Imperial’s Business School alumni were once again amongst the top crews in Europe’s most prestigious MBA sailing regatta. Alumni from the 2001 Management School upheld Imperial’s strong performance record.

Tanaka Business School Alumni on the podium at South of France MBA sailing regatta.

Imperial’s Business School alumni were once again amongst the top crews in Europe’s most prestigious MBA sailing regatta. Alumni from the 2001 Management School upheld Imperial’s strong performance record in taking the top UK business school slot and beating a number of leading European business schools both on and off the water.

The annual INSEAD-organised ‘by-invitation’ Alumni Business Cup was held this year in June on the Isles des Embiez near Toulon using French 36 foot light-weight racing boats. 

And once again, unable to clear their work diaries, the Imperial team were the only contenders not to arrive a day or two early to practice in these frisky racing machines, but nonetheless they quickly found the pace.  5th place out of 12 after day 1, they improved to 4^th after the second day before finishing in 3^rd place overall close behind IMD and INSEAD’s bset teams.

The competition was as determined ashore as it was afloat. The supposedly lighter-hearted shore-side evening events included an after-dinner ‘presentation’ by each crew and a somewhat sinisterly local-friendly highly-competitive petanque (or boules) competition.   The crews’ presentation was a regatta highlight and Imperials’ interpretation of the remit had our sailors performing a Full-Monty style stage show cunningly choreographed to the Drunken Sailor song spelling out a catching message to the all female adjudication panel.   The crew were smartly atired in union jack shorts and had bodypainted letters on their chests and backs.   The judges were suitably impressed and awarded the Imperials a well deserved third place.   The petanque proved too challenging and the the less said about our team’s performance, the better.  

The core of this year’s team had come from the winning IC MS team in the International Business Schools Regatta on the Solent in 2001, and most had sailed together again in previous year’s alumni regattas in La Rochelle, Brittany and Trieste.   Additional support came from Marc England who had skippered Imperial to victory in the 2000 IBSR regatta.   Although this year’s crew had been short of practice, the team showed that it’s possible to gel on the day and beat off some stiff and better rehersed competion.   A morale-boosting borrowed Imperial College ‘battle flag’ and a Bath-MBA ‘hired hand’ alumnus contribted to strengthen the crew and the Tanakas did well to take top-UK business school alumni team honours ahead of LBS, Kingston (X 2 crews) and Cranfield.

Other business schools participating in the immensely enjoyable 3 days of carefully organised coastal racing included Bocconi, Rotterdam, HEC, Insead (X 3) and IMD, and the final team included: Calum Sillars (skipper), Marc England (main & tactics), Sean Brown (navigator), Yinka Makinde, Udo Dengel and Dan Sherwood, the crew was boosted by Ross Ryan (Boss and Bath MBA alumnus) and Mark Thomas (trimmer).

The event’s generous sponsors included Champagne Mumm.  If any MBA course member or BS alumni would like to find out more about the regatta, please contact calum.sillars@ukonline.co.uk or visit www.alumnibusinesscup.org. Perhaps Imperial’s alumni can raise a second team in 2006 to finally overcome IMD and INSEAD’s finest.