It was always likely to be a swift introduction to the world of sailing for the Auckland-born cyclor in Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s America’s Cup team.
Like many cyclors competing in this year’s America’s Cup regatta, Kirwan comes from a background in rowing, not sailing. They are the athletes providing the power to the highly technical AC75 foiling monohulls, working alongside some of the world’s best sailors.
Prior to the regatta, the teams pushed hard to get as many sailing days on their AC75s as possible in order to fine tune their operation before the moment their campaign has been building towards.
Since racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series started, however, Kirwan admits things have cranked up a notch.
Like many of the cyclors in the America's Cup, Luca Kirwan doesn't come from a sailing background. Photo / Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli
While he’s enjoying his time competing in the biggest regatta in sailing, and competing in sport’s oldest active competition, Kirwan admitted simply getting to grips with the ins and outs of the sport was an experience in itself.
“It’s been amazing how much I’ve learned just being in the boat instead of people explaining to me what’s happening,” he said.
“Once you get in the boat you start going, oh, okay, that’s what I’m moving, that’s what’s happening. All the names, all the terms, everything, you start to learn a lot more once you’re actually in the boat.
“That’s been really fun for me because before someone would tell me something, it’d sort of go in one ear and out the other. But now I’m really starting to understand everything, or most of, what’s going on. It’s been really cool.”
Exerting plenty of energy, the cyclors are often rotated out after a race to get fresh legs on the boat for the next on. Kirwan was not one of those onboard when lightning struck the race course near Luna Rossa on Tuesday morning in their win over Team NZ.
A lightning strike during Emirates Team New Zealand's contest against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli ended the day's racing. GIF / Three
Anyone watching the broadcast will have heard the huffing and puffing through the onboard communications on the boats, with the cyclors digging in deep to provide as much power for the sailing to “monitor the sails and the mast and everything that’s above the boat”.
But there’s an art to doing that in the most productive way possible, and Kirwan, the son of former All Blacks wing Sir John Kirwan, said it was something that took some time to figure out; particularly in the prestart – a vital part of the race which requires a lot of energy to be available.
“We try to be as proactive as possible when it comes to the racing,” Kirwan explains.
“You’re going pretty max out for those two minutes that you’re doing a pre-start and then the most challenging part is being able to supply that energy, then when the race starts there’s another 25 minutes you have to back that up.
“So yeah, it’s been challenging. A lot of effort goes into that and then you have to be able to survive for the rest of that 25 minutes and get the job done. That’s been good and very unpredictable in terms of what the other boat’s doing. Everything happens so quick for the afterguard, so it’s just about having the energy for them to do their job.”
They’re doing their job well, too. Now at the back end of the challenger series, Luna Rossa look like the challenger to beat. In their first round of the Louis Vuitton Cup, they beat each of the other four hopeful challengers, before beating the defender, Team New Zealand, to begin the second of two round-robins. They are the first challenger to have confirmed their place in the semifinals.
There is a long way to go yet in the regatta, and as the campaign thins out teams will no doubt apply upgrades to their package and get faster into the knockout stages.
For the round-robins, only the bottom-placed team is eliminated – with Team NZ also exiting until the Cup match at that point. However, the top-ranked team gets the benefit of choosing their opponent for the first-to-five semifinal series.
Luna Rossa sit in the driver’s seat to secure that, but Kirwan said they weren’t getting too far ahead of themselves as it only takes a bad race or two for things to change.
“The whole team’s trying to stay pretty grounded and realise that there’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“We’re just looking at one race at a time and just trying to get the job done each race.”
