A Q&A with John Craig about the Extreme Sailing Series Los Cabos event

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 27 Nov 2017 Last month, the Extreme Sailing Series came foiling into San Diego, where the event enjoyed its first regatta on North American waters since 2011, when the non-foiling Extreme 40s turned heads on Boston Harbor. Now, six-plus years later, the event has matriculated to foiling GC32 catamarans that are sailed by crews of five professional sailors at speeds that-given the right breeze and seas-can threaten the 40-knot barrier. Most importantly for North American fans, the race’s return to our continent provides great opportunities to see the racing action live and in-person, including the upcoming Los Cabos event, which is set to unfurl on Mexican waters from November 30 to December 3, 2017.

The Extreme Sailing Series’ (ESS) Los Cabos event is the final regatta out of an eight-regatta calendar year that has seen the ESS travel from the Middle East to Asia to Europe to North America. SAP Extreme Sailing Team is currently topping the overall leaderboard with 78 points, followed five points astern by Oman Air and-one point farther back still-Alinghi, however the Los Cabos event could see a comeuppance as the season’s final 57 points are still-at the time of this writing-up for grabs.

Going into the season’s finale, sailors and fans can expect a beautiful showing on Mexico’s world-famous Baja Peninsula, whose waters are regular visiting grounds for grey, humpback whales and home turf for sea turtles and Giant Mantas, as well as (historically) light to moderate winds for the month of December.

I caught up with John Craig, Race Director of the Extreme Sailing Series, via email, ahead of the San Diego Act to learn more about this exciting event.

What do you see as the biggest challenges to pulling off a great Extreme Sailing Series event in Los Cabos? Light winds?
The biggest challenge will be the wind direction. If it’s coming from the north and over the top hills it will be very shifty and it has the potential to be light. If it comes out of the south or onshore there’s a good chance that we will see 10 knots, which is perfect and it will be fine for us.

The other challenge is the water depth, because there’s a huge canyon that runs through the racecourse area that is incredibly deep, so moving the marks in that area will be a challenge.

What were the biggest lessons that you and the Extreme Sailing Series learned about West Coast sailing at the San Diego event last month?
San Diego proved that it is a real sailing town. It has a lot of support from the local community. The ability to have the technical area besides the Race Village, which is one of the biggest ones we’ve had to date, has proved to be very efficient, great for the athletes and for us at the Race Management team [as] we're plugged [into] what’s going on shore and on the water.

The wind conditions in San Diego were great, and, as a result, we had great racing and we’re looking forward to Los Cabos to have a final in an impressive way.

In your mind, how does West Coast racing compare to other international venues where the Extreme Sailing Series hosts events?
In the West Coast everything is slightly more casual and forgiving. Some of the venues we've been to, like Hamburg and Madeira, have been really well supported but they are tight places and sometimes the technical area is quite separated from the Race Village and that makes it a lot harder.

Will dodging whales be a big part of the program for the Cabos regatta?
I don't think so. We have an alternate race area, which is outside on the Pacific [Ocean] side, and the only reason we would use it is if we run into some real problems racing inside.

If we race outside we may need to look out for whales but our footprint is pretty small and [the] teams are pretty responsive to what we communicate to them so they will be able to avoid this if it were to occur.

If you were a gambling man, what team would you be betting on to win the Los Cabos event? And what about the overall season championship title?
If it’s light air, Alinghi seems to be going really well in light air, so if Los Cabos turns into a light-air venue they are definitely going to be in the mix; SAP Extreme Sailing Team seems to be the boat of choice in heavy breeze, at least based in what we saw in San Diego, but Phil Robertson, Oman Air’s skipper, is always good at niggling, as he says, around the course so Oman Air will be in that mix too. You can never count Red Bull Sailing Team out with the experience and determination of Hans Peter Steinacher and Roman Hagara.

Can you reveal any details about next year’s Extreme Sailing Series’ racing calendar? Do you think that that Extreme Sailing Series will be back in North America next year?
A few of our venues are linked to multiple-year deals, such is the case with Cardiff, Barcelona and San Diego, so we will be back there in 2018.

We plan to reveal next year’s calendar in the coming weeks, and that should include two new venues.

Anything else that you'd like to add, for the record?
One of the biggest things we’re working on-moving forward-is to give the teams more access to the boats. In Los Cabos we will be able to give the teams four sailing days before we even start our practice, and the teams are looking forward to that.

In San Diego we were able to use a bigger [race]course area than usual, so teams could stretch their legs, and the end result is that the courses lasted 18 to 20 minutes, which is longer than usual and they had a big footprint to play with and the teams really enjoy that, and the boats were able to foil in a stadium racing format in front of the Extreme Club- the VIP area-and the Race Village.

So, we were able to provide great racing for the teams and the spectators, longer courses, and in Los Cabos they will have more access without losing our stadium racing concept and integrity.