VIDEO Being Jimmy Spithill. The unmissable exclusive video interview/confession.

We promised you and here is, in its entirety, the interview that Jimmy Spithill(now CEO and captain of the Italian team in Sail GP. Find out how they did in the first leg here) gave to our Ida Castiglioni after Luna Rossa’s defeat at the Louis Vuitton Cup at the hands of the British and his announcement of retirement from the America’s Cup (who knows, who knows, maybe there will be second thoughts)… A long, open-hearted, three-part interview/confession where a “monastic” Jimmy Spithill, born in 1979 in Sydney, traces not only his adventure with Luna Rossa but his entire history in the America’s Cup. A story that began 25 years ago, with his joining Syd Fischer’s Young Australia team at a very young age.

Episode 3: My America’s Cup, 25 years of men and boats

Who is James Spithill aka Jimmy

Jimmy Spithill, 45, born in Sydney, is one of the America’s Cup’s most successful helmsmen. During his career, he has won two America’s Cups (2010 and 2013) with BMW Oracle Racing and one Prada Cup (2021) with Luna Rossa-his first experience with the Italian team was in 2004. He is considered one of the leading match-racing experts internationally. After Louis Vuitton’s defeat in the final by the British INEOS Britannia, he announced his departure as helmsman of Luna Rossa and from the America’s Cup (unless he had second thoughts), becoming the CEO of Red Bull Italy’s Italian SailGP team.

Spithill story in the next issue of the GdV!

In the next issue of the Sailing Newspaper (December/January), we tell you the “behind-the-scenes” story of Jimmy Spithill, namely how a young boy from a humble family with disabilities, who started out aboard small drift boat picked through the trash, managed to become one of the greatest sailors(Subscribe to read it as soon as it comes out in digital version before it hits your doorstep)!

Jimmy Spithill and the America’s Cup

Ida Castiglioni’s interview with Jimmy Spithill

GdV – Jimmy, you were a major player for 25 years in the America’s Cup. What was it like? How has it changed? Jimmy Spithill – I saw a lot and when I think about it I think for a kid like me, who was growing up, it was an amazing journey: to be able to work with the best sailors, the design teams and those who built the boats, and to be able to manage these teams, in Australia, in the United States, in Italy. I tell myself, “it’s better to be lucky than good “*. I started my journey in the America’s Cup (ed. as skipper of Young Australia, for the 2000 Auckland edition) and we were a very young team, but back then the boats were normal monohulls, with a keel and rudder, very heavy and not very fast. But the technology slowly started to improve and in the latest version they have advanced technology. It was really exciting to have that first part of my journey on traditional hulls but to then be involved in trimarans, from the big huge 90′ multihull in 2010, to the 72′ foiling catamarans in San Francisco, to the fully foiling AC50s in Bermuda, and now — of course — to the foiling monohulls of the last two campaigns. I want to say that when I started I was 19 years old, and if anyone had told me that this was how the future would be, that the boats would fly, that there would be big wings to power them, to give them strength, I would have thought they were crazy. It’s been a long ride but it’s o. GdV – How has your ‘job’ as a coxswain changed over these 25 years? Jimmy Spithill – I think I’ve been really lucky to be one over these 25 years because I’ve been able to experience traditional monohulls. I think you know this, but when I started helming in regattas there was really no way to practice when you weren’t at sea. So if you wanted to practice and improve you had to rig the boat and, if the wind was right, go out on the water with the whole crew and try the maneuvers. In that early period we didn’t use a camera to film training and we didn’t record conversations between the helmsman and tactician. It was not possible to see footage from previous editions of the America’s Cup, much less was there YouTube. That was the big difference because we gradually came to a time when technology grew faster and faster, and then we had the ability to train ashore using simulators. And then came the on-board cameras and microphones that recorded what the tactician and I were saying to each other. And now other advances in technology allow you to hear what the men on your team and your opponents are saying. So someone like me in the helmsman role, if he has available tools and materials, he can train all the time. Let me explain further. We have a simulator on which we can practice by repeating every single maneuver a hundred times. If we want to rehearse a tactical situation, the buoy passage, the pre-start phase or the 10 seconds before the start, we can stop on these moments, try and try again. In the past this was not possible. You had to wait until the regatta to be able to learn how to react to the opponent’s maneuvers.

Back then helming was much more instinctive and you had to build your own ‘playbook’ of maneuvers and strategies, of what you would do to attack or respond to your opponent’s maneuver. I really enjoyed building that experience, it was fun, back then there were no shortcuts. But I also enjoy it now. Today, the level of competition has grown a lot and these new ways enabled by technology, this way of practicing allows many more athletes to reach a higher level. In the beginning, if you wanted to get that experience you had to get it in racing, sailing on the water, it took a lot longer. When I look at the young sailors today, the boys and girls at the helm, I see them so attentive, so engaged, they really understand the technology and know how to use it. GdV – What has changed in practice for those at the helm? Jimmy – For me, the big difference in the practice of those at the helm is that today you have to look far ahead, you have to think quickly and make decisions far in advance, you really have to foresee the next moves (yours and your opponent’s) and anticipparl. Because now you are sailing at 50 kn and you are going against an opponent who is also going 50 kn, and the speed difference between the two boats is 100 kn (185 km/h). So when the boats were doing 7 or 8 kn upwind, you had plenty of time to think and to discuss with the tactician the next move and what the next move would be. Now you have to look, think, decide and act in fractions of a second. On these boats, really different and rather strange is the movement of the tmone wheel, which is really very small. On a slow boat you move the wheel and you have plenty of time to see the bow of the boat move, on these latest monohulls it’s like when you’re behind the wheel of a car: the faster you go, the smaller the wheel movements have to be. It’s kind of like driving a car on ice-if you make too much movement, you slide off. Another thing has changed. When I started, both on maxis and in the America’s Cup, helmsmen were not considered athletes, physical training was not taken into account. For me it was never like that, and I was very committed to that from the beginning. I took it very seriously because I understood that if I was physically in very good shape, the mind was also much more balanced. And we see that very well today, whether you are a coxswain, cyclor or tailer. And even more so among the young boys and girls, who are incredible athletes. GdV – What about the physical effort required to race on these new hulls? Jimmy – I think the physical exertion in the past wasn’t really huge because there were strong guys on the crew, real sportsmen, and then in the regatta there were so many of us (maybe too many) and there really weren’t that many roles to fill. Now, when you look at those who race on the AC70s you realize that there are very few of them on board and they have to be really multitasking; it takes athletes who have to be able to think under stress, even when they’re going at maximum heart rate. Because there are very few men and they all have many roles to play and functions to perform.

I think today the sport really demands the utmost commitment. It applies to Sail GP races as well as America’s Cup races, where you can’t just be a great athlete, but you have to be an athlete who can make instant decisions under pressure, even when you’re exhausted. GdV – What is the role of software on board America’s Cup boats today? Do you have to decide or does the software decide before you do? Jimmy – This has really been a big change. In the beginning you had feedback, information: boat speed, wind speed, and steering a boat was really something instinctive. But now, thanks to technology, software (i.e., the set of instructions that tell a computer what to do) plays a huge role, not only in planning, in design, in building hulls and sails, but also for athletes in carrying the boat, in making decisions. GdV – How important is meteorology in the America’s Cup? Jimmy – Weather and meteorology are really so basic and important in the America’s Cup because the first thing you consider when you design a BC boat is where the selection races and the Cup itself will be run. You have to know the wind and sea conditions because they will play the most important part in designing the profile of the boat, the immersed part of the hull, the size of the foil and rudder, the mast and sails. When you take weather data for 20 years and then every summer you realize that the weather is different from the average conditions proposed in these studies, it means that it is a difficult forecast. The climate is really changing, and so I think it is very risky to use a historical weather study to derive conditions in a certain place and in a certain month. I think if you really want to win the America’s Cup, you have to have a hull that is good for all conditions. All the boats in this last edition appeared to be closer than in the past in terms of performance, and everyone knew that you needed to be competitive in as little wind as in a lot, in as little sea as in big waves. If you want to win you have to have a hull that works in all the different conditions. GdV – Participating in the America’s Cup is a long and difficult game.

Is that so?

Jimmy – I think most people really don’t understand how much work is behind these teams. Usually for 4 years you see very little and then all of a sudden everyone ends up in the spotlight with the Vuitton Cup (or first the Prada Cup) and then the America’s Cup races but the amount of sweat and tears that all the team members put into these campaigns is really amazing spending more time at the base or at sea than with their families. As you know for me it has never been a sacrifice but a privilege and an honor to have the opportunity to do something like this. Now when I look at my children ** I think they have seen how difficult it is to achieve certain goals and how hard I had to work. And I am lucky enough to be able to do that. My dream over the years was to win the America’s Cup for Italy and unfortunately it didn’t happen, but I am confident and I think they still can do it and I will be happy to see Luna Rossa . GdV – You have already been involved in SailGP with Team USA, which you coordinated for two seasons. Now you are leading Team SailGP Italy. Jimmy – SailGP is much more like MotoGP and Formula 1 than a racing event because it is run in a regular season with many more races and 12 teams involved. Everyone has the same technology, so it is a sport of skilled sailors, who are also athletes, and it is really spectacular for those who watch from the air or on TV. America’s Cup and SailGP are two events that don’t compete with each other: the former is a major design competition that lasts multiple years, the latter is a seasonal sports calendar. I like it and am really fascinated by it. I think for today’s young athletes, girls and boys, competing in a SailGP is a great opportunity. There is so much talent in them that I am excited about the idea of helping the next generation achieve what they dream of achieving. GdV – As I recall, you hold the record for the fastest time around the Sydney-Hobart. Jimmy – For a kid growing up in Australia, the big moments in sailing were two. Australia II winning the America’s Cup in 1983, but I was very small, and the start of the race from Sydney to Hobart (630 miles) the day after Christmas. Participating in it was something I had always dreamed of, even as a child. The first time was in 1998, when Syd Fischer gave me the opportunity to helm his Ragamuffin. That time was a very tough regatta, with a big storm. I then participated in other editions and then won it twice at the helm of Comanche. In one of the two races where we came first, the weather had been so perfect and the crew had done such a good job that we were able to set the record as the fastest boat. It is the Sydney-Hobart 2017 record that still stands (1 day, 9h 15′ 24″)

* Jimmy is 16 years old when he becomes convinced that fate is on his side. He works on Scotland Island digging the foundation of a house. He picks up the clay soil while his friend Mick, with a cast wrist, throws dirt into the wheelbarrow. The only noise around is the incredible ‘laughter’ of the kookaburras. Then Mick’s scream. Jimmy looks up and sees on the white cast, ready to attack, a black burrowing spider, one of the deadliest in Australia. He wants to tell it to stay put but the words don’t come out, he is as if paralyzed: like the boys in the area he knows there is no escape with those spiders. But here comes a bird swooping down from above and a beak grabs the spider. It is a kookaburra that, having retrieved its snack, returns to perch on a eucalyptus tree and resumes its cheerful song. ** Jimmy is married to Jennifer, a marine biologist from San Diego. They have two boys: 17-year-old Owen, who studies music and spends 6 hours a day playing his beloved viola, and 14-year-old Joe, who is into sports and is good at all of them.