An oral history of Team New Zealand's 1995 America's Cup win - Part II

Russell Coutts is thrown into the water after Team New Zealand won the America's Cup.

CONTENT - PART II:

• IX - Defenders in disarray
• X - The moment of truth
• XI - Bringing it home
• XII - The America's Cup is now New Zealand's Cup
• XIII - The party
• XIV - The homecoming

Missed Part I? Read it here

While Team NZ were battling their way through the challenger selection series, the defender was locked in a battle of their own. Three US teams were vying for the right to defend the Cup: Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes; John Marshall's Young America, and an all-women's crew, skippered by New Zealand's Lesley Egnot and funded by US billionaire Bill Koch.

Tom Whidden (Stars and Stripes tactician):

We had our hands full just trying to be the defender.

Tom Schnackenberg (designer/navigator):

Dennis Conner was lucky to get into the final. He'd brokered his position. They had lost to the women's crew in the semifinal but somehow before they went out and race the principals of Young America and the women's team, which was America3, they would continue on in a three-boat final. The women very nearly won that final as well.

Joe Allen (bowman):

I remember the terrifying moment when we thought we were going to race the girls, which we really didn't want to do. There was only one guy we wanted to race, and that was Dennis Conner.

Murray Jones (tactician):

If you're going to win the America's Cup, you want to do it against Dennis Conner, who was Mr America's Cup at that time.

Whidden:

It came down to the last day when we had to beat the women's team. We were behind by four and a half minutes so things weren't looking too good for us. Luckily the wind died a little bit and they went off in one direction and we went off in the other and picked up a very favourable wind shift.

Peter Montgomery (veteran yachting commentator):

Conner and his advisors Tom Whidden and Paul Cayard [helmsman] all concluded that this boat NZL-32 is much quicker and being very well sailed, so they did a deal with Young America and chartered their boat.

Russell Coutts (skipper/helmsman):

In a way it didn't matter. In the previous campaigns the team lawyer would have been out there arguing about the process, everyone would have been getting worked up. We just said "well, they'll choose their boat and come and race us".

Whidden:

It was a waste of time [changing boats]. I'm not sure it was any faster and the Team NZ boat was so impressive.

Schnackenberg:

They hadn't sailed it before. And 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 the left. They had sailed the boat so short of time they hadn't even calibrated the instruments.

Coutts:

Paul Cayard in those days was one of the best sailors in the world and they were a good team. It was pretty obvious Dennis was past his best at that time. He wasn't that engaged quite frankly. But they had a good sailing team without him.

Dennis Conner looking very pensive during the America's Cup finals. Photo / David White

Peter Montgomery (veteran yachting commentator):

One of the big attractions that has been wonderful about the America's Cup in the past, but is soon to be lost, is just the uncertainty. The defender and challenger have never raced. There's nothing like the first leg of the first race of an America's Cup match when the two square off for the first time.

Craig Monk (grinder):

As we were heading out on the race course for that first race all I can remember is the noise - there were helicopters, maybe three or four, buzzing around. The boat was loaded-up with cameras, people with mics and things like that. All of a sudden the stakes were up quite high.

Coutts:

In any America's Cup final there's a lot of tension.

Allen:

I was absolutely shitting myself.

Monk:

It felt something different other than a yacht race.

Allen:

The sense of ocassion was there for sure, I just remember thinking "my god this is the first time New Zealand has been in an America's Cup". I didn't take it too lightly.

Whidden:

We won the start quite dramatically. It was at the windward end of the committee boat and they were sort of behind us and probably right in our bad air. And they sheeted in and sailed up a little higher and then let the sails out a little bit and went faster and right on by us, so we knew we were in big trouble at that point.

Peter Montgomery (veteran yachting commentator):

Team NZ had hit the elevator, meaning they were just lifting off and comfortably doing it. When they got to mark one, race one it was pretty obvious the America's Cup was going to be theirs.

Jones:

That first 30 seconds of race one was pretty exciting to line up and just be looking under the boom and see how we're going and the relative speed. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that their boat was nothing special.

Allen:

The only thing we could do to lose it was f*** the boat up.

Young American prepare to round a mark in the America's Cup final series. Photo / David White

Jones:

From then on we just had to sail well. We had the tool to do it, now it was up to the sailors on board to do the job for the rest of the team - the designers, the boatbuilders and everyone else who had put in a massive effort for a couple of years.

Coutts:

We actually went into a pretty conservative mode fairly early on in that series, because it was ours to lose. The defenders were more off the pace than what we thought they would have been. We had advantages probably everywhere.

Monk:

The way that Russell liked to sail, he did like to stay close to the competition so that he could control them that way. And we did get nervous if we got too far out in front because that's where complacency can come in. He always liked a closer race than normal.

Allen:

Russell did a very good job of keeping every day the same. We couldn't get ahead of ourselves because he was very, very good at not making one day any different to any other day. So that really helps with your preparation. We just went through our same routines, our same processes - it was pretty robotic in a lot of ways.

Schnackenberg:

We felt that we had things going for us but we also knew that this was the America's Cup and you can always make a mess of it, so confidence wasn't good enough.

Monk:

We talked a lot about Stars and Stripes and Dennis Conner. If anyone was going to come back he was the guy to do it. We were definitely never complacent and Peter Blake banged that into us every night.

Suzanne McFadden (NZ Herald yachting reporter 1993-2001)

: Team New Zealand's dominance was astounding. They won the second race by more than four minutes - it was the worst defeat of a defender in more than a century. I think there was only one race where Stars & Stripes were ahead at the first cross, but Black Magic just pounded them after that. By the fourth race you knew the boat, the crew were simply superior - Team New Zealand could not be beaten on the water.

"I've never been in a race where I felt so little control of the outcome. I've been in some uphill battles before, but I don't feel like I'm even in a yacht race. It's like I'm just delivering a boat around the course." - Paul Cayard, race 4 post match press conference May 12, 1995.

McFadden

: That final day, you just had a sense something special was about to happen. It was a beautiful day, the sky was clear, the water was calm - everything was perfect.

Monk:

We never went out on the race course saying today was the day we're going to win the America's Cup. It was just another race that we had to win and then whatever happens after that happens. We had to stay focused and win it and then we'll deal with things after that.

Jeremy Scantlebury (grinder):

It was just a straight-forward yacht race - and that's the way we like it.

Peter Blake holds the America's Cup aloft after Team New Zealand won the final in San Diego. Photo / David White

"That's it" - Brad Butterworth on on-board mic as Team New Zealand crossed the finish line in the final race.

Allen:

It was a feeling of relief. You put incredible pressure on yourself to do a job to the best of your ability and then the feeling that we could drop our shoulders and relax finally.

Monk:

I remember crossing the line and that's when the guys finally celebrated. There was definitely elation, but it's really hard to describe the feeling.

Schnackenberg:

win 5-0 against the best sailing team and the best yacht that the Americans could put together was really something. We had a huge sense of satisfaction.

Peter Montgomery (veteran yachting commentator):

I was able to get aboard quickly and the very first person I went to was Peter Blake and he said something along the lines of "well little old New Zealand has just won the America's Cup and I think that's pretty damn good". And that was classic low key Blake.

Monk:

Within about three minutes the boat had the whole team on board. Immediately the chase boat came alongside and everyone piled on board NZL32. So for the two hour tow in it was really cool to have the whole team. There was only standing room. It was a shocker - really dangerous with alcohol and everything.

McFadden

: They never showed anything that betrayed their emotion - that was part of the rules really. You don't celebrate until this thing was won. And then they went mad of course. Absolutely beserk.

Allen:

We finished and you're very dehydrated and we went straight into drinking champagne and we were just smashed.

Montgomery:

By the time we got in to the San Diego yacht club there were clearly a couple of guys who had had too much to drink too quickly and were light-headed.

"I really can't tell you much of anything because I'm not fit to speak." - a very jolly Peter Blake addresses the media at the post-race press conference.

Team New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts is thrown from the wharf at San Diego. Photo / David White

McFadden

: They came down past us and then docked at the San Diego Yacht Club and it was just mental. There was champagne spraying and people throwing rose petals for about 10 minutes. It didn't stop.They must have spent about an hour there on the dock, just soaking it up - literally. There were guys that were crying, guys like Andrew Taylor who had sailed in every New Zealand attempt to win the America's Cup.

"Over all these years I never felt like giving up the fight for this Cup. This is the greatest moment of my life, it is great to be bringing the Cup back to a nation that will really appreciate it. It will be the best plane trip I've ever had." - Andrew Taylor, quoted in NZ Herald, May 15 1995.

Allen:

One of the moments I'll never forget is we came in and it was damn-near dark and there was a Maori cultural group had come down from LA and 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.

Coutts:

After we got the America's Cup quite a few of us went across San Diego Harbour in this small dinghy [to get to the Team NZ base]. If we sunk the dinghy or lost the Cup overboard, it wouldn't have been good. We were all handing it around, which of course you're not meant to do.

Schnackenberg:

It was just euphoric. You're in a bit of a blur - first of all you win it, which was just fantastic, then suddenly you're talking a million miles an hour to everybody, phone calls to New Zealand. People were pouring in wanting to do interviews. It was full-on non-stop talking and partying for quite a while.

Coutts:

It was a huge celebration at the base, I can tell you that. A lot of people involved, even with sponsors and things had been trying to win the Cup for 10 years so it was a big party.

Schnackenberg:

Tickets were as scarce as hen's teeth. If you didn't have a pass you had trouble getting in, it didn't matter who you were.

Allen:

I'll be honest, I was so drunk I don't remember much of it. It was just mayhem. But I remember having a shower afterwards and thinking what the f*** have we done? It was the first time I had a quiet moment to myself and that's when it really sunk in.

McFadden

: Then Louis Vuitton came to the team and said we would like to take you to the New York Yacht Club with the Cup, and then on to Washington to meet the President of the United States as well, although in the end I think President Clinton had a more pressing engagement with Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe.

Peter Blake, Russell Coutts and Simon Daubney toast their win in the America's Cup.

Coutts:

I think Murray Jones missed the flight, in fact I know he did.

Jones:

It was a hard week. I woke up and looked at my watch and it was about departure time then. I went to the airport anyway and managed to get to San Diego to New York without a ticket. I just told them I missed my flight and they stuck me on another plane.

Team New Zealand and Peter Blake take part in the welcome home parade down Queen St. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Coutts:

Air New Zealand put on a special flight for us back from LA and that was pretty cool boarding that plane with the America's Cup.

Monk:

I had my birthday, which is the end of May on the plane on the way home. I actually missed it; I jumped on the plane on the 22nd and my birthday's the 23rd of May and we landed on the 24th. So I missed my birthday.

McFadden

: When we arrived they had made arches of water that the plane taxied through as it landed - it was just beautiful. There was a brief ceremony, with Blake and Coutts carrying the Auld Mug onto New Zealand soil for the first time, before the team all hopped into buses and went into the City for the tickertape parade.

Montgomery:

I'll never forget it, ever. We were driving along Customs Street and turned right into Queen St to see all these people. You had to see it to believe it. There were conservative estimates of 350,000 and I'd believe it. The crowd was 15-20 people deep on either side of the road for block after block after block. It was just mind-boggling.

Jones:

I remember going on the back of the trucks down Queen St quite vividly. All the way through you're very focused and you feel like you're just doing it for yourself. You know, it was my own ambition to win the America's Cup. Then once we'd achieved that all of a sudden it sort of occurred to you that there was a lot of people who were appreciating this win.

Schnackenberg:

The parade was a bit of a blur. We were going slowly through the streets, slow enough that people could crowd the cars. People were crowding all the windows and the balconies - that was a huge day.

Scantlebury:

Nothing really in life gears you up for that. It was an unbelievable experience.

Coutts:

We were all blown away. We had no idea it had received that sort of attention.

Sailors from Team New Zealand are cheered on by an enthusiastic crowd on Queen Street. Photo / Ross White

Monk:

Because we hadn't been in New Zealand we didn't know how big a deal it was back home because we'd been [in San Diego] for five months. We didn't have the internet, I remember reading faxes on the wall, but we didn't have a lot of contact with the outside world. We didn't realise how it had gripped the nation until we got home to the parades.

Schnackenberg:

Then we repeated that in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, where the crowds were maybe bigger in proportion. In Dunedin it seemed like the whole town was out.

Montgomery:

We were about to go down Colombo Street in Christchurch and we were in the park and there were these two lovely gracious distinguished women wearing tweed suits and pearls, clearly over-60s, and they were running for all they were worth after these grotty yachties. I thought my god, I've seen it all now. But that was the impact this win had on people.

Coutts:

Flying out of Christchurch I think it was we flew across this paddock and this farmer had built this giant red sock. That was pretty amazing that this farmer had gone to the trouble of doing it so when we flew over. We were pretty high up in the air, so it must have been huge.

Allen:

We did the ticker-tape parades all around the country and then we flew back from Dunedin, which I think was the last one. And I landed at the airport, said goodbye to everyone and hopped into a cab, and it was just silence. And that's when it hit me that it was over. I'll never forget closing the door, sitting in this smelly cab and thinking, well that's over, it's done. It was history.

The New Zealand Herald front page: Thursday May 25 1995