Mr America’s Cup on AC75 cost and Brit’s recent hirings

Four times America’s Cup winner Dennis Conner discusses the incident between Wild Oats XI and LDV Commanche with long time Wild Oats crew man Joshua Whittaker, an Australian now resident in San Diego. Whittaker concedes they could have handled the incident better.

Then Conner moves over to the America’s Cup – an event with which he is synonymous – and both gets back onto the previous theme of the AC75 being a very expensive boat – forgetting that a team developing the class rule is the same one which ran and won the last America’s Cup on a budget of just $78million – the lowest at the 35th America’s Cup in Bermuda, with only Groupama Team France having less.

Next he covers the latest hirings by Land Rover BAR, saying in a round about way that he thinks the Brits had management problems last time.

He picks up on the hiring of 34 year Cup veteran and four times America’s Cup winner Grant Simmer. Conner says he thinks LandRover BAR have made a smart move in adding to their management team. “He (Ben Ainslie) has the Queen and the Princess on his side, but you’ve still got to manage 100 guys.”

Earlier interview with his tactician and North Technology President Tom Whidden:

And with noted America’s Cup journalist Bruce Stannard (AUS) covering what happened in the 1983 America’s Cup and more:

Dennis Conner with three excellent sail-world.com videos