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There are some assignments in in this job that can plausibly be described as work but feel more like a pleasant day out. I spent this morning, for example, sailing around New York harbour with Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, and his 26-year-old daughter Holly.

There were, admittedly, a few other people on the boat with us. In fact, there was a bevy of reporters and photographers to report on the launch of Sir Richard’s latest publicity stunt attempt to break a world record.

After taking a break from crossing oceans at high speed in boats (including one time when he sank) and attempting to circumnavigate the world in a balloon, he has returned to the fray. He and a crew that includes Ms Branson and her 23-year-old brother Sam will next week attempt to cross the Atlantic in a single-hulled sailing yacht in record time.

I must admit that I spent most of my time on board the 99-foot Teamorigin yacht taking in the New York sunshine and chatting to Ms Branson, a pleasant young woman who has just graduated from medical school in London and is taking a year off to learn about the Virgin business before resuming her training as a doctor.

In this week of outcry over Sarah Palin, the Republican party nominee for vice-president, and the degree to which the media is over-intruding into the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, it made me wonder about the issue of mixing up private and public in business as well as politics.

Sir Richard, of course, is a past master at getting publicity for his brand cheaply by placing himself in the spotlight. This, however, is the first time that Holly and Sam, who had just been born in 1985 when his father sank in mid-Atlantic in the Virgin Challenger I, have become involved.

It did not feel exploitative. They are adults and can decide for themselves whether to get involved (Sam was on his own expedition yesterday, kayaking to the North Pole to show that the Arctic ice cap is melting). But the prospect of photographing Sir Richard with his daughter certainly helped draw the media to the event.

And, as we know, the media beast is hard to tame once it has been aroused. Once in the public eye, always in the public eye. Maybe Holly and Sam have got accustomed to that anyway, given the extraordinary profile of their father.

Anyway, their presence also helped to mitigate the fact that this record-breaking effort lacks some of the drama of past Branson expeditions. Although the crew want to sail in front of a storm to go faster, the element of danger seems pretty well contained. Teamorigin could hit an iceberg, but it is not very likely.

“We would have to be foolish to lose anyone on this trip,” Sir Richard conceded, while his daughter said she believed he has shed some of his former devil-may-care recklessness. That said, her mother still regarded the exploit as “mad”.

Update: for those who want to see actual video of the event, and another angle on it, I recommend Barbara Kiviat’s report over at Time. Just click here.

September 4th, 2008 in Management | Permalink