Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker and his crew
head back out to the Hauraki Gulf today facing the huge
task of trying to come back from 3-0 down against Swiss
challengers Alinghi. Two more losses and the Auld Mug
will be winging its way to Europe.
That scenario has led to some observers expressing doubts
about whether another challenge would be mounted from
New Zealand, given the distance involved and the increased
costs.
The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron commodore Bill
Endean hopes Dean Barker and his men can fight back
because he believes it will be "extremely difficult"
to fund a campaign in Europe.
The squadron and Team New Zealand have been partners
since the successful '95 campaign in San Diego.
Endean said it would be sad if New Zealand's Cup involvement,
which began in 1987, came to an end. "We all know how
expensive it is in Europe when we travel there," he
said. "It goes without saying there would be formidable
costs involved in mounting a challenge in Europe.
Concerns abound about the New Zealand syndicate's future
in a regatta that requires colossal budgets. The budget
for the defence is close to $80 million but a minimum
of $120m would be needed for a competitive challenge
in Europe.
But Gilmour, skipper with American syndicate OneWorld
Challenge and a veteran of five America's Cup regattas,
doubted New Zealand's association with the trophy, which
began in 1986, would come to an end.
"I think that certainly New Zealand will mount a challenge
- I don't think there are any ifs and buts about that,"
he said. "There is going to be a lot of pent up anger
that is going to have to be vented in some way. Rather
than let people be angry, let them speak with their
feet."
Gilmour rejected the possibility, raised by an Australian
journalist, that Australia and New Zealand could mount
a joint challenge if Alinghi did win the cup. "That
will never happen."
If the cup headed offshore, Bill Endean believes Team
New Zealand would need one or several major international
sponsors. He said the team could be attractive, especially
as the cup's profile grew.
"Who knows, an international sponsor may like to pick
up a team which has been there and done that. "But whether
they go with us or someone else is debatable."
If it, there must be real doubts whether the so-called
"family of five" sponsors will survive. The sponsorship
issue is deluged by irony because skipper Russell Coutts,
before his acrimonious split from Team New Zealand,
advocated a complete rethink of the family of five.
He wanted the syndicate to chase a major offshore sponsor
believing this kind of money was necessary to keep New
Zealand at the forefront of the cup business.
The then syndicate heads vetoed his vision though SAP,
a global provider of e-business solutions, did join
the family of five.
It is understood SAP ploughed $20m-plus into the defence.
The company became the biggest sponsor, ensuring its
branding would be on the team's spinnakers.
Team New Zealand is refusing to comment on its chances
of being able to mount a challenge in Europe, saying
it is concentrating on beating Alinghi.
Rumours
about NZL 81 and NZL 82 (02/21/03)
(source
: NZ
Herald)
After the disastrous start to the America's Cup
on Saturday, when race boat NZL 82 was forced out
of the contest after taking water and breaking gear
and NZL 81 was mysteriously damaged, the airwaves
and Viaduct have been awash with talk about the boats'
fragility.
When NZL81 returned to base on Saturday, the mast
was removed and maintenance carried out until Monday,
when the rig was put back in.
Team New Zealand has declined to say what happened
to NZL81 and will not comment on speculation about
the race boat, including claims that it has a cracked
deck.
No one from the team will say what repairs were needed,
or how or when the boat was damaged. Much of the talk
has suggested the boat may have had a crack in the
deck, in a similar area to that affected on Young
America, which buckled and almost sank during the
challengers' regatta in 1999.
By Tuesday, the chatter was that NZL82 had also
suffered structural damage in the form of a cracked
deck or hull in Sunday's race - sailed in very light
breezes and on flat seas.
There are suggestions the boat has delaminated, that
engineers from the North and South islands are working
on it, and that teams of boatbuilders have worked
desperately all night, every night, since Sunday.
By yesterday, it was said the two boats were damaged
before Saturday's race, when they smacked into each
other.
But NZL 81 and NZL 82 were sound enough to sail in
brisk breezes and choppy seas on the Hauraki Gulf
yesterday. In winds that reached 16-20 knots, the
New Zealanders stayed out on the Gulf training even
after their fourth race against America's Cup challengers
Alinghi was called off.
Rumors began to fly around that negotiations are
being prepared by one very rich German Industrialist/Technology
giant (Hasso Plattner, co-CEO of SAP ?) to purchase
the TNZ infrastructure, boats and key crew to challenge
in 2006.
Insiders or crew that have worked closely for challengers
and TNZ have also confirmed that TNZ has no way of winning,
they understand the key elements of Alinghi and TNZ
and were long aware that Alinghi would dominate.
This extremely keen German Billionaire and sailor (Far
more keen than Larry.!) has put the wheels into motion
already, albeit no confirmation of what stage his plans
are at. As one TNZ team was bought by Alinghi it seems
that the rest are set to be bought also to sail under
a German Challenge.
It seems the best sailors will be leaving TNZ forever
and so will the cup...
Make-or-break
time for Team New Zealand (02/18/03)
(source
: Foxsports)
The America's Cup yachting final may go to a maximum
of nine races, but the third race on the Hauraki Gulf
today is being seen as make-or-break time for defenders
Team New Zealand.
British skipper Ian Walker, helmsman for the unsuccessful
GBR Challenge, said the contest later today "really
is a big one" for the defenders.
"If they can get a win, they can start to turn the series
around," he said. "There's nothing like a win to settle
the nerves."
Walker said GBR Challenge faced the same problem at
the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series,
when they suffered a string of losses.
"You start questioning everything, but once we got a
win, we sailed to five wins in a row," he said. "So
I think they desperately need a win. If they go 0-3
down, then it would be an awful long way back."
For Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts, the third race will
be chance to extend his record unbeaten streak in America's
Cup final races to 12.
"He's so good at starting and we have seen Alinghi is
a powerful boat upwind," Walker said. "And if Russell
is ahead of you, there is no person in the game better
at staying ahead."
But Walker said he still has "a sneaking suspicion"
NZL82 is faster than SUI64, which might just be enough
for Team New Zealand.
It today appears New Zealand's second yacht, NZL-81,
was severely damaged too. Team NZ sources refused to
confirm the damage but the yacht was clearly in trouble
and limped to its berth Saturday where its mast was
immediately removed.
The fact that NZL81 is still in the shed indicates some
serious structural problems and raises questions as
to the reliability of the design of both boats.
Despite the problems they encountered on Saturday Team
New Zealand have decided to stick with their lightweight
boom, rather than revert to a more traditional spar,
for race two.
"Tomorrow
is another day", but ... (02/15/03) (source
: America's
Cup)
Team New Zealand suffered a huge setback on Saturday
when it had to retire from Race One of the America’s
Cup after a trifecta of gear problems, handing the first
race, and the early advantage to the Swiss Alinghi Team.
In tough conditions with Southwest winds over 22 knots,
and short, steep, choppy water, the Black boat, which
initially showed impressive speed, wasn’t up to the
challenge.
"Obviously we are very disappointed to break gear
in the first race,” admitted Team New Zealand skipper
Dean Barker. “But we were sailing along in plenty of
breeze and sometimes things break and when that happens
that can lead to other things going wrong, but we seemed
to have a lot of gremlins on the boat today."
Although Barker later spoke about problems well before
the start sequence, the problems began in earnest shortly
after the start gun fired, with both boats streaking
out to the left side of the race course on starboard
tack.
As the boats fought through the strong winds and choppy
water, it soon became clear that water was accumulating
at an alarming rate in the cockpit of NZL-82.
"We felt pretty good off the start line, but we
started taking on so much water," Barker said.
"The sea state was in a fairly short chop and I
think that was factor along with the strong breeze and
also the spectator wash, we certainly haven’t encountered
a problem like that in any of the other sailing we have
done so it was a bit of shock to us to have the leeward
side full of water after only eight or nine minutes
of sailing. We certainly have never experienced that
before."
The amount of water on board NZL 82 was shocking to
most observers. Syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg and
skipper Dean Barker eventually estimated that there
was as much as six tonnes of water swilling around in
the cockpit.
Pitman Matt Mitchell was assigned a bucket to try and
bail it out (the large bucket he used was "the toilet
so to speak"), but he was fighting a losing battle.
"Initially we got a couple of waves over in the
pre-start, but once we started racing it was coming
in over the leeward side," Barker said. "As
fast as they were bailing…the water was coming in faster
than that."
That amount of water soon turned a 25 tonne boat into
a 30 tonne boat and in the strong wind, the boat was
loaded up much more than usual. Team New Zealand started
losing ground to Alinghi and was forced to tack away.
When Barker tacked back to close in on the Swiss team,
the aft end of the carbon fibre boom broke under the
strain. Team New Zealand had now lost control over the
foot of the mainsail, and in the big breeze, the sail
assumed a dangerously full shape.
Soon after that, as NZL 82 crested a wave, the titanium
tack ring that holds the bottom forward corner of the
genoa to the deck exploded. The sail was wrenched out
of the luff track, and the day was over for Team New
Zealand.
"I guess for us, we don’t for any stretch of the
imagination think we are out of the event just because
we have had a bad day," Barker said. "Yes,
its is disappointing for us…but I think we came off
the line pretty much close to even, even in the short
time that we sailed each other and that is reassuring
because we haven’t raced against another team…".
"Tomorrow is another day and we believe we are
in a position to go out and race these guys and give
them a run for their money so we are looking forward
to tomorrow and the rest of the event and we will see
what happens."
What cannot be overlooked is the vast difference in
sailing time between SUI 64 and NZL 82. The Swiss boat
is the second oldest in the fleet of new generation
boats, while Team New Zealand’s black boat is the newest.
In fact, Team New Zealand has sailed NZL 82 for just
four months, while Alinghi has been putting SUI 64 through
its paces longer than any team, for well over a year.
The inevitable question is has Team New Zealand sailed
enough?
"We have a boat that we’re very happy with,"
Schnackenberg insists. "What we have to do is take
a very good look at all the assumptions we made in engineering
and the boys will be having a very good look around
everything in the boat, not only features in the design
but also to see if there is any damage that occurred
because of the damage that did occur. We think we will
be fine but we are not taking it lightly."
Pictures of NZL-82 from helicopters over the race course
showed the water collecting in what appeared to be a
type of well behind the mainsheet traveller. There is
some speculation along the docks that the boat is designed
to hold a bit of sea water in that part of the cockpit
to help the back end sit lower in the water, and that
in the unusual seaway, it all went horribly wrong.
It’s a truism of all types of sailing that strong winds
expose weakness. The question to be answered over the
next few days is, was today an aberration or is Team
New Zealand in trouble?
Ruthless
self-interest out on the Gulf (02/13/03) (source
: Yachts
& Yachting)
One of the most interesting parts of unveiling
day was the muted rumblings from the Alinghi camp that
the Challenger of Record Prada syndicate was seen to
be racing against Team New Zealand, in a flagrant breach
of a signed mutual understanding that the challengers
would not in any way assist the defenders.
This is not the first time this has happened in the
America’s Cup as in 2000 Team New Zealand lined up against
the Nippon Challenge and all hell broke loose with Prada’s
boss Patrizio Bertelli bitterly complaining to the then
challenger of record, the New York Yacht Club.
Moves were taken to stop this happening in 2003 as Prada
took the reigns of the challengers but just three days
after the Louis Vuitton Cup concluded, the Oracle camp
witnessed Prada shadow boxing with the Kiwis.
Chris Dickson happily leant his name to the claim whilst
Oracle’s rules advisor Tom Ehman also added weight to
one of the more significant moves in the Cup so far.
Yesterday at the unveiling ceremony, Alinghi’s pitman
Josh Belsky again confirmed the rumour and if it’s true
then what could be the motives behind the Italians breaching
their own rule?
Ruthless self-interest is at the heart of the matter.
Bertelli is anxious that the Cup doesn’t go to Europe
as there have been tentative approaches made by up to
four Italian syndicates and that the ‘Prada’ syndicate
wouldn’t be able to compete in the exposure stakes.
Prada had it pretty easy in the 2000 Cup but in 2003,
they were well off the pace and out-manoeuvred by the
Latin Rascals of Mascalzone Latino. Vincenzo Onorato’s
team from the Island of Elba were taken dearly to the
Kiwi public’s heart and Prada were forced to up their
PR effort both in Auckland and at home to get any kind
of positive reaction.
Prada’s starting helmsman, Kiwi Rod Davis has also joined
the Team New Zealand camp and one can’t help but think
that there’s something very fishy going on between Prada
and TNZ. Presumably Davis is out of contract with the
Italians now and is entitled to sail for whoever he
likes but it’s mightily coincidental that he should
come from a syndicate that initiated a rule that sys
‘no collaboration.’
Furthermore and rather shockingly comes the rumour that
Prada were not alone in collaborating with Team New
Zealand. GBR Challenge is also embroiled in the mire
with speculation surrounding their testing period just
after they were knocked out by Stars & Stripes in the
quarter-finals.
Peter Harrison kept the sailing team alive and kicking
to the end of December to trial new equipment and to
see if the team could get the ‘helicopter’ GBR-78 to
work. In this time-frame, Team New Zealand apparently
shadow-boxed with the British on the open waters of
the Gulf but within the same wind bands.
If true, GBR could be shooting themselves in the foot
for the next Cup. Rumours were that the Royal Ocean
Racing Club were being considered for the next Challenger
of Record role. That may still be on the cards if TNZ
win but if Alinghi do it then Harrison has made a poor
judgement call.
All of which adds fuel to Alinghi’s fire that if they
do heist the Cup back to Europe for the first time since
1851 then they are going to instigate radical and sweeping
changes.
All
very similar for Team New Zealand (02/11/03) (source
: NZ
Herald)
In 2000, all of the pundits were certain that the
appendages the Kiwis showed at the first unveiling were
a ruse, and would never see the light of competition.
Similarly, at the first unveiling last month, critics
were aghast at the long, cigar shaped bulb on NZL-82,
and promptly announced that we’d see something different
before the America’s Cup Match.
But on both occasions the ‘experts’ were wrong, and
a very slender seven-metre long bulb was the notable
feature when Team New Zealand unveiled NZL82 to the
public for the second time.
Meanwhile, there had been speculation Team NZ might
have had a more pronounced hula, which fits snugly into
the back half of the hull but "There’s not very
much difference," Team New Zealand head Tom Schnackenberg
admitted.
"We were pretty happy with NZL-82 as we presented
her in January so there’s not very much that’s changed.
We’ve done a lot of work verifying, sailing with both
boats and racing intensely, making changes to the appendages
and sails as we go along."
Team NZ principle designer Mike Drummond was reluctant
to give much away, but agreed with a suggestion everything
was "pretty much" the same as it had been when the boat
was first revealed.
"I don't think you'd notice too many differences," he
said. "We have developed the boat a little bit, but
just in small ways that I'm not really going to detail."
Drummond said the team had been restricted somewhat
by time limits. "In summary, yes it's all very similar,"
he said.
