Five-nil tells sad old story

By HELEN TUNNAH and JULIE ASH

There they stood, Tom Schnackenberg, Mike Drummond and Clay Oliver. Team New Zealand's three key designers, smiling by their rocket ship, the only obvious worry the fashion clash between their beige "hula" shirts and their lucky red socks.

It was January 10 and the boats to defend the America's Cup had just been unveiled. Scores of media and hundreds of supporters were jammed into the Halsey St base for a first glimpse of the radical new hull appendage, nicknamed the hula.

Now, one has to wonder, what did those men really know? Were the designers as delighted as they appeared, or had a brave face been pasted over an already worried syndicate? And what were the sailors (one of whom has since said privately they were too scared to speak out) thinking as they looked on at the pageant?

Because now all New Zealanders know that even then, one of the boats, NZL81, had been badly crippled in training a month earlier.

Sister ship and eventual race boat NZL82 had joined it in the boatshed, its deck and hull reinforced to try to prevent similar structural damage.

But there both boats were, sitting in all their glory on their cradles, a beaming design team lined up underneath. To the uneducated eye the only visible hint of poor preparation was the scrappily painted silver ferns on the stern.

Team New Zealand this week released an internal review of its failed campaign to defend the America's Cup, a report which, when read as a whole, paints a damning picture of the campaign. But taken apart, it raises critical questions simply because of what has been left out.

Even the completion of the report has been problematic, after trustee and author Peter Menzies announced early last month that it was complete. Skipper Dean Barker told the Herald no one had spoken to him about it. The review door was reopened.

Now, its public release has unveiled fundamental problems Team New Zealand must face both internally and externally:

* Trust, and how to regain it.

* Just who knew what?

* How much were sponsors - including the Government - and even the trustees told about the campaign's failings?

When fundraisers asked for money from corporates and the public's buying of socks and flags in the final weeks, did they realise the extent of the problems the defence faced?

Even after NZL81 had broken down a second time, on the morning of the first race in February, the public was assured the race boat remained a rocket ship, a favourite phrase used by some within the syndicate. The only hint of a more serious problem came from Schnackenberg, by his consistent refusal to answer questions about the structural damage to the backup boat.

It was skipper Barker who had been urging caution about the boats, remarking it would be wrong to think of the hula as a "a golden bullet".

At the time it seemed he was simply parrotting Team New Zealand's PR strategy of depicting themselves as the underdogs, but did he have his own doubts?

"We have to believe that everything we're doing is good," he told the Herald late in January. "We have to believe in our boats."

Menzies' report contains perhaps its most critical lines near the beginning, in what it says will be required for a new challenge.

"It has been determined that the team will be sailor-led, with the sailors briefing the designers as to what they want in a boat. The design team's focus will be on delivering to the sailors' specifications."

In other words, Schnackenberg, Drummond, Oliver and the rest of the designers who backed the hula, and the extraordinarily long keel bulb and other innovations, should have been reined in - and any new design team will be.

They had wanted a significant leap forward in their boat to counter the loss of their most skilled sailors and knowledge to other syndicates, including the eventual winners Alinghi, just weeks after the successful defence in 2000.



The sailors had often said they just wanted a boat that was not slower. The designers perhaps thought their young crew needed a boat that would be faster than any rival. Or were they just worried the design secrets behind NZL60, the 2000 cup winner, were scattered around the globe at other syndicates?

The review suggests a flat management structure at Team New Zealand was a core reason for the failure of the challenge, with no one person overseeing the design-led campaign. But that analysis must be questioned.

Schnackenberg was the syndicate head, endorsed by Team New Zealand's four trustees. He had three others in his management team, chief executive Ross Blackman, Barker and executive director Tony Thomas, who seems to have slipped out of the management equation in the review.

Barker, just 27 when he stepped into the void as the team struggled to stay afloat, has for the three-year campaign deferred to the considerably more experienced Schnackenberg, and his designers. Hardly surprising, but not a mistake Russell Coutts would have made and one Barker is unlikely to repeat.

Maybe the team should just accept that the acknowledged brilliant mind of Schnackenberg was not ideally suited to the more disciplined role needed in a leader. That does not lessen the debt Team New Zealand owes Schnackenberg. Imagine the mess if he had not stayed as the syndicate crumbled around him in May 2000.

"At the rock bottom I was wondering whether this team would be able to carry on, it was that grim," Barker has said.

The report says: "It is only in retrospect, and in the last months of the campaign when it was too late to make changes, that the fundamental weaknesses of the structure emerged."

To his credit, Schnackenberg - who is not allowed to comment on the review - put his hand up and accepted his share of the blame when the Cup was lost. Team New Zealand had pushed the design envelope too far, he said.

"The common thread is we were very gung-ho in the design of the yacht, in its rigs and appendages and the way we put the whole package together."

Not quite so quick to put their hands up have been the sailors. Barker has spoken about facing the sailing crew, which had gone through a challengers' series in 1995 to win the America's Cup, and then sailed together again in 2000 to defend it.

Even so, the review remains protective of the Team New Zealand sailors. It says the team comprised some of the world's most talented yachtsmen. "Undoubtedly they have the ability to compete successfully against the best."

Yet they lost 5-0. They lost races not only because of gear failures, but because of sailing mistakes - tactical errors and poor starting.

The review's analysis of why Team New Zealand lost races fails to point to anything other than afterguard decision-making - a criticism which had already been openly made. It might be Barker's job to get the boat across the start-line on time, but there are also crew responsible for directing him there - as Coutts and Dean Phipps demonstrated, time and again, on Alinghi.

One of the most blatant crew errors was made before race four even started, a mistake never really debated because it was overshadowed by the catastrophic loss of the rig in racing. Team New Zealand had the advantaged side going into the pre-start, but moments before they were to enter the box - and with Alinghi in full flight - the New Zealanders still hadn't worked out which headsail to hoist.

They dithered, entering the box several seconds late while Alinghi sailed straight past them - and, to rub salt into the wound, took a swing past billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli's superyacht to wave at supporters. The race was lost before the gun even went off.

That glaring mistake is not even mentioned in the review's analysis of the race.

There was also the decision to place sailbags in the stern before the disastrous opening race, said to have been an attempt to lower the boat in the water to increase its length. How the decision must have been regretted as the boat filled with water, even before racing began, and later broke down.

The review glosses over the foul-up. Instead it says the impact of the weight of the sails, the on-board umpire and television equipment had not been realised.

So why had the crew, Barker or his senior sailors, never insisted on full testing? There, the review goes full circle. Barker's sailors did not have confidence in the boat after its dramatic December failure suggested the boats were suspect.

Menzies concluded that with more testing time, the boats' frailties may have been overcome, and the crew could have worked out gremlins. He says the boats were delivered late. But boatbuilder Mick Cookson says while he did question the designs, the boats were delivered only a few days behind original schedules.

In reality, and as Menzies concedes, when the Cup began the team was "weeks" away from being ready.

Nowhere does the report answer questions on funding, and when it was in place. That a $90 million budget was raised is confirmed, but there is no information about whether the delivery of the budget met targets which, it must be assumed, were in place from the outset.

The review says little about Alinghi. Rather, it says the new-look Team New Zealand might have succeeded, if only things had worked out right. Perhaps Alinghi tactician Brad Butterworth's analysis of the difference between the teams was really all that was needed.

"Five-nil," he said.

How the Cup was won and lost:

Alinghi (from grinder Christian Karcher's diary):

Race one, (Alinghi wins, TNZ did not finish).

In my opinion Team New Zealand has a problem. I wasn't on board but I don't believe in bad luck. Either the boat is too fragile, or maybe the boat manoeuvred incorrectly, or maybe something that we don't really know about happened.

Race two, Alinghi wins by 7 seconds.

They sailed really well. This was a match of a very high standard. By arriving on starboard at the last weather mark we started a chain of events that set ourselves up for seizing the opportunity.

Race three, Alinghi wins by 23 seconds.

Alinghi sailed a perfect race. The sailors, the weather team, the shore team, the designers. Today, everybody was good enough.

Race four, Alinghi win, Team NZ did not finish.

Alinghi entered the box just after the five-minute gun, Team New Zealand five or six seconds later. They were never able to catch up. The second key moment was all about a lack of training and preparation.

Race five, Alinghi win by 45 secs.

In the euphoria of victory I can think of just two things. The start was perfect. The second part, a fantastic team effort.

From the Team New Zealand review:

Race one, Choppy seas in conditions NZL82 had not been tested in, combined with the chop from spectator craft and extra weight from the positioning of some sails and the weight of the television equipment and onboard umpire, saw NZL82 take on water before the start.

The second major structural failure NZL81 experienced in pre-race manoeuvring was a body blow to the confidence of those on NZL82 in the ability of the boat to handle the conditions.

Race two, Racing tactics, particularly on the last leg, and an incorrect selection of sails lost us this race.

The team believes they lost rather than Alinghi won race two.

Race three, We won the start and chose to go left. The afterguard was advised of the shift to the right but elected to keep with its earlier preference for the left. Strategy cost us this race.

Race four, To save 18kg of weight, aluminium tip cups were used in the rigging. One of these broke and the rig was lost. (There was no mention of the bungled pre-start, taking on water or other gear failures).

Race five, The team tried to banish concerns about the boat from their minds but confidence was low. The team were determined to finish the race, and tuned and raced the boat conservatively.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup