Sailmakers face long, wearying shifts

SUZANNE McFADDEN continues her series on the people who work hard behind the scenes to make Team New Zealand tick.

In the wee small hours of the morning, you can sometimes see the lights blazing and hear the whirr of a sewing machine inside the Team New Zealand shed.

After a long day on the water, Andrew Wotherspoon will sometimes phone home and say "I won't be home for dinner - I might be home for breakfast."

Such is the lot of an America's Cup sailmaker. A day's work can stretch to 19 hours if torn sails need sewing up.

Wotherspoon and Paul Murray are the sail doctors.

Their surgery is the sail loft, which is on the ground floor of Team New Zealand's gigantic shed in the cup village - just big enough to hold an unfurled mainsail.

Dotted around the room are sewing pits, where the machinists sit below ground level feeding through sails along the floor.

The industrial sewing machines can be hazardous. "I've had some close shaves, but I still have all my digits," Wotherspoon said.

"I've heard of guys being carted off to A and E with the machine still attached."

Wotherspoon often helps out in sailing the black boats, filling in as a grinder. Then he can see his workmanship at first-hand.

"Initially you are a little hesistant when you watch the sail go up," he said. "You want to see if you've made a blinder or a shocker."

When the boats come in at the end of a testing day, Wotherspoon talks to the trimmers about how the sails performed and if there is any damage.

If things go wrong at sea, it could mean an all-nighter for the sailmakers. You can't just throw a torn sail away - a mainsail alone, Wotherspoon says, costs "half an average house."

Team New Zealand can measure in 30 sails for the cup match, but they will probably make twice that many in the lead-up to find the best wardrobe.

The sails are the engine of the boat. Since the last America's Cup, the way to go in mainsails is 3DL - three-dimensional laminate - which is a mixture of mylar, carbon and kevlar.

It's lighter, has lower stretch than an orthodox sail and there are no seams, so it holds together better under heavy loads.

Wotherspoon, aged 26, has done his time in dinghy and keelboat sailing but has never been a professional sailor.

He began his sailmaking trade as a 19-year-old with North Sails and jumped at the chance to work for Team New Zealand this time.