The 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona is set to be the most competitive in the tournament’s 173-year history – but can New Zealand sailing legend Grant Dalton lead Emirates Team New Zealand to a third consecutive win? He talks to Dan Ahwa in Barcelona about why the time is right
America’s Cup 2024: Grant Dalton’s vision for sailing’s future in Barcelona
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“Prince Albert of Britain and Queen Victoria were living on the Isle of Wight because he was sickly and the doctors thought the climate there was better for his health. So the Prince decided they’d host a yacht race, and they invited countries, including America – who eventually won it. It was called the Hundred Guinea Cup back in those days.”
Dalton is apparently also a keen history buff. “Sorry, this is a little boring,” he grins.
Not boring. I just want to know about those manmade feats of wonder; the shiny, speed demons that are basically low-flying aircraft, elegant high-tech foiling monohulls powered by complex hydraulics that virtually dance on water.
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Dalton’s face lights up. “Yeah, the cool thing about the Cup is the defender makes the rules. So we decided from a sustainability point of view to invest in these high-speed hydrogen boats. We were told it would take four years. We had a boat in the water doing 50 knots in 10 months. And now we have nine of them. It’s one of the things I love the most. It’s completely limitless in terms of your imagination and how you can envisage the sport and the industry going forward.”
His explanations are forthright, combined with a down-to-earth Kiwi sense of humour. It’s a characteristic that appeals to some of Europe’s wealthiest dynasties and luxury CEOs; they trust Dalton’s salt-of-the-earth sensibility. This includes Louis Vuitton’s CEO Pietro Beccari, a friend who reignited Louis Vuitton’s commitment this year on a much bigger scale as title partner for the America’s Cup.
Our interview takes place on the first day of the preliminary Louis Vuitton Cup Challenger races. Dalton is typically unassuming dressed in a blue T-shirt, matching cap, shorts and sneakers. As we sit in a quiet penthouse room at the very top of the Hotel Arts Barcelona – the tallest building in town – Dalton looks down at the glistening Mediterranean waters below, surveying his temporary kingdom.
He’s a stoic figure who works well under pressure. Hours after our interview, we learn of the structural damage to Team New Zealand’s impressive AC75, Taihoro (a name blessed by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei meaning “to move swiftly as the sea between both sky and earth”), landing heavily on its cradle after being carried by a crane right after the team’s lone race on opening day.
While the defending team’s points at this stage don’t count until the main event in October, they still worked around the clock to get the boat back racing swiftly for the Challenger rounds.
Only 20cm to either side and it could have been “a whole bunch worse”.
Dalton’s job that day, and every day leading up to the campaign proper, is to remain the unflappable CEO.
His dual role as CEO of America’s Cup Events and the CEO of the Cup defenders, Emirates Team New Zealand, invites adulation and criticism alike. There are ubiquitous inquiries about whether having women on a team is tokenistic and whether the sport is really just folly for the 1%. Well, is it?
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“It’ll always be a niche sport,” says the 67-year-old.
“There are a couple of reasons for that. One is there’s a perception it’s a sport of the rich. However, in New Zealand, there’s a statistic that you can’t get more than 30km from a body of water anywhere in the country, and two out of three people have access to a boat. While it is seen as elitist, you can still ask a taxi driver and they’d be able to talk to you about it.”
The New Zealand Herald’s sports journalist Christopher Reive, who is reporting on this year’s event, says the biggest complaint he hears is that it is “a rich man’s sport”. “And with multimillion-dollar Cup campaigns backed by billionaires and airlines, you can see where they’re coming from. I’m not sure how they’d go about shaking that tag off.”
So just how exactly is sailing meant to connect the dots between grassroots sailing and the behemoth it morphs into?
“It’s landlocked countries – Switzerland being exempt – where they don’t sail,” Dalton explains. “They kick soccer balls on the coast and inland, so it will never be a mainstream sport. What we are trying to do is popularise it on TV so it becomes a followed sport.”
In fact, according to Nielsen figures, global TV audience numbers before the America’s Cup started its preliminary regatta stage were already sitting at 714 million. In comparison, the total global audience numbers for the entirety of the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021 totalled 941 million. While most New Zealanders will be fast asleep when the races are on, Dalton’s decision to bring the Cup to Barcelona and its time zone has already proven a success in growing the number of eyeballs looking at it.
“We see TV as a cost, not as a revenue stream,” he says. “So we spend a lot of money on it to bring the product free to air. It gets more people watching, and we don’t get geo-blocked because we’re not behind a paywall. Our philosophy is you should be able to see it anywhere on the planet if you’ve got a device or a TV – the exception being the United States, because it’s bloody hard to do a terrestrial deal in the States. We are with ESPN there.”
To help reach a bigger audience, Dalton’s taken his cues from the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which has taken the world of F1 to dizzying new heights, and is working on a similar documentary series aimed at drawing the curtain from the world of sailing even further. The series will be executive-produced and directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, whose work on the 2019 film Free Solo won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. “It will lift the lid on the intrigue,” Dalton says of the forthcoming project, “because of the type of personalities involved, there’s stuff that goes on that’s never been seen.”
For clarity’s sake, I ask the question already asked by so many New Zealanders: as the defending team with the power to host the America’s Cup wherever they wish, why Barcelona?
“It depends on who you ask that question,” Dalton says, smiling with a glint in his eye, before launching into a pitch-perfect delivery of diplomacy.
“We forgot in some ways the tragedy of Covid, and all countries were devastated by it – even Spain. It was not as tragic in New Zealand from a human side, but from a financial side, it crippled the country. New Zealand is still in serious recession, whereas the rest of the world is coming out of that recession. So it was impossible to have the Cup in New Zealand financially. Secondly, for the Cup to grow, and as our responsibility of the defender, it had to be in Europe.”
Even the most hurt fan would have to concede that having the regatta in Barcelona is probably better for the sport, says Reive.
“I think it has allowed the America’s Cup to try to further tap into the European market, and I believe has seen more challengers enter the main regatta than would have if it was in Auckland again,” he says.
“The action itself is also easily accessible; in New Zealand it’s broadcast free-to-air on TV and at several locations online. The graphics on the broadcast this time around showing the live wind maps and ideal pathway around the course also help fans understand what they’re watching – which is always a big plus.”
In the coming weeks though, they’ll feel closer to home. Longstanding collaborators the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Group are sending a contingent who will escort the sailing team in a waka taua named Te Kawau, every day before each race of the main America’s Cup race in October. They will also perform daily in the hospitality base, a cultural exchange Dalton says will provide “a unique opportunity to share the strength and beauty of Māori culture with the world”.
“They’ve been rehearsing like hell. It will be seriously cool.”
Barcelona as a backdrop is well-placed, given its history with sport and its improved infrustructure; the aftermath of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics games is still felt in this town. Investment in the port and Barceloneta Beach have helped foster increasing tourism year-on-year.
Working closely with some of the city’s key leaders, including Mayor Jaume Collboni and president of the port Lluís Salvado, has also helped unlock the investment and support from some of Barcelona’s wealthiest families; sons and daughters of parents who helped campaign for the 1992 Olympics, and who are now putting their time, energy and money into backing the America’s Cup – most notable is the prestigious Puig dynasty (fashion and fragrance) who are the key sponsor for the debut Women’s America’s Cup.
“Because the politics here are so complex, they say this is the first time since the 1992 Olympics that all the institutions like the Government of Catalonia, city council, central government board, and Barcelona Tourism have all worked toward one common goal. We’ve gotten to know the people really well and found only collaboration and friendship. When we came two-and-a-half years ago, [if] I walked along the street and asked people ‘Do you know what the America’s Cup is?’ and I think I probably would’ve got, ‘Yeah that’s a soccer championship in South America’,” Dalton says, laughing.
“La Vanguardia did a study a few weeks ago asking that same simple question, ‘Do you know what the America’s Cup is and will you attend?’ 77.5% of Barcelonians said yes, they knew what it was, and they were interested in attending in some form. I’d say that’s improved from damn near zero. That’s a result of the city, Louis Vuitton and the other sponsors all collectively pushing in the same direction to make the event better.”
But while the 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland offered some opportunity for boats to find refuge from choppy waves and unpredictable winds from surrounding islands and inlets, the Mediterranean Coast is a vast expanse of volatile, open waters that only fuels the drama of the competition. What started out as a friendly display of camaraderie between sailors has evolved into a rivalry of Shakespearean proportions. Like any circuit sport – particularly one that sees several sailors jumping between teams and boats throughout their careers – there will always be a sense of competitive bravado. “The race used to be a friendly competition – but not anymore,” says Dalton.
In addition to Team New Zealand, the challengers putting their minds and bodies on the line include Ineos Britannia (Great Britain), Luna Rossa (Italy), Alinghi Red Bull Racing (Switzerland), American Magic (US) and Orient Express (France). For some, like Ineos Brittania, the America’s Cup represents something much more visceral – the British haven’t won the Cup back since 1851.
The price of pride is not cheap however, with Dalton explaining it costs a quarter of a billion to a hundred million Euros to invest in the three years of training and technology to win the title. Even then you don’t win anything but the honour of being number one. As Dalton makes it clear from our brief history lesson on the Cup, there is no second place.
“The cost varies, but if you tell me what your people cost is, I’ll tell you what your campaign’s going to cost you. It sort of works that way. You can’t separate the two.”
While it’s an expensive sport, Dalton is quick to point out that to keep the quality of the game at a peak premium level requires an understanding of the sheer amount of physics, technology and work involved in creating the boats alone.
“You’ll never have 20 teams. If you want to have 20 teams, you do another event. This is not that event. This is the top of the food chain. It’s an interesting argument of whether you should make it more accessible to more teams by getting the price down or whether you still have to control the price the same way Formula One is trying to.”
But accessibility is something Dalton is exploring in his quest to redefine what sailing looks like for the future. This is the first time in 173 years that an all-women’s regatta is part of the America’s Cup, with 12 competing teams. It’s a step in the right direction, says Dalton, but comes with some level of responsibility, particularly as the event isn’t controlled by any governing body like Fifa, World Rugby or the International Olympic Committee.
Dalton admits it’s something he won’t mandate just yet, preferring to call it a pathway that allows women to be more active members in the future. Along with the youth sailing teams, it’s all part of feeding into that grassroots level outside the machine.
“One of the problems of our sport is because America’s Cup is the most prestigious level of the game, it’s really hard to get into it. Winning a gold medal is by no way any means a qualification – that just get you in the classroom,” says Dalton, offering another analogy.
“Most sports have a diversity process, but a lot of it is tokenism. So even within our sport, they mandate there should be a woman involved in the crew, but we said, look, we could do that, but it just doesn’t feel right because it doesn’t actually achieve anything other than probably make a woman feel degraded. They’re there because it’s a rule. So we said, let’s introduce a pathway that’s real and should hopefully mean that by the next time, they’re qualified to be picked out of a line-up. I’m listening via headphones and tuning in and the women’s communication is better than the guys. Because communication is such a big part of these boats, you’ve got to be speaking like your airport traffic control.”
“The levels are really high and they’re all training like hell out here too.”
In July, he launched the America’s Cup legacy programme “Vela per a tothom”, aimed at making sailing accessible to people with disabilities. This charitable project, presented at the Barcelona International Sailing Centre, has been promoted alongside other entities such as the Catalan Sailing Federation, the Mi Alex Foundation and the Barcelona Capital Náutica Foundation. Along with women’s sailing, youth sailing, disability sailing and blind sailing, Dalton is investing in the sport locally in Catalonia. “There’s a very strong culture down this coast here of sailing. There’s a legacy that we leave here and that’s pretty important too.”
E-sports and gaming has also been a central focus in making sailing more accessible, with 180,000 downloads of another first – the America’s Cup E-series, where gamers have the opportunity to experience racing via a simulation on an AC40 yacht and become a part of the world’s greatest sailing competition online. Launched five months ago, the game runs concurrently with the on-water action in Barcelona, and is another example of how the sport is a livewire. It’s not unusual for sailors to be recording every movement during the race before delivering breathless dispatches to broadcasters around the world immediately after.
“Every sport has an amazing e-sport component – except sailing,” Dalton says. “So for the past three years, we’ve used the physics engine we use for our boats and implemented that into the game. Each of the qualifiers comes to the World Championship in Barcelona on September 28 – then we put them into full simulation and we put them on a race yacht and we race them. We close the Gran Turismo circle. There have been three weeks of qualifiers so far, including a kid from New Zealand who said exactly the words that I was hoping the game would represent, describing himself as ‘a kid in his bedroom who can only dream of sailing’.”
Perhaps all this is Dalton’s way of tapping into the young boy who began his own sailing journey at 8 years old as a member of the Maraetai Sailing Club in Auckland.
The Youth America’s Cup initiative will hopefully offer more interest in the event, especially given half of the teams that make up the fleets are invited yacht clubs from countries around the world not already competing.
While Dalton is considered one of New Zealand’s most revered sailors, having sailed around the world seven times, the first five as part of the Whitbread Round the World Race, he is keenly aware that what sailing looks like today and tomorrow requires serious backing for it to continue to engage with future audiences and stakeholders.
“Someone asked me before ‘whether [sailing] is too much, has it gone too far?’, and my answer to this was ‘We don’t ride horses to work anymore. It’s the sailing of this era. We will never, ever go back.”
He might be able to regale you with history lessons from the Victorian era, but something tells me Dalton is actually a futurist at heart – at least everything points in that direction.
“If you want to engage a younger demographic – which we must to survive – they don’t want to go slow,” he says matter-of-factly later in the day to a group of global press.
“They want to go fast, they want it to be instant, it has to be challenging.”
“And it better have buttons.”
Dan Ahwa is the Creative and Fashion Director of Viva and a senior journalist for the Herald’s Premium Lifestyle team. He travelled to Barcelona as a guest of Louis Vuitton. The America’s Cup runs until October 22.
