Team NZ ready for chequebook battle

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Team New Zealand want to start hiring crew next week before the cream of their sailors and designers jump ship to rival America's Cup syndicates.

Big-budget campaigns are stepping up their attempts to lure the champion Kiwis overseas - one challenger representative is flying in from Britain this week to meet the Cup-winners.

Now the new Team New Zealand troika - Russell Coutts, Brad Butterworth and Tom Schnackenberg - are heading home after three weeks in the Northern Hemisphere to try to salvage their team.

After months of drawn-out negotiations between the old and the new trustees of Team New Zealand, the trio are confident the handover will take place in the next few days.

Schnackenberg said in London yesterday that they were poised to start offering contracts to the Team New Zealand crew.

"The changeover is charging along fine and we should be able to start hiring crew within a week or so if everything goes according to plan."

There is still little concrete about the new challengers who started waving their chequebooks at Team New Zealand straight after they won the Cup in March.

Two new syndicates appear to be shaping up in Switzerland. Watch Out, a group of watchmakers led by Geneva banker Pierre Essig, announced their $100 million bid in Bern late last week.

Another Swiss group, headed by young pharmaceuticals billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, are believed to have approached some of Team New Zealand's high-flyers with huge offers.

Prada have even asked some Kiwis whether they would be interested in changing sides.

The most publicised offers, though, have come from an American syndicate, supposedly from Seattle.

They are sending a British representative to Auckland to talk to sailors, designers and boatbuilders this week.

Australian skipper Peter Gilmour, strongly linked to the new team, will also be in town.

Russell Green, Team New Zealand's rules adviser for the last Cup, said crew members were seriously considering the foreign offers - but he had advised them to be wary.

"Some of the younger guys are a little bit tempted by the sign-up fee - money going straight into the bank," he said.

"What I tell them is that they have to be careful in the America's Cup. How do they know these groups are still going to be around in 2002?

"They could get a sign-up fee and six months' pay then have it all fold. With Team New Zealand, at least they know they're going to be in the match and they will be getting three years' income.

"And Coutts says he will pay them substantially more than they got last time."

Mr Green said some of the older hands in the crew were also attracted by the big offers.

"As some of the older guys say, national pride doesn't pay for the groceries.

"But most of the sailors say they're not going to make any moves until they've spoken with Team New Zealand again."