Team New Zealand celebrate winning the America's Cup for the first time. Photo / Getty Images
Team New Zealand celebrate winning the America's Cup for the first time. Photo / Getty Images
This week marked two decades since New Zealand won the America’s Cup. Dana Johannsen pinpoints six moments from the successful campaign off San Diego.
The Sir Peter Blake effect
Crucial to the success of the 1995 campaign was the leadership of Sir Peter Blake.
He set the tone from the start, determining that the team would not get sucked into the petty politics of the America's Cup that had dogged previous campaigns. They would focus on winning the Cup by designing and building a better boat and sailing it better.
But it was those very petty politics that almost deterred Sir Peter from being involved at all, according to veteran yachting commentator Peter Montgomery.
"It actually took a lot of arm-twisting for Peter Blake to be involved because he really was quite disillusioned after 1992. I have a recording of Blake saying, 'if that's the America's Cup, you can stick it'. He'd been brought in too late and that structure hadn't been set up the way he did campaigns and it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience for him," said Montgomery.
Alan Sefton, who had been Sir Peter's right-hand man through his Whitbread round-the-world campaigns, convinced him to put 1992 behind him and enter the America's Cup. Sefton was so convincing, in fact, Sir Peter even paid the US$75,000 entry fee out of his own savings.
Sir Peter was adamant the 1995 challenge would be a sailor-driven campaign. As well as working closely with the designers and boat-builders, the sailors were further empowered by being given their own areas of responsibility off the boat.
Sir Peter Blake from Team New Zealand on the Waitamata HarbouR. Photo / Ross Setford, Getty Images
Changing boats for the final failed to enhance the prospects of Stars & Stripes. Photo / David White
Joe Allen, who remained with Team New Zealand until the end of 2013, said he feels privileged to have worked with Sir Peter.
"To me, that was him at his best. His style of leadership - I've never seen anything like it since, to be honest. He made you feel important. He gave you responsibility and you felt important and connected."
Lunchbox bartering
Team NZ's 1995 campaign was run on a fairly modest (by America's Cup standards anyway) budget of $27 million. That meant there was no room for luxuries such as personal trainers, nutritionists and team chefs - the sailors were all responsible for looking after themselves.
Some were better at it than others, making food a premium on board during the long days on the water.
"It was the standing joke on board that we'd have to hide food from certain people," said grinder Craig Monk. "I know that Russell [Coutts] always came on board with no food so you could sell him a sandwich or two."
Tom Schnackenberg, the team's designer and navigator, said Coutts was so preoccupied with other aspects of the campaign he often forgot his lunch.
"He was always thinking about winning the America's Cup rather than thinking about making his lunch so he was scrambling around. I remember one day he paid Murray Jones $3 for a peanut butter sandwich out on the water because he was starving," he said.
"You could get him every day," said Allen. "You'd come home and you'd have enough money to buy a couple of beers at the pub."
Men overboard
While it was clear from the outset of the Louis Vuitton challenger series that Team NZ had a major speed advantage over their rivals, the team knew from bitter experience that it could all turn at a certain point.
To avoid getting too far ahead of themselves and tempting fate, the team played down their early progress and had a strict no-celebrating rule on board.
Matt Mason, the team's mast man, even went as far as invoking a ban on high-fives on board. But the mischievous Allen and tactician Murray Jones made fun of the rule by doing a sneaky high-five after every race.
"I used to go up on the foredeck and pull the spinnaker down and feed it down the hatch and Joey was down below pulling it in," Jones said. "Once we got the thing safely on board, I'd always stick my hand down and he'd give me a high-five. Until one day Matty saw us and I knew it wasn't going to be good."
As soon as Team NZ crossed the finish line in the race, Mason went after Jones and tried to throw him over the side of the boat. As he was doing so, Allen attacked him from behind and all three ended up falling overboard.
"Blake is just standing there going, 'my god, the guys are fighting'," recalls Allen.
That was the second time Jones was tossed overboard. On the other occasion, he stepped on board wearing a One Australia cap belonging to his good mate and Kiwi sailor David Barnes.
"I lasted less than a minute," said Jones.
Get out of our way
While Team NZ tried to remain humble and play down their early dominance, there were times when they couldn't resist the odd crack at the opposition.
One day, after starting 10 minutes behind the two Australian syndicates - One Australia and Sydney 95 - Team NZ overtook the trailing boat and, by the last mark, were bow to stern with leaders One Australia.
Allen, the team's cheeky bow-man, took the opportunity to rub it in, yelling out to One Australia helmsman Rod Davis, "would you get that thing out of our way? We're racing".
"It was a pretty arrogant thing to say but it was pretty funny at the time," said Coutts.
But, as Allen remarked, "the boat was an absolute rocket ship. You can afford to be a bit cheeky when you're on a rocket ship like that."
Superior boat speed helped Team New Zealand to a 5-0 win over Stars & Stripes in the final. Photo / David White
Defenders in disarray
While Team NZ blitzed through the challenger series, the defender had a battle on their hands just making it to the final.
Three US teams were vying for the right to defend the Cup: Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes; John Marshall's Young America, and an all-women's crew, skippered by New Zealander Lesley Egnot and funded by US billionaire Bill Koch.
Through some backroom manoeuvring and a little bit of luck on the race course, Stars & Stripes advanced to the America's Cup match. But the team were not happy with the performance of their boat, and decided to strike a deal with Young America to use their boat in the final.
"It was a waste of time," tactician Tom Whidden said. "I'm not sure it was any faster and the Team NZ boat was so impressive."
The limited time they had sailing the boat also worked against Stars & Stripes.
"I remember watching a race. They would get to the mark and we were in a lift to weather and Dennis wasn't sure whether the wind was to the right or left," Schnackenberg said. "They had sailed the boat so short of time, they hadn't even calibrated the instruments."
The celebrations
Having kept their emotions in check throughout the regatta, Team NZ finally cut loose once they crossed the finish line in the final race.
"They went mad, absolutely berserk," said Suzanne McFadden, the Herald yachting correspondent during 1993-2001.
With the racing essentially taking place in the middle of the ocean, it was two-hour tow-in to get back to the San Diego Yacht Club, where the ceremony was to take place.
l-r: Peter Blake, Russell Coutts and Simon Daubney toast their win in the America's Cup 17 May 1995. Photo / Supplied
"We finished and you're very dehydrated and we went straight into drinking champagne and we were just smashed," said Allen.
The next two weeks were a blur of parties, awards ceremonies, civic receptions and ticker-tape parades for the team. But Allen said there is one moment that sticks out above all else during that time.
"We came in and it was damn-near dark and a Maori cultural group had come down from LA. They did a haka on what was like a jetty, or a marina finger. But there were so many of them, it was almost underwater. So you've got this group of guys doing a haka and it looked like they were standing on top of the water. The water was splashing up as they did it. It was incredible. I'll never forget it. I can still hear it."
