America's Cup- Burling joins Team Korea, Outteridge jumps to Artemis

by Richard Gladwell on 21 Sep 2012
The game of musical chairs continues in the 34th America's Cup, with the announcement on America's Cup.com that New Zealand Olympic Silver medalist, Peter Burling, will take over from Nathan Outteridge (AUS) as helm of Team Korea's AC45 for the next round of the America's Cup World Series in San Francisco.

Nathan Outteridge will be joining Artemis Racing and will helm the second boat, with regular skipper Terry Hutchinson (USA) retaining his position on the other AC45. An announcement has yet to be made by Artemis Racing to confirm this change. Hutchinson sailing Artemis White finished in sixth place in the last round of the ACWS in San Francisco. Outgoing skipper of Artemis Red, Santiago Lange, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in the Tornado class, was eliminated in the Qualifiers of the Match Racing by Luna Rossa and placed ninth in the fleet racing in San Francisco.

Three New Zealanders will now be helming in the 11 boat, eight team ACWS event which gets underway for the second round in San Francisco at the end of September. Another New Zealander has also joined the Team Korean crew.

The AC.com report follows another story in www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/sailing/nathan-outteridge-becomes-latest-skipper-to-depart-americas-cup-challenger-team-korea-8160560.html!The_Independent_newspaper, where their extremely well connected international yachting correspondent, Stuart Alexander reports that Nathan Outteridge will join one of the teams who already have AC72's launched.

Team Korea has been one of the stand-out teams in the America's Cup World Series, placing extremely well against the big-monied teams almost from the get-go, first under the helmsmanship of Chris Draper (GBR) who was poached by Luna Rossa, and then with Nathan Outteridge (AUS) who finished third in the San Francisco round of the ACWS, beating both Artemis Racing Team, Emirates Team NZ and Oracle Racing Coutts.

The team has made a number of smart moves in its campaign, the principal of which is to engage the services of apparent wind sailors as opposed to the more recognised rockstars of sailing, who may have bigger public profiles but take considerably longer to make the transition from monohulls to catamarans, if indeed they ever make it. Burling's engagement and transition from the Olympic skiff world to the multihull America's Cup World is understandable when seen in this context.

The report from America's Cup.com continues: At just 21, Burling becomes the youngest skipper in the competition by a considerable margin, a position he is familiar with, having been the youngest ever sailor to represent New Zealand at the Olympic Games, when he sailed in the 470 class in 2008 in China.

With a subsequent move into the 49er, Burling and his crew Blair Tuke earned back to back second place finishes in the 2011 and 2012 World Championships before winning the Olympic Silver medal at the London Games in August.

Dong Young-Kim, founder of Team Korea, said: 'Peter is the type of young talented newcomer who has been attracted by the high performance boats used in the America’s Cup World Series and we look forward to continuing the team’s strong performances. We are proud of what our new team has achieved in its first-ever participation in the America’s Cup.'

One other crew change for this event will be two-time Volvo Ocean Race competitor Andy McLean (NZL) who comes in for Mark Bulkeley (GBR) who has a prior engagement – his own wedding.

Team Korea plans to start training in San Francisco from September 24, concluded the report.

No announcement has been made by Team Korea about their ongoing involvement in the 34th America's Cup. The team has paid the entry fee of USD200,000 and recently announced a innovative cross-sponsorshship arrangement with an English Premier League football club.