JuanK(er)

Of course you know that this is the place for the alternative view, and we gladly present them as often as possible. Juan Kouyoumdjian is one who, although we know little of him, we've never heard much good about him either. Reader Banksy offers this Reader Ran.About Mr. Kouyoumoumadyoumdjian. Hey Good times, right?

Recently SA named this guy the 'worst designer of 2002'. - Primarily on the grounds of the much delayed and increasingly complicated looking thing he's designing for Frank Pong.

Before this Juan was famous for a few things, - firstly designing an IMS Boat whose hull had to be scrapped halfway through its construction, because the VPP was changed and the boat went from thoroughbred to pig overnight. Even given the mayfly like competitive life spans of most IMS designs, this was impressive.

Shortly after this he designed another IMS boat. With a rig that was illegal, and couldn't be measured under IMS guidelines. For some reason though, this obtained Juan boy wonder status and Bruce Farr apparently offered him a job (Juan declined) and Juan went to work for Le Defi, the French AC Challenge for 2000.

As with comedy, joining a design team is all about timing. Le Defi made a grotty start, improved a bit and in the end made the final six, and got the wooden spoon. The most impressive thing about this was how much the boat improved. Juan's late arrival at Le Defi, plus his boy wonder status meant he seemed, more than anything to be associated with that improvement. Around this time Juan also talked about building another IMS design, this time in wood, in order to gain a favourable VPP, and prove he was cleverer than the nasty people who administered the VPP, and kept pissing on his fireworks. Although this never appears to have seen the light of day.

Juan, being a smart marketeer also wrote a piece or two for Seahorse on Americas Cup design. One of the most significant things he wrote after the 2000 AC, was the NZL -60 was not significantly faster than the Prada boats. Cheerfully ignoring the fact that NZL 60 was probably a generation ahead, and most of the Challengers would have had a hard time beating NZL32 or 38.

Anyway, the nice things he said about the Prada boats, plus his boy wonder status (is this beginning to sound familiar?), got him a new gig with Patrizio Bertelli's glamour boys, and one could expect great things. Sadly Prada finished fourth, and it has to be said, a fair bit closer to the boys at the back than the boys in front, in terms of boat speed.

Once again Juan wrote his review at the end of the 2003 Cup in Seahorse, following his plainly bonkers prediction from 2000, by saying that he felt the top four Challengers (including, conveniently the one he had a hand in designing) could have beaten TNZ.

At this point one has to ask the question, just who is he kidding? In the Challenger finals, Prada was beaten (comfortably) by OneWorld. OneWorld was beaten (very comfortably) by Oracle. Oracle was beaten (5-1) by Alinghi. Alinghi beat TNZ, although when the Kiwi's boat held together, their losing margins suggest that in a straight fight between Prada and TNZ, a scenario similar to 2000 would have been played out. Prada would have lost.

On the basis of all of this, one has to wonder how long his credibility will hold. He must be hoping the Star he's designed with Gavin Brady does good, otherwise he might just rue the day he turned down the Farr office.

Banksy