Team Shosholoza captures the heart of international media

JOY ORLEK LONG BEFORE Marcello Burricks was born, South Africa’s apartheid police swept his mother and her family from their home in Simon’s Town. Their sin was being of mixed race in a place reserved for whites. When he was eight a classmate stabbed him. When he was 14 he was arrested for beating a high-school teacher. Today 19-year-old Burricks helps trim the mainsail on a 25-metre racing yacht in Table Bay and the only people he wants to beat are the favourites in the next America’s Cup. So begins an inspirational article in the New York Times about Team Shosholoza, South Africa’s entry in the America’s Cup regatta to be held in Valencia, Spain in 2007, which pays tribute to Captain Salvatore Sarno, a driving force behind the bid "Having attracted $17m sponsorship from German IT giant T-Systems, Team Shosholoza has raised the delicious prospect, however remote, that billionaires who lavish $100m and more on America’s Cup Challenges can be humbled by a rival with one-quarter the budget and a 19-year old sailor with scars from old knife fights," the article states. Describing Captain Sarno as a Durbanite with a melodious Italian accent, the author has clearly not discounted Team Shosholoza’s chances of success. With two new and markedly faster Shosholozas to be launched before Valencia, and a vastly improved crew, the team is clearly up for the challenge, with passion and determination in no short supply as they take on the world’s best and realise a dream for themselves and the “iconoclastic shipping tycoon” who is largely responsible for making it all happen.