Team New Zealand's Pace setter

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Clutching the wheel of the black boat is Bertrand Pace, a small dark man, hair receding, the crows' feet splaying from squinting, focused eyes as he watches the taller, leaner, blonder Team New Zealand pin-up skipper Dean Barker, in the other black boat, heading straight for him at speed.

The two men are meshed in a ferocious duel, the boats writhing and groaning in contempt like angry sealions. The men at the helms are calm but, occasionally, they bark at the sailors around them - one of them in a distinctly Gallic accent. At times the others have to throw giant crash pads between the boats to cushion their blows.

These conflicts go on twice a day, almost every day, on the Hauraki Gulf as long as the wind is not howling. And at the end of the day Barker and his combatant, Frenchman Pace, sit down at a table and relive their confrontations over a smile or two.

Pace (pronounced par say) holds one of the most crucial sailing roles at Team New Zealand, yet it is highly unlikely he will sail in the America's Cup come February 15. Few New Zealanders outside of the yachting world would know he even works for their team. In the public's eye, this former world matchracing champion is the forgotten man.

Pace doesn't mind. He is a quiet man, nervy and extraordinarily shy, not hunting personal glory in the America's Cup - not this time anyway. His job is back-up helmsman to prime Team New Zealand skipper Barker for the America's Cup match against the master, Russell Coutts on Alinghi.

Three years ago Barker was doing Pace's job, preparing Coutts for battle against Prada, and Barker literally crossed the globe to ask Pace, the former world matchracing champion, to sever his French connections, as skipper of Le Defi, and become Barker's sparring partner in a defence team still shuddering from mass defections.

Pace battled with the decision for weeks, uncertain how a team of New Zealanders would react to the Little General joining their ranks, unsure how his French-speaking family would survive for almost three years in an English-speaking land.

TODAY 41-year-old Pace and his family are glad they accepted Barker's offer. Victor, 9, and his 3-year-old brother Ludovic go to school and kindergarten in Devonport, where they have acquired flawless English with perfect Kiwi accents much to the frustration of their father.

"We still speak French at home. Christine and I are still not so good at English. One thing I regret in my life is that I did not learn to speak English properly," Pace laments, in English that makes perfect sense.

"I learned from sailors, so I learned very bad English. But since I have been here I have learned words of four letters that I can now use in proper conversation."

Dean Barker, for his part, says he regrets not learning more French - he studied the language for a year at school and hated it.

So, when Pace arrived in Auckland to sail with Team New Zealand in November 2000, he often struggled to say what he meant - and to be understood - on the boat. "I said something but I was thinking exactly the reverse," he explains. "I still have moments like that. Day after day I discover another word I don't understand and I have to get the guys to translate for me."

Often the big problem is understanding his crew's phrases. Explains Cameron Appleton, Pace's tactician on the B boat: "Kiwis don't say things the same way twice. It's not been easy for Bertrand, who really expects people around him to work with him and understand him. Dean can hear everything that's going on on the boat all the time, but Bertrand has to pay extra attention. He has to think and process what people are saying in a language that is new to him. But his English is excellent now."

Pace misses having conversations in French, and longs to read French novels. He and Christine brought a hefty box of books from home, which they have now exhausted.

Christine misses their empty house perched on Mont Saint-Clair, overlooking the Mediterranean fishing town of Sete, population 45,000. But she feels equally at home in the seaside town of Devonport and appreciates the way of life here. "You can leave your bicycle outside and no one steals it," Pace laughs.

Perhaps of all the Pace family, Victor loves his new life most. He is an All Black fanatic, and plays prop in the North Shore club scrum with other 9-year-olds. He also plays cricket and is learning to sail on the Hauraki Gulf.

Team New Zealand head Tom Schnackenberg knows how difficult it is for young families of the America's Cup after moving around the world with his wife and two young sons through the 1980s, working for the Australia II syndicate.

"I have to give Bertrand full credit for what he's done - not just him but his family," Schnackenberg says. "It's hugely tough for Mum and the kids - a new language, a new neighbourhood, new friends and on top of that a father who really is never home. It wouldn't have worked without Christine giving up more than most wives would put up with."

Then it was up to Pace - one of only a handful of foreign sailors and designers who had to earn New Zealand nationality to become part of Team New Zealand - to fit into the Kiwi culture. There is Pace, American designer Clay Oliver and English designer Andy Claughton, and two Australians, tactician Adam Beashel and weatherman Roger Badham.

"They're allowed to provide a little seasoning, but otherwise they have to adapt to our ways," Schnackenberg says. "They have to enjoy Kiwi humour and our boring, repetitive slagging-off of rugby teams. I hear Bertrand laughing more often on the boat now."

Pace's laugh is unmistakable. It's a soft "heh, heh, heh". His round face crinkles and his shoulders brush his ears. His coffee mug, always steaming, bears the name "Bert", with a cartoon of a crouching frog beneath it. He has his own sharp sense of humour, enjoys teaching his crew to swear with a French accent.

But more than anything, Pace has brought his passion to Team New Zealand. Although it is not his country he is fighting for, he is often one of the first to arrive at work and the last to go home. "He's not just here to get paid," says Schnackenberg. "He provides tough competition for Dean, but he does a lot more, like leadership. He may have trouble speaking eloquently in a boardroom, but he writes very powerful emails."



SO IS he doing the job that he was hired for? Is Pace making life difficult for Kiwi hero Barker? In a word, yes.

Before he joined forces with Barker, the men were rivals on the world matchracing circuit, fighting it out for the world champion's title. Now it is clear their relationship is more a friendship while Pace's different style and competitiveness has helped to hone the New Zealand skipper's skills, and made for tough matchracing between the two boats.

"He's just such a neat guy," says Barker. "He has a huge passion for sailing, he just loves racing and it really creates a lot of enthusiasm in the team."

So what does Pace think of his young skipper now? He chuckles.

"Are you going to write it all down? No, really, he's a very talented sailor, a very smart guy. I'm pretty sure, no, in fact I am sure, that he will beat everybody in this America's Cup.

"I see the way he works in the afterguard with Hamish Pepper, Adam Beashel and Peter Evans, and they are a very close team. But I understand he has a grumpy face sometimes."

So would you like to sail with him?

"Ehhhrr, I don't know," and then he laughs, "heh, heh, heh" again.

In the lead-up to the Cup, the two black boats, dressed in their hulas (the new appendages on their hulls) race each other twice a day. The morning race is usually just one leg, but the afternoon encounter beginning at 1.15pm - the actual start time of the Cup matches - is the real McCoy, complete with race umpires. The pre-starts between the two skippers have been intense. "Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't," says Pace.

While he says it is usually fun, the scenario of racing against the same team, day in day out, year after year, has not been easy for Pace to get his head around. He has competed in four other America's Cup regattas, all with French challenges since 1987, always sailing against numerous opponents in the challenger series.

"It's a very different approach here, and it's a hard one," he explains. "We can't test our boat against the challengers, so we don't know where we stand before the first race of the America's Cup. For the sailing team here, you need to be very good for the first match. This way is quite hard.

"When I read some challenger claiming Team New Zealand has had more sailing than them, it makes me laugh. It is so different for us, but it is not easier."

Still, he prefers the fact that Team New Zealand has had the time and adequate money to prepare for the defence, unlike his old Le Defi syndicate, which struggled against the clock to raise the money to compete in the Cup.

"In France we have shown we have good sailors and a very strong boat industry, and I think we have the possibility to do something good in the America's Cup," Pace says.

"But a big part of the programme is to get the money on time, to get it straight away to have time to do things well. I think the French people don't care so much about the America's Cup."

Pace deliberated long and hard over leaving France and his high-profile job as skipper of Le Defi to join Team New Zealand, and some members of the French syndicate took his departure hard. It was not quite of Coutts-Butterworth proportions, however. Pace is still on friendly speaking terms with most of his old crew.

"But I no longer have a relationship with the leaders of Le Defi," he admits. "I don't know if I will do another Cup for France, it could be a possibility. But one day, if I have to leave Team New Zealand, it will be very difficult for me. I see these guys more than I've seen my wife and kids for the last few years. I have a lot of pleasant times with this team."

When this campaign is finally over, some time before March 1, Pace will turn his full attention to Christine, Victor and Ludovic. He wants to wrestle with Ludovic, who wakes at 5am to be with his dad, and he wants to teach Victor how to windsurf, his other passion.

He is uncertain what the future holds with Team New Zealand. But regardless of the result next month, he will return home to Sete proud of his time with the America's Cup defenders, with no regrets that he did not sail in the match.

"It doesn't matter to me that I won't be sailing in the America's Cup. It was a choice I made a long time ago," he says.

"It's clear in my head - I have no problem with it. Remember, I'm not really a Kiwi."

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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