Life's lonely at the lowest ebb

By ALAN PERROTT

Dean Barker may have been flanked by old warhorses Tom Schnackenberg and Bertrand Pace, but he faced the world like a man alone facing the gallows.

You have to admire his backbone. After each failure he has fronted up to scores of journalists while every lens in the house silently hopes to capture his final breakdown.

Only metres away are his seemingly unbeatable former team-mates.

And all he has to protect himself is the brow of his cap.

The public face of the Loyal defenders is obviously gutted, he has been gutted at every conference, but he may have bottomed out.

He is facing what looks like an unavoidable appointment with the gallows with gallows humour, sly self-deprecating digs at himself, his crew and their equipment.

"We're running out of things to break."

When asked to explain their repeated failures, Barker leans forward and sighs, then stares the journalist in the face and says his piece. But on this occasion his usually measured responses came out jumbled and less confident.

After each brief ordeal he leans back, takes a sip of water, folds his arms and drifts off.

His eyes drop to his lap or leap to the roof, for all the world knows he could be thinking about dinner.

But his toughest moment came when a Canadian journalist began commenting on his regular appearance at each conference.

Barker perked up - a compliment must finally be coming. But she merely wanted to know why no one else bothered to show up instead.

His eyes turned slightly redder and the joke creaked out of the depths of his chest.

When the inquisitors finish picking over his defeated bones, Barker and team leave quickly. But one more heartstring remained to be twanged.

They are spotted by the Friday night revellers as they jump back into their chase boat to go home and are saluted with a rapturous ovation.

Sporting life can't get much lower - or higher.


Continuous coverage of today's America's Cup race will begin on nzherald.co.nz at 12.30pm.

Race 4: Pictures of the dismasting | Commentary

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