Nice Ink: Shosholoza's Tomasso Chieffi

Excerpt from an interesting interview with Shosholoza sailing team member (afterguard/tactician), Tommaso Chieffi (ITA) on the Sailing World website....

At this point what are the team's expectations?
Making the semifinals has been the target all along. Top-four is ambitious because we have bigger teams ahead of us, especially the Spanish, Mascalzone Latino, or the Swedes. It's going to be a good fight among these teams, and the winter racing we've done has proven that any team can now beat the other on any given day. Those spots from eight to four will be fairly open.

Have the changes in the afterguard helped the fluidity of the decision-making?
That's an area where we've been trying to improve a lot and now we have a composition where Paolo [Cian] has become our starting helmsman, but he's also doing the whole race. Last year he did only the start. I'm replacing Dee Smith in the tactician's role, where last year I was driving after the start. Ian [Ainslie] is strategist, and Mark Sadler is the traveler/main, and wind spotter. Mark is tied in with the crew, and with the maneuvers—kind of like Murray Jones with Alinghi does.

Are the inexperienced guys brought in at the outset of the campaign sufficiently up to speed?
These guys have come along and I rate them as experienced at this stage; they've learned their way through. We've brought some additional backups for trimmers who are also observing and coaching. And we brought in three new persons last year to back up the mastman, grinder, and runner/main positions. This is going to be a long regatta and we came to the agreement that we needed to have backups. Everyone could get sick or injured at any time.

How popular is this challenge in South Africa; is the novelty still there?
It's very popular in South Africa, and here in Valencia. It's just the young and fresh theme that brings a novelty to the America's Cup and the team is very highly regarded in terms of popularity. It's always been an open team and people are free to come and join the spirit of the campaign. The bigger teams are much more strict about their security and not letting people in and stuff; we've always been very open and that has helped its popularity.

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