The young man and the sea

By WARREN GAMBLE

On the steeply sloping deck of NZL82, Dean Barker is in his element. Both hands on the wheel, right leg braced on a footrest, Barker's focus is on the next patch of water, the boat speed read-out on the mast, the telltale strands of wool gauging the wind on the sail. You can feel his intensity, even in another of the endless jousts with older sister NZL81 on the Hauraki Gulf.

Dean Barker's job is to make the 25 tonnes of black carbon fibre go faster, to keep it in a narrow groove of optimum angles, steer smoothly through the chop and keep ahead of back-up helmsman Bertrand Pace snapping at the stern in NZL81.

He doesn't talk much. A quick word into the headset linking him with the bowman; brief discussions with tactician Hamish Pepper.

The noise comes from ropes protesting and the voices of the rest of the afterguard speaking a foreign language of numbers, tactics, positions.

Pepper is the only other team member standing. The other 14 are sitting or crouched on the high side as the boat slices through messy waves.

Pepper is in Barker's ear. Without an audible signal, NZL82 is into a tack, a sudden furious movement of men and winch-handles.

Barker steps lightly across his office, four metres from one wheel to the other, as the huge sail fills on its new course. Behind sunglasses, his eyes flick from water, to read-out, to sail.

It's a fair bet they don't take in the cliffs of the East Coast Bays under which he learned how to do this.

In his other office, the black Team New Zealand shed at the Viaduct Harbour, Barker smiles at mention of the story always used to show how far he has come.

Aged 9, he drifted helplessly on his first solo sail on Lake Pupuke, on the North Shore, and had to be rescued, a bawling skinny boy.

"I don't think I'll ever live that down."

His father Ray, a keen dinghy sailor in his youth, says a holiday in Noumea shortly after the terror on the lake brought his son's confidence back.

The pair sailed Optimist yachts side by side, and by the time Barker was home, he was set on joining the nearby Murrays Bay Sailing Club.

Ray Barker says his son's edge, besides natural talent and determination, came from his dedication to training. He would come home from Westlake Boys High School and go sailing at Castor Bay.

Ray often went out in the family dinghy to give him pointers. The hours on the water paid off for the young sailor. He got fitter, his boat handling improved, and he kept winning.

He was 11 when he won his first national title, by 15 had snared the P-class' prized Tauranga and Tanner Cups, and won the world youth Laser championship in 1990. Now he's looking ahead.

On this day, three weeks from the showdown with Russell Coutts' Alinghi, Auckland's unpredictable weather has thrown up thunder and lightning: too dangerous to be mucking around in a floating piece of carbon with a 32m mast. It is a rare break.

Since Christmas, Barker and Pace have been in full race mode, sailing most days, practising starts and completing full 18-mile America's Cup courses.

Barker is happy to go in as the underdog against his old teacher Coutts, but is quietly confident that Team New Zealand has the boat and the crew to hold the Cup.

It was not always like that.

In the dark days of May 2000 after Coutts, Brad Butterworth and other key Team New Zealand sailors announced they were leaving for overseas syndicates, Barker doubted there would be a team at all.

"There is no question at the time it was just a huge bombshell, because from what we understood things were going well," he says.

"At the rock bottom I was wondering whether this team would be able to carry on, it was that grim."

From being the starting helmsman with the backing of sailors who had done it all before, Barker, at 27, was asked to become head of the sailing team off the water as well as on it.

Ray Barker recalls Dean breaking the shock news of the departures over lunch.

"I just basically said to him, 'How do you feel, do you think you can do it?' He said 'Yeah, I can'. I said, 'Go for it'."

Barker's calm, inclusive leadership has inspired confidence.

It started in those testing early weeks with New Zealand sailors being lured by big overseas offers.

With syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg he worked round the clock, making calls in the middle of the night, sending emails around the world to get people on board.

"On a few occasions I took dinner down to him to make sure he was eating," says Ray Barker. "There was just this one lonely light on at Team New Zealand. He was burning the midnight oil trying to put the team together."

Barker says the most difficult part of the campaign has been finding the right balance between management and sailing. It was a balance he got wrong early on, but after cutting back on his public appearances, the results on the water improved.

Barker says he tends not to look back, because of the way the new team has gelled.

"We nut things out every day, we have different ideas on how to do things, but I definitely rely on a lot of those guys to make the decisions we have to."

But there is no getting away from the shadow of Coutts, on and off the water.

Barker insists there is no grudge, just a competitive urge to win, for himself, his country - he says he has been overwhelmed at the level of support from throughout New Zealand - but most of all the team.

"I think it would certainly be a great feeling to go out and win with this team given what we have had to overcome during this campaign.

"We didn't have a base to work from, we were struggling in the early days and for this team to go out and win would be incredibly special."

Barker has tasted victory in the America's Cup when Coutts offered him the wheel in the final match against Italian challengers Prada in 2000. It was a risk, but Barker nailed the start and the race to complete the 5-0 victory.

"You don't get those opportunities very often, and for me it was the time when I really felt Russell had that sort of respect for my ability."

Now Barker gets the chance to cement that respect in the most pressured sailing environment against the sailor who has won it all.

Is he ready?

"Three years has felt like an eternity," he says.

"We just want to race now."

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

Racing schedule and results