Emirates Team NZ chief executive Grant Dalton. Photo / Getty Images
Emirates Team NZ chief executive Grant Dalton. Photo / Getty Images
Opinion by Mark Orams
Professor Mark Orams is a former NZ and world champion sailor, Team New Zealand member, author, environmentalist and Professor of Sport and Recreation at the Auckland University Technology.
Emirates Team New Zealand have defended the Auld Mug, by defeating Ineos Britannia 7-2.
Credit must to go Grant Dalton for keeping the 2021 Cup-winning outfit largely intact.
Attention will now turn to how and where the Cup will be defended.
Professor Mark Orams is a former NZ and world champion sailor, Team New Zealand member, author, environmentalist and professor of sport and recreation at the Auckland University of Technology.
OPINION
The 7-2 scoreline does not reflect how close this America’s Cup regatta was.
Ineos Britannia wereunquestionably the most improved team in Barcelona. They also showed a willingness to be creative with their exploration of their design ideas, as seen in the early iterations of their foils, their hull design and systems. In the end it wasn’t quite enough, but they were very competitive and sailed Britannia fast and to a very high level.
This Cup saw the third iteration of the AC75 foiling monohulls, remembering the teams were permitted to design and build two new boats for the 36th America’s Cup – but only one for this latest edition.
Image 1 of 23: Peter Burling holds the America's Cup trophy aloft at the awards ceremony on shore at Barcelona. Photo / Ivo Rovira, America's Cup
Because the development within the AC75 rule has advanced quickly, we saw a narrowing of the speed differences between the yachts this time around, and the ability to sail them at nearly 100% of their potential and make as few mistakes as possible became critical.
This closer level of performance made for a more compelling event to watch, certainly from a sailor’s perspective.
Emirates Team New Zealand’s success is built on their strong commitment to a full team ethos and involving their sailors as an integral part of the design and development decisions throughout their campaign. This has always been and continues to be a central contributor to their success.
The full team culture of the Kiwi team is very hard to emulate. It is a special thing to be a part of, and every member of Team New Zealand, past and present, understands the privilege of the unique and very Kiwi way of doing things that permeates every aspect of the team.
Here are the key factors that determined Team NZ’s victory in the 37th America’s Cup.
Keeping the 2021 team together
This was the highest priority for Dalton and Keven Shoebridge.
The potential for the loss of talent of key members of the team was a huge risk. Imagine if the team experienced another “Alinghi-raid” and lost Burling, Tuke, Maloney, Ray Davies or Josh Junior.
Even riskier, securing design team head Dr Dan Bernasconi was critical – not only for his intellect, experience and talent, but also for the IP in his head. Lose your key talent and you lose the Cup. Remember 2003?
Two key decisions Team NZ made to ensure they were able to achieve this highest of priorities were to firstly change the nationality eligibility requirements to restrict the ability of sailors to move teams, and secondly to secure enough money to pay competitive salaries to key people.
Emirates Team New Zealand celebrate winning the 37th America’s Cup event. Photo / Ricardo Pinto, America's Cup
The reality facing Dalton following the successful 2021 defence was that the most valuable thing he had to sell was the hosting of the next America’s Cup.
He has taken massive heat for his decision to shop the event around and not follow expectations to host the Cup in Auckland, but Dalts prioritised winning over keeping the Cup regatta in Auckland.
Setting up a changed rule which was developed by the team then later shared with the challengers
This is how you play the America’s Cup game to your advantage. As defender, you can determine the rules – with the agreement of the Challenger of Record.
As a result, you can commence your research and development based on the changed rules earlier than your competitors, who can only learn about these rule changes when you release them.
This allowed Team New Zealand to continue to lead while all the others were chasing.
Keeping the areas of development tight to reduce the risk of being blindsided by something really out-there
The new rule for the AC75 for this Cup had a number of “one-design” components (e.g. the foil arms and hydraulic control systems) or heavily restricted components (e.g. the masts and sail sizes).
This allowed Team NZ to focus on a limited number of development areas and not spread its resources too thin, recognising other teams had much more access to design and engineering expertise through partnerships with Formula 1 development teams and the like.
Not getting isolated and staying race-sharp
The big risk for the Cup-holder is the challengers work together to develop their boats and race skills to a very high level while you are cut out and left on your own.
Creating rules that prohibited challengers working together, training and practice racing against one another, and limiting their active sailing days, reduced this risk.
Similarly, requiring all challengers and yourself as defender to compete in preliminary regattas and in the round-robins of the challenger series means as defender, you get to “check in” and see how you are shaping up against your competitors, and you get to sharpen your racing skills against them.
Develop key areas which give you an advantage in the sailing conditions most likely to predominate at the venue
Taihoro was clearly optimised to be most competitive in the predicted seven to 12 knots of wind range most common in September and October off Barcelona.
The hull, rudder and foil design, sail configuration, and on-board systems were impressive on Taihoro in those wind conditions, especially in flat water.
The future
I am sure people’s attention will quickly turn to what’s next. People will loudly advocate for the next Cup to be hosted in Auckland.
Others will argue this is not really a true New Zealand representative team but a private business, and some will pile on and continue to heap scorn on Dalton for his decision to not hold this defence here in New Zealand.
Let’s try to resist the Kiwi knocking machine for just a little while, please.
It’s a time to reflect on the fact our small island nation at the bottom of the world has been able to dominate a sport at the very highest level and complete a “three-peat”. And, what’s more, this is a sport for which design, technology, huge money and massive resources are needed to be successful.
New Zealand does not have a Nasa or a Boeing; we don’t even have a car manufacturing company based here. We do not have the economies, companies, billionaires or R&D depth of expertise of the larger nations we have been competing against.
Despite these disadvantages, we have a team that has persuaded large multi-national companies to invest in a New Zealand team that does things in a very Kiwi way. Team New Zealand is an organisation that draws the admiration and respect of all sailors around the world.
What Emirates Team New Zealand has achieved is something very special. It extends our long history as a maritime nation, first settled by some of the greatest mariners and navigators in human history, who discovered and settled these islands long before European sailing ships ventured this far.
Our ancestors here, Māori and European, were mariners and the sea was an intricate part of their lives. The sea remains an ever-present influence on our nation, and we continue to show the world that when it comes to designing, building and sailing yachts fast – there is nobody better.
