossa Challenge, Emirates Team New Zealand, and US entry BMW Oracle Racing.
Alinghi helmsman Jochen Schuemann, a veteran of three America's Cup campaigns, described the South Africans as "awesome".
Tommaso Chieffi, one of four professional international yachtsmen who assisted Shosholoza as crew/coaches in the Valencia regattas, said the skippers of Luna Rossa and another Italian team, Mascalazone Latino-Capitalia, were also full of praise for Shosholoza's performances.
Long road to the final
The short but crucial 2006 America's Cup racing season began on 11 May with the 10th Louis Vuitton regatta - in which Shosholoza placed 8th - and ends with the 12th Louis Vuitton regatta, which runs from 22 June to 3 July.
The 11 challengers will then compete in one more Louis Vuitton regatta in 2007 and finally in the Louis Vuitton Cup, a round robin elimination regatta to determine which single team will
square up against Alinghi in the final, the America's Cup Match.
With Louis Vuitton ranking points counting towards the bonus points that teams take into the Louis Vuitton Cup, the 32nd America's Cup effectively started with the first Louis Vuitton regatta of 2005.
However, as the final draws nearer, the races become increasingly important: Louis Vuitton ranking points for 2006 count double, while points for the final Loius Vuitton Act in 2007 count treble, towards each team's bonus points.
Shosholoza's sixth place in the latest regatta therefore counts more (seven points doubled) than the eight points the team scored in its best outing so far, an incredible fifth place overall in the final regatta of 2005, the 9th Louis Vuitton Act in Trapani, Sicily in October.
'Ranks with the Football World Cup'
"I am so proud of this team," said Shosholoza managing director Salvatore Sarno. "Our logo on our team base is 'one team, one
nation, one dream'. We are a very proudly South African campaign and we need help to give us the competitive edge.
"The America's Cup is ranked with the Olympic Games, the Soccer World Cup and Formula One motor racing," Sarno said. "It is a contest that depends on leading edge technology, human resources and skills.
You can't find a better international platform for showcasing all that is positive about our country and our new democracy."
Sarno said he received calls from all over South Africa as word of Shosholoza's performances got out, adding that the results could be just what was needed to bring the team, who are sponsored by German company T-Systems, a local sponsor as well.
First ever African entrant
The first ever African entrant in the prestigious event, Team Shosholoza's America's Cup challenge has captured worldwide attention.
T-Systems saw the story that was unfolding and came on board as the team's
primary sponsor in January 2005, weighing in with R100-million over three years.
The crew has turned the traditionally white-dominated sport on its head, with around a quarter of its sailors being black, including some from very marginalised backgrounds.
In a New York Times article published in 2004, Michael Wines said of Team Shosholoza: "They have shattered the image of yachting as the preserve of hyper-rich CEOs and lily-white sailing crews.
"They have raised the delicious prospect, however remote, that billionaires who lavish $100-million and more on America's Cup challenges can be humbled by a rival with one-quarter the budget and a 19-year-old sailor with scars from old knife fights.
"They have attracted a corporate sponsor, a huge German company that pumped some $17-million into Team Shosholoza … just as money was running out.
"Then there is the biggest accomplishment of all: taking a handful of young men with cloudy futures and showing them
that they, too, can take on the world's best."
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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