Winds of fate have blown Kiwi America's Cup veteran aboard Franco-German vessel gearing up for LV Trophy
Auckland's Viaduct Harbour will be buzzing next week with international sailing teams in town competing for the Louis Vuitton Trophy.
Teams from Sweden, Russia, Italy and France, among others, will take to the Waitemata Harbour for the two-week regatta.
But if you listen very closely on board, you're almost certain to hear a New Zealand accent.
John Cutler is just one of the scores of Kiwi sailors who have found a home with international syndicates.
Cutler, who has competed in five America's Cup campaigns over his long and varied sailing career, is these days tactician aboard All4One - a unique collaboration between France and Germany.
The team was established last year after Frenchman Stephane Kandler, the former chief executive of K-Challenge, and Jochen Schumann, German triple Olympic champion and two-time America's Cup winner, joined forces.
Cutler and his teammates this week got a chance to warm up for the LV Trophy event, crewing for French skipper Sebastien Col in the Omega Auckland match racing regatta.
What inspired you to embark on a sailing career?
That's going back a long time now. I did an Olympic campaign [in 1988] and after that was over I continued working at the Sugarworks, where I had been working previously.
I knew Chris Dickson from school and we'd sailed against each other a few times. He asked me to go match racing with him, and then after that he asked me to go to Nippon Challenge with him way back in 1990 to put together a campaign for the 1992 America's Cup, so I guess that's how I started in professional sailing.
How did you come to be involved with All4One?
I know Stephane Kandler, who is the owner of K-Challenge, from previous events. And also Jochen Schumann, who is the other principal, and I've sailed with Jochen several times - the first time 15 years ago - so we've always stayed in contact and this looked like a good opportunity to do some more sailing.
Describe your job ...
I am the tactician. So basically, Sebastien Col is the helmsman, so he has to start the boat, drive the boat, make sure it's fast and everything like that. Then I try to key in with what he's thinking and the maneuvering we're trying to do. So I try to support his role and also he can't look around and drive, so I, and other people on the boat, sort of paint a big picture of what's going on and make sure we go the right way.
What's the best thing about your job?
While most other people are in an office or a factory we're out on the water in the fresh air and the sunshine, we get to go to some great places in the world and we also get to meet a lot of different people with different careers, different owners, that sort of thing. So there's a lot of opportunities and it's quite varied.
And the worst thing?
The job security is not that good. And, while I guess this is a good and a bad thing, each time you do a regatta if you don't get good results then you're seen to be doing a bad job and you don't get invited back, or if you do a good job you get invited back. So your performance gets measured in a fairly brutal way very regularly. So the ups are really good and the downs can be pretty bad.
What's the greatest achievement of your sporting career?
Probably winning an Olympic [bronze] medal in Korea [1988].
And your biggest disappointment?
There's always races that you lose and stuff like that that are disappointing, but nothing really that springs to mind. You always remember the things that are more positive than the depressing times.
What would you be doing if you weren't a sailor?
I'm a chemical and materials engineer. I'm not sure if I would be doing that, but I'd probably be working in an engineering or manufacturing company.
How much time do you spend in New Zealand these days?
This year would be the longest we've been back, and that's from mid-November last year until now. We've pretty much been fully based overseas for the past six years, so we've only been coming back for 2-4 weeks each year, just over Christmas to say hello.
You've been involved with a number of America's Cup campaigns over the years. Does the event still hold the same appeal to you now as when you were starting out?
I think it's probably more appealing now. As time goes on the technology and the management side of things and what motivates people and how to get the best out of a team is something I probably didn't really think about much when I started. Back then it was more like "okay let's go sailing". It was all new and exciting, whereas now you come to appreciate a whole load of facets to a programme, and I've been lucky I've managed to stay on a boat for each cup as well.
Don't you ever get cynical about it all?
We do get cynical about it. I mean with all the politics that go on it's easy to get cynical and you know all the players for years and years, so we all tell the same old stories about the good old days. But a different aspect comes in to the campaign as you carry on, because as you come in to a management role there's a lot of other stuff going on that are quite interesting. And the America's Cup really is a great opportunity still, because it's the only event that can sustain you fulltime for a number of years as you build a campaign, trying to make yourself and your team better. Everything else is stop-start, a week here, a week there and it's hard to get consistency.
Do you plan to stay on with All4One for the next America's Cup campaign?
Yeah, definitely. We're still a very new team and most of the guys are pretty young so it's really good to be involved. My French is pretty non-existent so that's a challenge for me, but they're a good bunch of guys so we'll see how it goes.
What's the one career ambition you'd like to realise before you retire?
I think it's what we've all been trying to do, which is win the America's Cup. But there's been a few guys that have sort of had a lock on that for my whole career. It's been [Russell] Coutts and [Brad] Butterworth that have always sort of won it. So that would be something nice to do and then you could say "that's it, I've done it all".
Who was your sporting hero growing up?
I didn't really start thinking about sailing too much until I was leaving school and so it was more our peer group, who were quite competitive, that motivated me. We all motivated each other to push to a high standard - people like Russell Coutts, Chris Dickson, Hamish Willcox, Murray Jones, Peter Evans were all around my age or a year older than me and we all sailed Olympic classes together, so we had quite a big group of people who have all gone on to become professional sailors and they've all done it to a pretty high level.
THE CV
* 1988 Won a bronze medal in the Finn class at the Seoul Olympics.
* 1990 Recruited by Chris Dickson to join Nippon Challenge.
* 1992 Competed at the Barcelona Olympics.
* 1995 Skippered Nippon Challenge in the 29th America's Cup in San Diego.
* 1996 Served as sailing coach for the New Zealand team at the Atlanta Olympics.
* 2000 Joined America True as sailing director for the 2000 America's Cup in Auckland. Helmed the boat, which was skippered by Dawn Riley.
* 2003 Sailed with OneWorld in the America's Cup in Auckland.
* 2007 Joined Spanish syndicate Desafio Espanol for his fifth America's Cup campaign in Valencia.
* 2009 Joined the newly established All4One team.
