Barker sure sailors have what it takes

By HELEN TUNNAH

Skipper Dean Barker says his key decision-makers do have the talent to defend the America's Cup despite Team New Zealand's sailing team being torn apart since they last raced.

Barker will wait until next Saturday morning to name the 15 other sailors who will join him on Team New Zealand's boat to take on Alinghi in the first race of the 2003 Cup.

He has kept his racing afterguard, the decision-makers who call the tactics and strategy, secret during training, but Barker has told the Herald he has complete confidence his crew is good enough to take on the men rated the best at the game, Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, now with Alinghi.

"When we go out and race on February 15 there's going to be a hell of a lot of pressure on those 16 people on the boat.

"We're just trying to get the right combinations of people sailing together as much as we can. I really believe the people we've got have come together.

"If we do sail to our ability we'll be just fine."

Two sailors likely to join Barker in crucial roles are his long-time sailing mate but America's Cup novice Hamish Pepper and Peter Evans, now with his third New Zealand campaign.

Pepper, a former world number one Laser racer, has sailed with Barker for more than a decade, joining him as tactician on the backup boat for Team New Zealand last cup but not actually racing.

Evans is not well known outside sailing but he is a double Olympian and is at his fourth America's Cup campaign.

With a keen weather eye, he is tipped to use those skills in a strategist's role.

Others expected to join them in the afterguard include designer Mike Drummond and talented Australian Adam Beashel.

Barker, 29, has himself sailed in just one America's Cup race - when Coutts handed him the helm for the vital and cup-clinching fifth win over Prada almost three years ago.

Since then three-quarters of the crew who sailed for Team New Zealand in the first race of the defence have left, and Barker said the new lineup did not yet have the same long-time partnerships Coutts' crew boasted.

"The majority of the crew that went out and raced in 2000 - in race one - was the crew who went out and raced in '95, when they had the ability to go through the challenger series and then go and race in the match," said Barker.

"We don't have those same combinations.

"We have a need to sail more together as a crew this time than last time."

Barker will have the final say on who joins him on the boat, and unlike the last campaign, when personality profilers were called in to assess individuals, he will use his instincts to gauge strengths and weaknesses.

"We put a lot of pressure on ourselves at the moment by doing long days and lots of racing - you can see the guys are at times tired.

"When people are tired and tempers are probably wearing a little bit thin, you learn about personalities.

"My expectation of this team is we don't make the same mistakes twice.

"If we make a mistake once, well good, we learn and move on.

"At this sort of level you can't afford to be making the same mistakes again."

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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