Gladwell's Line- Whois WSTA? (World Sailing Teams Association)

by Richard Gladwell on 3 Sep 2009
The big surprise from the announcement of the Louis Vuitton World Series was the disclosure of a new professional sailing teams group, named World Sailing Team Association.

The release says that 'WSTA groups together the participants in previous Louis Vuitton Cup regattas (K-Challenge (France), BMW Oracle Racing (USA), Emirates Team New Zealand, Mascalzone Latino (Italy)) and welcomes newcomers such as Team Artemis (Sweden), Team Synergy (Russia), Joe Fly Italia (Italy) and Team French Spirit (France). Other teams will join the association in the coming weeks.'

The potential size of this grouping is sizeable, as indicated by the list below.

Quite where this group sits with the International Sailing Federation remains to be seen. Certainly WSTA are potentially a very powerful group - if they are able to work together behind the scenes, and are very capable of organising their own events, and working collectively with event organisers to both generate entries and negotiate on behalf of all competitors.

Whether the WSTA group will act in similar ways to other break out groups from Rugby, Cricket and Super League, remains to be seen. Quite how ISAF will view a powerful world professional sailing body sitting outside its auspices also remains to be seen. Whether WSAT will run its own sailing rules, engage its own officials and develop similar infrastructure is another issue, which has loomed in breakouts with other professional sports.

Certainly the present America's Cup contretemps have not worked their way of WSTA members, and it would seem that the a formal association is required to offset the power of the Defender and other similarly minded event organisers.

The teams list from the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series was:

Team New Zealand
BMW Oracle Racing
K-Challenge
Team Shosholoza
Luna Rossa
Team Origin
China Team
Damiani Italia
Greek Challenge
Alinghi

Withdrawn teams
Mascalzone Latino
Team Germany
Team French Spirit

Seven of the LVPS entrants have not yet joined, but most of the above are boat and inventory owners.

From the Volvo Ocean Race there are:

Ericsson
PUMA Ocean Racing
Telefonica
Green Dragon
Delta Lloyd
Team Russia

From the TP52 circuit:

Quantum Racing
Bribon
Matador
Cristabella
Artemis
Audi TP52 Sailing
Valars
Bigamist
Emirates Team NZ
El Desafio
Pisco Sour
Marazzi sailing
Synergy

And from the 33rd America's Cup entry list:

Alinghi
Desafío Español
Team Shosholoza
TEAMORIGIN
Team New Zealand
Deutscher Challenger Yacht Club
Green Comm Challenge
Ayre
Victory Challenge
Argo Challenge
Mascalzone Latino
Team French Spirit
Luna Rossa
Russian Challenge
Italia
K-Challenge
Dabliu Sail Project
China Team

Plus other professional teams in the GP42 series, the iShares Cup, World Match Racing Tour and the various trans-Oceanic and offshore racing teams. (iShares Cup and WMRT teams do not own boats) however all other teams do for their respective events.

WSTA officials would not comment to Sail-World until after the announcement next Tuesday.