Juan Kouyoumdjian proposes the establishment of a yacht racing charter

Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

Racing yacht designer and double Volvo Ocean Race winning designer Juan Kouyoumdjian will be in Monaco next month as Chairman of the inaugural Yacht Racing Design & Technology Symposium which will run parallel to the second edition of the World Yacht Racing Forum from 9-10 December.  We catch up with Juan to ask  what he expects from this new event.

• YRDTS: What are your expectations and objectives as Chairman for the Yacht Racing Design and Technology Symposium?

Juan Kouyoumdjian: “Yacht racing is currently in a crisis because there are no standard rules for the design and construction of racing yachts. Event organisers need clarity; they want to be reassured that racing yachts respect precise safety standards. However, there are no such standards and the norms usually used – for example ISO – are not made for racing yachts. I think that we need to develop a charter and this is one of my objectives for the Yacht Racing Design & Technology Symposium: I want to get our sports’ stakeholders to start working on a concrete project.”

• YRDTS: What is the process you propose?

Juan Kouyoumdjian: Most of the people involved know each other well. What we need is to be united in the same place at the same time, and start the discussion. First, we need to understand our clients’ needs and this is something that will happen during the Symposium. For example, do they want to race in real time or elapsed time; what sort of budgets do they want to allocate to yacht racing? Once we know this, the designers and builders will be able to start working together.”

• YRDTS: Basically you want to start from scratch?

Juan Kouyoumdjian: “Yes, we have to. I’d like to present a scale that allows people to position themselves. If you take the Olympic Games, they should be the ultimate in terms of pure racing. On the other hand, the current America’s Cup would be on top for the technology involved, but it won’t provide much racing… The key issues are a) the rules and b) the conception. The latter should be a direct consequence of the rules. If you don’t have rules then you get BMW ORACLE Racing.”

• YRDTS: What do you think should be the outcome of the Yacht Racing Design & Technology Symposium?

Juan Kouyoumdjian: “We should walk out of the event with a work schedule that will lead to a yacht racing charter. We should create a working group with all the stakeholders interested by this project (boat builders, designers, events organizers, skippers…). I then believe that we can create something concrete within one year. Our initiative should lead to race boats rules that will become a necessary tool for everyone in terms of insurances and responsibilities”