'Secrecy' hindered Team NZ says departing board member

By Scott MacLeod

Team New Zealand sailors and boats missed out on three months of crucial on-water training because they wanted to keep their boats' technology secret.

Departing board member Ralph Norris tonight said the team was "under-cooked" when it was thrashed by Swiss challenger Alinghi.

He admitted a wrong decision was made to keep the boats squirreled away to hide their technology from rivals.

Neither the boats nor the crew were fully tuned when they met Alinghi.

"With the benefit of hindsight, two to three months earlier would have made a difference," he said.

"We probably got a little too clever with technology and the fact that we held off so as not to give them a sniff of it.

"We needed to be in the water earlier. I think the boats were quick boats but not tuned to their potential."

Asked if the team could have won had they trained properly, Norris said they could have led 2-1 if the boat was packing a staysail in the second race and had the crew not ignored advice at the start of the third.

"We were in a position to take either side. Unfortunately, our guys didn't carry out instructions from our weather boat and went right instead of left."

Norris resigned from the board on Friday, as did fellow members Peter Menzies, Kevin Roberts and John Risley, but they will help the new board settle accounts.

Team head Grant Dalton said on television that it would have been impossible to raise cash for the next challenge without change at the top.

"The outgoing directors recognise that," he said.

The new board so far consists of Fisher and Paykel chairman Gary Paykel and Queen's Counsel Jim Farmer. Two more will be appointed.

Farmer said Dalton had worked out what went wrong with the defence. The sailors and talent were available to win back the cup.

The Government has promised the team $30 million -- but only if it can raise $60 million of its own.

Twenty people have already been signed up for the next challenge, including some from overseas.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup