Hear this! Spooner's wired for sound

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Joe Spooner is receiving the message loud and clear - for the first time in five years - since Team New Zealand took him on board.

The New Zealand sailor almost died when he was brutally bashed at the Atlanta Olympics, and was left deaf in one ear.

But since signing up with the America's Cup defenders, Spooner has been given a bionic ear and a new lease on life.

He was in Atlanta in 1996 as a training partner to Olympic Finn sailor Craig Monk.

As he left a Savannah bar, Spooner was bashed from behind and left with a smashed skull and a brain haemorrhage.

He lay in critical care in a Georgia hospital for a week.

It was months before he could walk, drive or work. But one of the first things Spooner did was get back in a boat, even though it was against neurosurgeons' orders.

The only legacy of the attack is a loss of hearing in his right ear. A tiny bone in the inner ear was broken beyond repair.

Now 27-year-old Spooner is one of the new breed of Team New Zealand sailors, taken on board after the mass defections last winter.

In the last America's Cup, the Team NZ sailors were wired for sound, with a unique system that let the skipper communicate through earpieces with sailors further along the boat, over the drone of helicopters.

Bowman Joe Allen suggested that Spooner could benefit from the technology from Takapuna company Phonak NZ.

Now he is trying out a prototype waterproof hearing aid that has opened up a new world to him.

"I put it in my bad ear and it sends hearing into the bone and across to the good ear," he says.

"I still can't hear anything in the bad side, but now I know if someone is trying to talk to me and tell me what to do on the boat."

Spooner can pick up instructions when he is grinding on the black boats or working at the mast.

When he returned to sailing Finn dinghies after the attack, he often crashed into other boats when he did not hear their warning cries.

"My posture went downhill when I kept having to turn my head to hear all the time.

"So I love this thing - I even wear it at home."

A tiny switch at the top of the earpiece lets Spooner alternate between hearing voices around him and receiving messages through the link with other wired-up sailors.

Spooner, who completed a degree in marketing and finance after his recovery, plans to return to the Olympics in 2004 - this time as a competitor.

Herald Online feature: America's Cup