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27 - 31 August 2008
Frederikshavn, Denmark
2008 World Championship Standings
Day 1 from Match Cup Sweden at Sail.TV
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The Coutts Racing Team (from left): Russell Coutts, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner and Michael Arnhild. (Swedish Match Tour/Guido Cantini)
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Coutts Racing bowman Michael Arnhild hangs on the shrouds as the crew approaches the windward mark. (Swedish Match Tour/Guido Cantini)
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Russell Coutts and his Danish crew have Peter Gilmour’s Pizza-La Sailing Team tucked to leeward during the Swedish Match Cup final. (Dan Ljungsvik)
Image © Dan Ljungsrik
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Nationality New Zealander
Country of Residence Switzerland
Date of Birth March 1, 1962
Russell finished 3rd in the 2004-’05 World Tour standings. He has six career victories on the World Tour and the most wins in the fewest starts (12) of any other tour skipper.
WMRT.com Content
Coutts Claims Second Swedish Match Cup (July 11, 2004)
Coutts Wins Toscana Elba Cup -- Trofeo Locman (May 9, 2004)
Russell Coutts: Master Craftsman
World Match Racing Tour Results
2004-’05 — 3rd overall
2003-’04 — 4th overall
2000-’01 — 4th overall
2005-’06
2nd — Monsoon Cup ’05
(Crew: Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner, Jann Neergaard)
2004-’05
1st — Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman ’05
(Crew: Michael Arnhild, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner)
1st — King Edward VII Gold Cup ’04
(Crew: Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner)
2nd — Portugal Match Cup ’04
(Crew: Michael Arnhild, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner)
6th — Swedish Match Cup ’05
(Crew: Michael Arnhild, Jes Gram-Hansen, Christian Kamp, Rasmus Kostner)
2003-’04
1st — Swedish Match Cup ’04
1st — Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman ’04
5th — Investors Guaranty Presentation of the King Edward VII Gold Cup ’03
2002-’03
No events sailed.
2001-’02
2nd — Swedish Match Cup ’02
5th — Trofeo Challenge Roberto Trombini ’01
2000-’01
1st — King Edward VII Gold Cup ’00
1st — Swedish Match Cup ’01
America’s Cup Affiliation
Alinghi Team – Skipper of America’s Cup 2007 Defense syndicate
Alinghi Team 2003 – Skipper, Winner 31st America’s Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup 2003
Team New Zealand 2000 – Skipper, Winner 30th America’s Cup
Team New Zealand 1995 – Helmsman, Winner 29th America’s Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup 1995
Accomplishments
Three-time World Match Racing Champion
1st — Kiel Week 1994, ILC 40 Class
1st — Key West Race Week, ’94
1st — Swan Worlds, Sardinia ’96
Broke race record in Sydney-Hobart Race ’96, Morning Glory
2nd — Etchells World Championship ’97
Additional Information
Sailors who dominate the America’s Cup come along once a century. At the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s there was Charlie Barr, a Scotsman who won nine consecutive races for the America’s Cup from 1897 to 1903.
At the turn of the century from the 1900s to 2000, there’s Russell Coutts. The native New Zealander has smashed all of Barr’s standing records including the big one, consecutive races won in the Cup Match.
After his 5-0 victory in America’s Cup 2003 as skipper of Switzerland’s Alinghi Team, Coutts has won 14 consecutive races for the America’s Cup. That’s an active winning streak that dates back to 1995. He’s led at 66 of 70 mark roundings in those 14 races.
There’s more. Coutts is the first non-American skipper to lead a successful defense of the America’s Cup, which he did with Team New Zealand in 2000 after winning the Cup as a challenger with Team New Zealand in 1995. Coutts is the first skipper to lead two different nations, New Zealand and Switzerland, to victory in the America’s Cup.
After the 2000 victory, Coutts was a hero in New Zealand. But he made a highly unpopular decision to leave Team New Zealand two months after the 2000 defense. Five months later he announced that he had joined Ernesto Bertarelli’s fledgling Alinghi Team.
Coutts took with him some core crewmembers of Team New Zealand, including tactician Brad Butterworth, mainsail trimmer Warwick Fleury, headsail trimmer Simon Daubney and bowman Dean Phipps.
They are Coutts’ regular crewmembers on the international match-racing circuit, and in 1996, a year after their first America’s Cup victory, they struck pay dirt. They won the five major international match-racing events, amassing more than $400,000 in prize money, a $250,000 bonus and a hand-crafted Faberge egg.
Russell began to sail when he was 6 years old on a P-Class dinghy, New Zealand’s most popular youth dinghy. He also played golf, but decided rather early to specialize in sailing.
Russell set himself a first goal, the Olympic Games. After winning the Finn World Championship in 1981, he prepared for the Los Angeles Games of 1984 and won a Gold medal sailing the single-handed Finn.
The Finn is one of the toughest classes on the water. The boats are among the most physical. Sailors used to wear water bottles and wet, heavy clothing in an effort to gain extra weight for hiking (the practice is now prohibited). And they’re even more physical if you’re in a protest. Typically, protests are settled in the parking lot and not in a room in front of a jury.
Coutts showed his mettle during the ’84 Games. He suffered from horrendous salt water boils on his backside that were extremely painful. He couldn’t sit out the final race because he was in a close battle with American skipper John Bertrand. He sailed the final race in extreme pain, but won the Gold Medal.
Coutts’ match-racing beginnings were dubious. On one occasion he hit the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s race committee boat. And on another he smashed into Auckland’s Harbor Bridge. But his skill was obvious and his determination never wavered, and he quickly shot up the rankings.
He won his first Match Racing World Championship in 1992, and repeated the feat two other times (’93, ’96). In duel after duel around the world, Coutts won more than 20 Grade 1 match races from 1989 to 1996. He remained world No. 1-ranked for 22 consecutive months and for 35 months all told.
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