RC44s: RC44s are Fun... and What's in a Name?

RC44s heading downwind off Cagliari. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

by Anne Hinton

Away from the media entourage, by and large, as the RC44 class produces its own press reports, photography and videos, and does not finance visits from the international media, unlike most other events of similar status, the great and good of the match racing and the America's Cup world have fun racing each other.

Each event on the RC44 season's calendar has time for a match race regatta, with Pro sailors, such as some of the world's top match racers, Dean Barker and Sebastien Col, helming against each other, and fleet racing in which these top Pro sailors become tactician/coach to the owner drivers. On BMW ORACLE Racing, Russell Coutts is semi-permanent tactician to Larry Ellison, who helms in both the fleet and match racing.

There has been both an introduction of new boats to the circuit and a good turnover in the limited second-hand market, to leave the RC44 class going from strength to strength. This is reflected in the levels of sponsorship, which have increased to enable much better shore-side facilities now compared with the first season of racing, an excellent race officer in Peter ('Luigi') Reggio, and dedicated match race umpires/fleet race judges, led by Marco Mercuriali.

What's in a Name?

The cast of the RC44 class, with its top America's Cup match racers and mini-America's Cup in-a-box boat (although with significant enhancement in the downwind performance department), enables the sailors to continue at AC-type on-the-water play despite the recent land-based America's Cup wranglings.

One newly named boat at the Cagliari Yacht Club event in Sardinia this April was that of BMW ORACLE Racing, owned by Larry Ellison... who also appeared to be experimenting with the lettering on day one of the match race event:

'Deal Breaker', the name seeming to be a reflection of Mr Ellison's view of the land-based AC issues, appeared firstly in one type of lettering...


Larry Ellison on the scoop of his RC44 'Deal Breaker'. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

but was later changed to italics, and remained that way for the rest of the event in Cagliari:


On the second day of match racing in Cagliari, the 'Deal Breaker' lettering was in italics. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

Another notable change was the modification of Patrick de Barros' 'Black Pearl', now forming the A team boat from Islas Canarias Puerto Calero. (Two boats from this team were competing at the first RC44 event of the year in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, in March.)


Black Pearl sailing off Trieste, with Dean Barker as tactician. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

Crewed by Dean Barker and some members of Emirates Team New Zealand, as the pro sailors (each team is supposedly composed of four pro sailors and four or five amateurs - although the newest boat, Team Upper Austria, is formed almost entirely of amateurs), 'Black Pearl' made her mark on the earlier racing.


The friendly 'pirate' crew of the Black Pearl, including Dean Barker, Jero Lomas, James Dagg and Tony Rae from Emirates Team New Zealand. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

It is supposed in some quarters to be bad luck to change the name of a boat. Maybe the Spanish heard about this when they bought 'Black Pearl', and someone recognised a very convenient way of changing the name slightly by modifying the English.


'Lack Pear', the (temporary) new name for 'Black Pearl', now under the ownership of Daniel Calero, sponsored by Islas Canarias Puerto Calero. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

'Black Pearl' has dropped a letter from each end of her name, and is now sailing as 'Lack Pear'. Whilst, in the imagination, all sorts of interpretations could be associated with this name, it appeared, at least on day one of the match racing in Cagliari, to be a convenient alternative to 'Black Pearl' for the Islas Canarias Puerto Calero Spanish team to identify the boat as now being theirs...


Daniel Calero's Islas Canarias Puerto Calero team, and entourage. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

And just in case you were wondering, in addition to Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts, the people in the images below were on the BMW ORACLE Racing team in Cagliari:


BMW ORACLE Racing team minus Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

Dean Barker, Jero Lomas, James Dagg and Don Cowie from Emirates Team New Zealand are now on Torbjorn Tornqvist's RC44 Artemis (BMW ORACLE Racing team members, including Russell Coutts, sail on Tornqvist's TP52 Artemis):


Dean Barker, Jero Lomas, James Dagg and Don Cowie with other RC44 Artemis team members. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

Compère Extraordinaire


Yousef Lahej, fleet race helmsman on Markus Wieser's Sea Dubai. Image copyright Anne Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

Yousef Lahej demonstrated a hidden talent on the way to the Class dinner in Cagliari. He kept the Sea Dubai and Team Austria bus extremely well entertained en route, as the teams passed many of Cagliari's attractions while the sun set in a fiery glow to the west.

RC44