Curtis Blewett: how I got to the sharp end of Alinghi
Curtis Blewett is the fearless mid bowman on Alinghi, a Canadian with an appetite for all sports – hunting, fishing, biking, mountaineering – and sailing. He grew up next to a lake inland of Vancouver, but packed his bag and headed south to seek his career in sailing.
There aren’t many Canadians in the America’s Cup. How did you get your break into the racing scene?
I had to move down to California. I packed up when I was at college. I got on the Greyhound bus and went to sail on anything I could get on. I managed to get into the Maxi racing scene. I would do the Transpacs [Transpacific Race]. I worked a lot of years on the bigger Maxis doing the Sydney Hobart Race and a few Kenwood Cups. I did a bit of sailing on Sayonara, on Larry’s boat [Larry Ellison’s Maxi yacht]. That led to Whitbreads and then the Cup.
So you built a reputation on the offshore scene, but how did you convert that to the Cup scene?
I did the Whitbread 97-98 with Paul Cayard [whose EF Language team won that edition of round the world race]. Cayard was keen for me to do the Cup. I was kind of reluctant. He was pushing me to come and join AmericaOne. He convinced me to do it in the end. He said: ‘We’ll do the match race circuit, just join the team, you’ll be one of the riggers, I think you’ll like it.’ I wasn’t sure if match racing was my thing. I just liked sailing round the world and climbing mountains. But in the end I got pretty stoked on the inshore racing and the subtleties of the match racing. I did the bow for Paul in that big final against Prada [the Louis Vuitton Cup Final 2000], and that led to a call from Alinghi.
So doing the bow on a Cup boat fits pretty well with your passion for dangerous sports then?
This isn’t dangerous [he laughs]. Alpine climbing is dangerous. Not that I do it because of that. I like it because you have to train hard for it. I wouldn’t say I was an adrenalin junkie, more of a classic sportsman. I like sailing, mountain climbing, fly fishing, hunting, back-country skiing. I race downhill on mountain bikes and free ride. British Columbia is the heart of mountain biking and downhilling. In Whistler [where Blewett lives] we have a huge mountain bike park. I’ll be racing there the back end of this summer.
How do your other sports feed into your job at Alinghi? Do they help?
It’s good for the eye-hand coordination, that’s for sure, and putting yourself under pressure. I put myself under pressure a lot in other sports, which is good for dealing with pressure here at work.
What advice do you have for others wanting to break into top-level racing?
If you want to do this, you can do it. Pack a bag, find a boat to go work on. Just go and find where the boats are. You can’t climb a mountain from home. You’ve got to start from the bottom and start walking. Same with boats. Go to the dock and start asking. When one guy says ‘no’, just walk on to the next one until you get a ‘yes’. It wasn’t hard to get a ride. I was pretty keen, you know! I did a lot of sailing on the lake with my dad on his 30-footer so I had some sailing skills already. When you have a young guy in good shape, with some skills, then you’ll get a ride sooner or later.
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