No one expects South Africa’s Team Shosholoza to win the America’s Cup. But their achievements so far have already won admirers.
Shosholoza is the dreamchild of Salvatore Sarno.“It was an opportunity to show the new face of South Africa, a democratic, modern country – more than 10 years after the end of apartheid – where people of all races and colours work together for a goal. We are a young country undergoing great changes and I wanted to show this to the whole of Europe.”
With the help of Ian Ainslie, an Olympic sailor and J22 world champion, Mr Sarno put together a young, multiracial crew and began scouting for funding. Mr Ainslie, a schoolteacher, ran Izivunguvungu, a weekend sailing club that became a full-time youth academy with the support of MSC, the Italian shipping company where Mr Sarno works. Izivunguvungu teaches children from poor communities life skills and self-confidence through sailing, boat-building computer courses and other activities.
Some of the crew, like Marcello Burricks, are graduates from Izivunguvungu. He grew up in the ghetto of Slangkop, or Snakehead, near Cape Town. When he was eight, a classmate stabbed him. When he was 14, he was arrested for beating a high-school teacher. Sailing changed his life. “I think Shosholoza is the start of many big things to come,” he says. “I am motivated by the thought of becoming one of the best yachtsmen in the world.”
Golden Mgedeza, Shosholoza’s bowman, grew up far from the sea in Kaw Thema, near Johannesburg. He began sailing dinghies through a navy sailing development programme. Mr Ainslie was one of his teachers, and Mr Mgedeza was soon co-opted to become part of his regular crew. In 2002, he became the first black crewman to win South Africa’s most coveted boat race, the Lipton Cup, and he was chosen yachtsman of the year by South Africa’s Sailing Magazine.
“I was a clearing and forwarding agent in the shipping industry and I was doing really well,” says Mr Mgedeza, during a break from practice. “Quitting my job was a big sacrifice, but sailing is what I want to do.”
Mr Sarno persuaded his company to put up the initial funding and T-Systems, a German technology company, stepped in with more funding in 2005, just as Shosholoza was about to run out of cash.
The Shosholoza syndicate has raised €35m for the challenge – about one-quarter of the funds available to their top rivals. But even this modest budget is considered a huge success.
“Our aims are modest,” explains Mr Ainslie. “We haven’t spent a lot of money. We have a relatively small team, we’ve saved a lot of money on salaries, our sailors do a lot of multitasking, and we’ve concentrated on getting the big things right. But if we want to move to the next competitive level, we will need a bigger budget. That is the main issue for the next challenge.”
Lars Böcking, Shosholoza’s marketing manager, is optimistic. “We’ve accomplished the hardest part, which is getting the initial sponsorship for a first challenge. We are already laying the groundwork for the next challenge.” He can show potential sponsors Shosholoza’s track record on the water and, more importantly, the stream of high-profile, favourable media coverage that sponsors like.
Before joining Shosholoza, Mr Böcking ran his own sponsorship company in Germany and T-Systems was one of his clients. “I designed an image campaign around sailing for them, and T-Systems became the sponsors of the German Olympic sailing team,” he says. But T-Systems also needed an international dimension to its campaign, and Mr Böcking suggested the America’s Cup. “They weren’t too keen,” he recalls. “They thought it was a cold fish, a plaything of the rich.”
So Mr Böcking took T-Systems to meet the team. “This was the face of the new South Africa,” he says. “It was a story of overcoming huge obstacles to put together an America’s Cup challenge. It was a story about idealism, comradeship, of breaking down social and racial barriers and of giving young township kids a unique opportunity in life.”
T-Systems liked what it saw, and became Shosholoza’s main sponsor in 2005. That year, Shosholoza made the front cover of the New York Times. “No other team has got this kind of coverage,” says Mr Böcking proudly. “T-Systems is getting good value for money.”
Team Shosholoza reveals not only that it is possible to overcome adversity and break into the most exclusive sporting competition in the world without a billionaire on board – and still become a huge marketing success.
Leslie Crawford is the FT’s bureau chief in Madrid
