Who moves 100 tons of gear to bring red hot multihull racing to the public around Europe each summer? How does it all come together before the starting gun goes off? Take a peek behind the curtain and venture backstage to find out...

Originally specialising in offshore races, OC Events has gained a worldwide reputation by managing and marketing The Artemis Transat (the world’s oldest solo transatlantic race from UK-North America, previously known as the OSTAR) and the Barcelona World Race (two crew, round the world non stop on board IMOCA Open 60 monohulls). Around the planet or across the oceans, the company's field of expertise also extends to inshore competition, and OC Events's Extreme 40 Sailing Series bring the action to the public and travels around Europe - which obviously involves particularly well-oiled logistics! We discuss nuts and bolts with Stuart Whitman, events co-ordinator.

"The teams obviously have different schedules, but we want them to arrive in the venues in a fairly organised way - managing that is always an "interesting" challenge! They have a maximum of three days to build their boats and get ready before the media sailing day, which takes place on Thursday. The technical zone, that occupies at least 1500 square metres, is a crucial area since we want the teams to have enough space to work properly and without being disturbed. Not all of them have containers, but when we're working on the definition of the technical area with local authorities for each venue, we have to know precisely who is likely to bring what, and anticipate boat movements knowing that each catamaran occupies 84 square metres of ground surface! Of course a crane has to be on site to lift the containers upon arrival, step the masts on the platforms and put the assembled boats into the water.

The organisation alone carries 25 to 30 tons of kit around Europe during the season, for a total of three containers full of our equipment: VIP hospitality furniture, signs, tools but also crockery - we're rather self-sufficient and can set up our race village virtually anywhere! We create a kitchen in each case, completely autonomous, where our own Chef operates. On top of all that, each team brings about 8 tons of equipment, so the whole iShares Cup "circus" weighs about 100 tons. For some venues, the access is a bit tricky so we plan everything ahead and hand out roadbooks to everyone involved - the last thing you want is a van towing a 40-ft catamaran stuck in a medieval narrow street! We try and anticipate every problem, so when everything goes well you can guess that a lot of work went into the preparation, even though it all seems completely transparent.

We also have to consider and organise transit zones: this season for example, the Venice and Hyères events are only a month apart so for some teams, notably the Northern European ones, it does not make any sense to sent the boat and gear back to the base between those two competitions. So we have to find secure places that we can use between events to store everything, and the host cities are of great help in that domain - you don't find a long-term parking lot for 10 carbon high-tech catamarans just by looking in the yellow pages!"

A typical iShares Cup event...
- Sees 100 tons of boats and gear land in each city
- Eradicates 100 bottles of H.G. Mumm champagne
- Welcomes 100 corporate guests per day