Harken’s ProCare division is assisting many teams in optimising their preparation and training ahead of the revitalised Admiral’s Cup, as well as supporting them on site in Cowes during the championship. The approach is a strongly proactive one, with ProCare teams around the world already working with competitors well ahead of the event.
Harken/ProCare is also a supporting sponsor of the championship and welcomes the return of the Admiral's Cup to the international calendar. The company sees it as the rebirth of an important yachting institution that’s poised to showcase the best sailors and some of the most innovative equipment used on racecourses anywhere.
‘In the grand prix and mega yacht space, boats are increasingly complex with a lot of interconnected, often custom systems,’ says Mark Wiss, Harken’s director of global grand prix and custom yacht sales.
‘The ProCare team is certainly at the forefront of helping our customers prepare for this Admiral's Cup. But within Harken, ProCare has an additional long-term customer relationship role to play, helping owners – and subsequent owners – stay informed about all requirements for the Harken equipment installed on board.’
The Admiral’s Cup format of multiple short-course races, an offshore race, plus the legendary Rolex Fastnet, represents a considerably greater challenge than a typical regatta. The packed programme includes around 1,000 miles of tough racing, which puts deck gear under greater pressure than usual.
Main image: Working closely with each of its customers, Harken ProCare’s core ethos is that support providers should anticipate problems, not just fix them.
1, 2 & 3| ProCare provides full technical support for the entire range of Harken’s custom hardware from winches to hydraulics and more. 4| Main image: Working closely with each of its customers, Harken ProCare’s core ethos is that support providers should anticipate problems, not just fix them.
ProCare is Harken’s grand prix racing and superyacht customer/ technical support division, providing technical support and maintenance services for Harken’s custom products, including winches, hydraulics and other hardware. Its key aims also include streamlining and simplifying the lines of communication between Harken and its customers, thereby strengthening these relationships.
Their core ethos is one of proactive care, working with customers to identify and address potential issues well before they become critical.
Support is delivered through a global network of authorised ProCare agents, all of which have extensive experience in grand prix sailing and superyachts, backed up by training at Harken’s factories in Italy and the USA. They also serve as the central point of contact for crews and are able to get quick answers and further assistance from Harken factories when necessary.
It’s an approach that has many parallels with best practice in the motor industry. If your BMW has a service due while you’re visiting Spain, for instance, or if it develops a problem there, the local dealer can access the car’s full service records and history. In addition, work will be carried out by technicians who have had exactly the same training as their colleagues in other countries.
Similarly, each boat that enrols in the ProCare programme gets a secure online dashboard that details all the Harken systems on board, including service records and a photographic reporting system. There are also links to up-to-date manuals, parts diagrams and other technical drawings, plus a bespoke list of spare parts.
The ProCare division can also establish a defined service schedule for the custom Harken kit on each boat, based on its planned sailing programme. ‘We're trying to provide all of them with a solution to get them on the water without a hitch, get them up to speed, and make sure they stay on the water,’ says Tom Peters, managing director of Harken UK. ‘The Admiral’s Cup boats all have tight timelines for training, so they want to avoid unexpected downtime at that stage, just as much as a retirement or loss of performance while racing.
‘It works best if we can get in early, build that relationship with an owner or a team to work forwards, enabling us to achieve some very different outcomes,’ he says, adding: ‘Many of these are boats we already know that are coming back to the UK for the Admiral’s Cup after a few years overseas.’
ProCare begins with the belief that support should anticipate problems, not just fix them, so in addition to scheduled maintenance programmes, ProCare also offers safety inspections, as well as crew training covering equipment use and troubleshooting.
This holistic and proactive approach covering preparation of both systems and teams, is a key to success in an event such as this. ‘The Admiral’s Cup is a really interesting project for us,’ Mark Gardner, Harken ProCare global manager, told Seahorse. ‘We had technicians looking after the Botin 52 Caro [winner of the last Rolex Fastnet Race], for example, in Australia. That boat's just arrived in the UK, where there will be a handover to the ProCare UK team.’
The initial concept for ProCare grew out of Harken's experience with the 2014-15 and 2017-18 editions of the Volvo Ocean Race, where a consistent approach to maintenance across the entire fleet of eight identical Volvo Ocean 65s paid significant dividends.
In that setting, the wider benefits of a standardised, efficient and proactive approach to maintenance quickly became clear. In particular, the emphasis on standardising procedures – from disassembly and reassembly during servicing, to workspace organisation – laid firm foundations for what would later evolve into a successful global service model. These detailed and repeatable service procedures ensure that every piece of equipment receives a consistent level of care, no matter which technician is handling the maintenance.
While the service is global, it’s therefore far from impersonal. For example, Gardner is involved hands-on in training all authorised ProCare agents, who also visit Harken factories on two continents. They therefore understand how the factories operate and know key staff on a face-to-face basis.
This people-first principle extends to training yacht crews on how to read manuals, understand parts drawings and perform day-to-day maintenance. By contrast, in the past Peters says they would have crewmembers phoning in to report a problem and order spares, without being able to precisely identify the parts involved. ‘That just isn't very efficient for us, or for them,’ he says.
The ProCare team based in the Netherlands has also been working with the youth-based Rotterdam Offshore Sailing Team, whose well-known Ker 46 Van Uden has joined forces with the Baraka GP Sailing Team’s Ker 43 to form the Dutch Offshore Sailing Team entered in the Admiral’s Cup.
IRC Class rating bands and length ranges for the Admiral’s Cup are designed to allow as many boat types as possible to compete at the event. This does however make supporting the fleet more challenging due to the diversity of boats and their varied equipment. Entries range from Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s new Wally Rocket 51 Django WR51 to TP52s of a dozen years old or more, as well as 40ft production boats such as the larger JPKs.
The exact level of support for each Admiral’s Cup boat varies across different teams. Some are large and well-funded, with a very high level of technical expertise in house, while others need to lean more heavily on external assistance. It’s for this latter group in particular that the ProCare division can offer a level of support that can translate into a big advantage on the racecourse.
As well as helping teams well in advance, ProCare will also be on location in Cowes Yacht Haven immediately before and during the Admiral's Cup. Piers Tyler of the Winch Workshop is the ProCare authorised and trained agent in the UK. A New Zealander, he’s a skilled marine engineer with vast experience having worked many high-profile campaigns including the America’s Cup, Ocean Race and Imoca fleets.
Harken’s UK headquarters is less than an hour from Cowes, so Tyler will have plenty of resources to draw on. In addition, Harken will work with the local chandlers to increase stocks of non-custom Harken products during the event, while Tyler will carry a larger stock than usual of more custom orientated items.
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