Louis Vuitton America’s Cup: why Grant Dalton says modern sailing is a ‘tech company’
As the Louis Vuitton Cup kicks off in Barcelona, sailing legend Grant Dalton expands on the evolution of the event into the F1 of the sea.
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To witness the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup while bobbing about furiously in a speedboat in the Mediterranean Sea is to feel somewhat as if you are experiencing an alien invasion. So strange and majestic-looking are the AC75 boats as they levitate above the water on their hydraulic foils, hitting speeds of up to 53 knots.
Indeed the boats are, as Grant Dalton, chief executive of the America’s Cup and Emirates Team New Zealand (this year’s defending champion), more akin to low-flying aircraft when they’re at top speed.
Asked if this is, indeed, still sailing, by one of the international journalists at a press conference in Barcelona – the host city for the world’s oldest and most prestigious sailing yacht competition – Dalton is philosophical, and pragmatic.
“It’s the sailing of this era and this era is a different era … my answer always is we don’t ride horses to work anymore. That’s how it works. And if you want to engage a younger demographic, which we must for survival, they don’t want to go slow, they want to go fast, they want it to happen, it has to be instant, it has to be challenging and have buttons,” he says.
This new era of sailing, where a sailor’s role is less about winching the sails than working with the engineering and design teams on calculations to tweak the boat’s performances (not to mention sheer physical power – many sailors now have a rowing or cycling background, and Dalton says the best ones also have a physics or engineering degree) – fits with the return of Louis Vuitton as title partner.
Indeed, as Dalton points out in an interview in Barcelona ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup qualifying races, a modern-day team in the competition is more like a “start-up, basically a tech company”.
“We have 150 people, only 12 people are on the sailing team, 138 are engineers, software. That’s not even our boatbuilding team. We have another boatbuilding team, which is in New Zealand.”
The world’s largest luxury brand, fresh from its sponsorship, as part of luxury conglomerate LVMH, of the Paris Olympics, last sponsored the event in 2017. Since 1983 it has sponsored the Louis Vuitton Cup, the series that determines who ultimately competes for the winner’s spoils, the Auld Mug, against the defender.
Dalton says the two brands – founded just three years apart; Louis Vuitton in 1854 and the America’s Cup in 1851 – share many synergies.
“You can’t have the America’s Cup without the Louis Vuitton Cup because you’ve got to have a challenge … So the Louis Vuitton Cup is not only prestigious because of the brand, it is also a necessity under the whole way the whole thing is set up,” he says.
It’s not only this though for Dalton, who has known current Louis Vuitton chief executive Pietro Beccari for some 20 years (“He’s always been really passionate about the Cup, he’s super smart … really amazing guy,” he says of Beccari in the press conference). Beccari called him upon rejoining Louis Vuitton in 2023 to say they should return to the sport.
“I’ve read the story of Louis Vuitton and (his) travelling and making trunks on his way to Paris before … And then, I mean, Louis Vuitton now is a brand that is striving like we do for technology, sustainability is really important to what we do. Diversity is important … (Louis Vuitton) has got the historical values, but it’s also a brand that is not seen as just historical, it’s also a forward-thinking brand. And the America’s Cup absolutely has to be on the cutting edge of technology,” says Dalton.
Famously, one of the rules of the America’s Cup is that the defender gets to make the rules (“That’s why it’s so damn hard to win,” says Dalton).
This year Emirates Team New Zealand includes the introduction of sustainable measures such as green hydrogen-powered chase boats, as well as the first Women’s America’s Cup, sponsored by Spanish luxury group Puig, and the Youth America’s Cup. Dalton is passionate about both and hopes this commitment will be continued – even if New Zealand is knocked off its perch.
Another initiative is the launch of the first America’s Cup Esports game, something Dalton especially loves for its ability to bring new, and sometimes unlikely, people into the sport. It has already had more than 180,000 downloads.
In the near future there will be a documentary too, executive-produced and directed by Academy Award-winning directors Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, of each team’s preparation for this year’s Louis Vuitton America’s Cup. Yes, Dalton hopes it could have the same impact on the sport as Netflix series Drive to Survive has famously had on the profile of F1. “That’s why we’re doing it,” he says.
After all, modern-day sailing is often dubbed the F1 of the sea.
Dalton hopes the documentary will “lift the lid on the intrigue, like in any sport, particularly this sport though, because of the type of personalities involved there, stuff goes on that’s never seen, never been seen. America’s Cup teams are pretty secretive about what they do because it’s a technology game ”.
Because, yes, Emirates Team New Zealand made this year’s rules, it made it compulsory for all teams to participate.
“(The teams) have a safe room. So if they are having a meeting that they really don’t want anyone to know about, then each base now has a safe room, they can go and meet away from the cameras. And then what happens is, when the rushes are put together, the teams are allowed to look at it and they’re allowed to object but they don’t have a right of veto. And we took that out of the Drive to Survive model as well,” says Dalton.
“They’ve got some good stuff because you forget they’re there.”
Expanding the interest of what is still a niche sport is something Dalton is committed to.
“If you hold the Cup, you have a responsibility. I mean, one responsibility is to your team to win it again … But the other responsibility is to help grow the sport,” he says.
Licensing the sport to free-to-air television is part of this, he says.
“So last time in Auckland we had a combined TV audience of 941 million. This time, before we even started the preliminary regatta, we’d already made 714 million,” he points out.
Beyond the splendid hospitality suites such as Louis Vuitton’s, with its monogrammed cushions, flowing Moet & Chandon champagne and prime viewing, the general public can watch the sport on giant screens set up in the America’s Cup village, which includes historical artefacts and team information.
There is a particularly thrilling VR experience at the village that left several green-at-the-gills colleagues appreciative of being back on “dry” land. After being open for four days, Dalton said, some 253,000 people had already been through the village.
Plenty of people also line the boardwalks and beaches, among the rollerbladers and volleyball players, of Barcelona’s Port Vell. A curiosity about a sport that requires millions of dollars for its technology is that it can be watched for free if you can nab a good position.
Alongside Louis Vuitton’s sponsorship of the America’s Cup the luxury brand has designed a sportily chic capsule collection to celebrate the partnership that includes caps, windbreakers and accessories adorned with the America’s Cup insignia and a Damier Flags print in graphic blue, red and white.
As with many other major global sporting events, the French maison has crafted custom versions of its famed trunks to house both the Louis Vuitton Cup and the Auld Mug. Both were presented at the launch party for the event – a whimsical takeover of the nostalgic theme park at the top of Barcelona’s Mount Tibidabo.
Attended by Spanish stars such as Georgina Amoros and Maria Pedraza, and some of its newest ambassadors from the sporting world, including French swimmer Léon Marchand, a five-time Olympic medallist, guests rode the carousel, ate hot dogs and danced into the night on a Louis Vuitton check dancefloor. All of it proof, as Dalton notes, of the might of the mega brand.
“They bring an element that no other company can. They are the pre-eminent brand in the world … so that whole prestige goes with it. It’s important though that the event – and youth and women’s is a good example – transcends just prestige though. It needs to also feed in grassroots. And it’s interesting that Louis Vuitton is such a brand, and it’s a luxury brand, but it doesn’t pigeonhole us, it just makes us more popular. It makes the sport more popular.”
Annie Brown travelled to Barcelona as a guest of Louis Vuitton. The America’s Cup runs until October 21.
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