Russell Coutts, Paul Cayard, and Joao Lagos have scheduled a press conference for Friday in Lisbon, Portugal, to announce a new international sailing event. The rumors of a joint venture between Coutts and Cayard, arguably the two most successful professional big-boat sailors of all time, have been circulating for a year or more. However, neither one likes to tip his hand and they have steadfastly refused to supply anything more than very general details. Over a year ago, we did a phone interview with Coutts while he was promoting the launch of his Coutts 44 day racer. He had this to say about the circuit he and Cayard were reportedly putting together. “It is on the table,” Coutts said. “That’s in much bigger boats, that’s in 92-foot fast boats, capable of easily doing more than 30 knots downwind. Again we’re just not saying anymore on that at the moment. Paul and I aren’t in the business of making announcements on things we don’t really have all the pieces of the pie in place. So were still putting that pie together and once we get it all together we’ll make the announcement.”Apparently, they’ll be pulling a pie out of the oven on Friday. Stay tuned for more information.To cast your vote for what the new racing format will be, take the “Reader’s Poll” on the righthand side of this page.To comment on this exciting development, check out this thread in the SW forum.
