Philippe Falle

Philippe Falle, our director of sailing is a round the world yachtsman, Transatlantic Race skipper and class winner in the Rolex Fastnet Race.  Having amassed over 100,000 Nm Philippe has extensive and varied racing experience.  Over the past five years Philippe has been coaching and running race training programmes with great success.

Philippe is the former Chief Instructor at Formula 1 Sailing and has been working with Sailing Logic Racing for the past two years.   Philippe has an incredible passion for sailing which is clearly evident in the way he works with all his teams to get the best out of them to deliver consistently brilliant results.

Having enjoyed success on the race circuit Philippe has also trained crew for the BT Global Challenge 2000, Global Challenge 2004 Round the World Race, The Sydney Hobart Race, has skippered three Fastnet races’ and the Round Britain and Ireland Race.

2006 Results
2nd IRC 1 Round Britain and Ireland Race
2nd IRC 1 in six RORC offshore races
3rd IRC3 Skandia Cowes Week
1st Reflex 38 Class Skandia Cowes Week
3rd IRC 1 Dartmouth Regatta
3rd IRC1 RORC Offshore Championships
Winner of David Fayle Memorial Cup for best school boat in RORC series

2005 Results
1st IRC 1 RORC Offshore Championships
1st IRC 1b Fastnet
3rd IRC 1 Fastnet
1st IRC1 RORC Channel Race
1st Reflex 38 RORC Cowes to St Malo
2nd Reflex 38 Cowes Week
Winner of Roger Justice Trophy for 1st School Boat in Fastnet
Winner of David Fayle Memorial Cup for best school boat in RORC series

2004 Results
1st Reflex 38 Class Cowes Week
2nd IRC 2 Round the Island Race
3rd IRC 1 Cervantes Cup RORC Race
Winner of King of Spain Cup – For race win in IRC3 Cowes Week
Winner of David Fayle Memorial Cup for best school boat in RORC series

2003 Results
Winner of the RORC School Boat Trophy
3rd IRC 3 Morgan Cup RORC Race
5th IRC 3 Cowes – St Malo RORC Race
5th Overall
6th IRC 6 Skandia Cowes Week

2002 Results
1st IRC3 Cowes – Cherbourg RORC Race
2nd IRC3 RORC Series
3rd IRC3 RORC Channel Race

Alison Smith

Alison Smith has spent the last 12 years in the sailing industry, managing high profile yacht racing events for companies and individual skippers. In March 2003, Alison founded the company ‘Sailing Logic’, a Marine Consultancy company specialising in logistics, event management and marketing.

Prior to setting up her own business, Alison was most recently Marketing Manager for Sir Robin Knox-Johnston at Clipper Ventures plc. Alison managed the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race start and finish events, and implemented a new company database system utilising web based technology, as well as developing further the Clipper brand. She also had the responsibility of managing the sponsor business club, involving direct client care and organising the start and finish events at Liverpool alongside event managers at Liverpool City Council.

Prior to this, Alison worked for Mike Golding Yacht Racing as Operations Manager, during which time she was responsible for all organisational and logistical roles within Mike Golding’s Vendée Globe 2000, Around Alone, Transat Jacques Vabre and OSTAR campaigns. One of Alison’s key roles was to provide Mike Golding with his race food and nutrition, a skill which she has developed and adapted since, advising on five round the world races to date. In addition she also managed Mike’s yacht charter company, Round the World PromOcean. During this time, Alison helped develop an on-water management-training programme, which was successfully used by companies such as Jansen-Cilag, Heath Group, Group 4 Securitas and the England Rugby Squad.

A round the world yachts-woman and RYA qualified Commercially Endorsed Yachtmaster Alison was also Operations Manager for Sir Chay Blyth’s Challenge Business during BT’s sponsorship of the Global Challenge Round World Yacht races. Managing the company’s 16 strong Challenge 67 foot yacht fleet, she was responsible for the smooth running of the corporate hospitality operation from Ocean Village Marina, Southampton, and was also involved in the selection and subsequent training of the 16 Race and relief skippers. The yachts were used for corporate hospitality, racing, race training and management training. Alison managed some of the port stop-overs of the 1996 BT Global Challenge including Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and was Project Manager of the race start and finish at Ocean Village Marina, Southampton, coordinating sponsors, families, entertainment, on-water logistics and press. She was also the Project Manager for the inaugural Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race in 1997 from Tenerife to Barbados.

Alison has a Sports Management Degree and has spent some years working in France and Spain managing Summer Multi-Sport Activity Centres and Winter Ski Hotels for UK Travel companies.

Mark Rushall

Mark Rushall, RYA British Coach of the Year 2005, trained as a physics teacher, but chose to work in the marine industry to give the opportunity to realise his own sailing ambitions. He has achieved National and European titles in a variety of dinghy and sportsboat championships, at the same time as gaining industrial experience as a fully "hands on" director of high profile marine retail, mast producing, and sailmaking companies.

As a keelboat sailor he has won prestigious trophies as helmsman, tactician and mainsheet man, and was team manager and a sailor in Rob Greenhalgh's successful 2002 Tour Voile campaign.  Mark has been coaching with Sailing Logic Racing with great success for the past two years.

Mark was coach to the British 470 team at the inaugural ISAF world championship in 1994 (British 470 results included gold and 4th overall). Since then he has combined his unique technical experience with personal racing knowledge to enable him to help teams and individuals to success in 420, RS800, International 14, Sonar, 1720, and Mumm 30 championships, as well as having the time and patience to help less experienced sailors achieve their personal goals in a wide variety of dinghy and keelboat classes.

Sportsboat Racing
1720 Sportsboat European champion, 2000
1720 Sportsboat National champion, 1999
Sportsboat winner, R.T.I. 1999

Keelboat Racing
Winner of Rocking Chair trophy for class 0 and 1 boats (mainsheet) Winner of New York Yacht Cub Challenge trophy for class 0 and 1 boats (helmsman) Top Inshore boat, 2002 Commodores Cup (mainsheet) 4th place 2002 Tour Voile (project manager and team member)

Dinghy Racing
Laser 5000 Euro champion, 1997 Laser 5000 National champion, 1995 Runner up Fireball worlds, 1984 (helming), 1993 (crewing, with Liz Rushall) Lark National Champion, 1990, 1991, 1992 Firefly national champion, 1981, 1983

Team Racing
BUSA champions 1976, 1977, 1978, 1970 (ULSC) Winners of Wilson Trophy, Royal St George Trophy, Budworth Pairs. (ULSC and Castaways) Winners of Yachting world team trophy (national 12's) and Laser national team trophy. (TVSC and DWSC)

Mark Covell

Mark grew up sailing at Hayling Island Sailing Club giving him an early inside track to world class sailing. Severe dyslexia encouraged him to focus on the marine world, and competitive sailing in particular, rather than academic life… Accountancy would never be for him!

Mark’s physique and height encouraged him to specialise in racing keel boats rather than dinghies. He won many prestigious championships, including 5.5 metre class and Etchells 22 World championships, before teaming up in 1997 with previous Olympian, Glyn Charles, in the Olympic Star Class.

Glyn tragically lost his life during the Sydney to Hobart Race in 1998. Glyn’s family encouraged Mark to stick with the Olympic Campaign. He teamed up with Ian Walker, who had himself lost his team mate and fellow Olympic medallist John Merricks, in a tragic car crash. Thus a strange twist of fate brought the two men together to campaign the Star class for the 2000 Olympics.

With only 18 months to go before the games it was a monumental task to master the idiosyncrasies of this most demanding and technical race boat.

Mark and Ian achieved the unthinkable when they narrowly missed Gold to take Silver at the Sydney Games.

After only a brief rest at home Mark was asked to join the British Americas Cup Team for the 2003 Americas Cup in New Zealand, 1st British Campaign for 14 years. The team gained experience invaluable for future campaigns, finally finishing 6th in the Louis Vuitton Cup, the elimination series to decide the challenger for the Americas Cup.

After winning the 5.5m World Championships, Mark is currently project manager of a new 5.5 meter boat, which he built and launched in 2004.

2004
2nd 5.5 Metre European Championships

2003
1st 5.5 Metre World Championships
British Americas Cup Team (GBR Challenge)

2002
1st IRC3 Cowes – Cherbourg RORC Race
2nd IRC3 RORC Series
3rd IRC3 RORC Channel Race

2000
Silver Medal Sydney Olympic Games (Star)
2nd ISAF World Ranking (Star)
2nd Bacardi Cup ( Star)
1st SPA Olympic Classes Regatta

1999
7th Star World Championships
2nd Star Pre Worlds
4th Sydney Pre Olympic Regatta

1998
2nd ISAF Star World Rankings
5th ISAF World Sailing Championships
1st 5.5 metre World Championships
1st 5.5 Metre Gold Cup

1996
1st Etchells 22 World Championships
1st 5.5 Meter World Championships