In an exclusive interview with the Weekend Herald, Swiss-Italian businessman Matteo de Nora tells Jane Phare why he has backed Team New Zealand for 14 years.
Ask Matteo de Nora to share his most special moment in the epic, 14-year battle for the America's Cup and, surprisingly, he won't talk about the day the Kiwis roared across the line to win against Oracle 7-1.
Don't get him wrong, he's bursting with pride and in awe of what Emirates Team New Zealand has achieved.
But as for that moment, the one he'll never forget, it came the day of the dramatic pitch-pole and capsize just as race two of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series was about to start.
The spectacular nose-dive into Bermuda's Great Sound will stay with de Nora forever. He watched it on the chase boat's TV and remembers the terrible shock, the "blank" that followed. It was what happened after the team's gleaming red and black catamaran was lifted, in tatters, into Team NZ's base that most impresses the team principal.
A quiet, sombre team gathered to inspect the damage. No doubt some were silently wondering "is this the end?"
Within two hours of the capsize, Team NZ asked the French for help with equipment and parts and they refused, and then said they would consider it for a fee of €300,000 ($468,500). That offer was abruptly withdrawn.
With resentment against the Kiwis already evident after their refusal to sign a framework agreement for the next two America's Cup cycles, they knew they were on their own, though the British BAR team did lend Team NZ a hydraulic ram.
De Nora says he watched as the dejected team regrouped, started thinking constructively and looked to CEO Grant Dalton for leadership.
Shore crew, sailors, technicians, admin staff, chefs, anyone connected to Team NZ, on the payroll or not, rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in. They had a broken boat and were going to fix it. Their task was to make one good wing out of two by the next day.
"The energy comes back, you can see it happening. After the French said 'no', the team was united. I can tell you the secretaries were using hairdryers to dry the boat, the cooks, security, everybody was working round the clock," de Nora says.
"It was incredible. That to me was the highlight. It was that moment I thought 'we have a chance after all'."
Team New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling and team Principal Matteo de Nora. Photo / Supplied
It was a very different team when de Nora first became involved in 2003. It pretty much didn't exist. A keen yachtsman, he had been visiting New Zealand since the 1990s and had closely followed the various America's Cup campaigns.
Based in Monaco, in a vast apartment that overlooks the harbour, he is constantly on the move but considers New Zealand his second home.
His two superyachts, Imagine 1 and Imagine 2, both built in Auckland by Alloy Yachts, have taken him many times round the world including trips to the Antarctic and Arctic.
He prefers remote places to the overcrowded French Riviera, and a quiet dinner with friends to large social gatherings. More often than not, Imagine's owner is not on board when the crew take out VIPs and guests for the day.
His Italian father was a professor of physics and chemistry; his mother was Swiss and their travels meant de Nora was born in the United States and is a Canadian citizen.
The family business, founded in the 1920s, was in the electrochemical industry and has now expanded to diverse business interests throughout the world.
De Nora's battery factory produced the small, lightweight battery packs that gave Team New Zealand's boat a weight advantage in Valencia.
Already fond of New Zealand and Kiwis, he was in Auckland 14 years ago when Team New Zealand's America's Cup campaign, and yacht, fell apart. He watched as a crew member bailed water, and watched the boom and then the mast break in subsequent races.
By the time de Nora went to see Dalton in Team NZ's shed after the loss, there was nothing left. Key sailors and technical staff had been picked off by Bertarelli's triumphant Alinghi; there was no money to pay even basic bills, let alone salaries.
Skipper Glenn Ashby, Matteo De Nora, helmsman Peter Burling, left, and team boss Grant Dalton hold the America's Cup trophy. Photo / AP
Back then, de Nora simply tried to listen and be sympathetic. It would take time, years possibly, to build a team that might one day win something, he told Dalton.
The brash team boss, renowned for his abrupt manner, interrupted the well-meaning visitor. He told de Nora that wasn't enough. His goal was to win the America's Cup and if he didn't have the budget to make the team competitive within six months, he wouldn't do it.
De Nora laughs about it now. "He contradicted everything I said."
Later, at his hotel, de Nora pondered on their conversation and realised, as he puts it, "a guy like this is someone who can win the America's Cup".
And de Nora thought he could help make that happen.
"So I am not that much of an angel," he says. "I saw an opportunity to be involved in something that would work. I was convinced Grant could get it done."
De Nora might not have bargained on the 14 years but, he says, it would have been wrong of him to stop halfway.
"Over time I got attached to the team."
In that time, an unbreakable bond and strong friendship has formed between de Nora and Dalton. Neither is beholden to the other. No-one gets special treatment or escapes teasing.
After an interview in Valencia, I described de Nora as "stocky" in a Herald feature.
Unfamiliar with the word, he later asked Dalton its meaning who told him, straight-faced, that it meant "fat".
For two such hard-working, driven individuals, they can both clown around like schoolboys.
Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby celebrates their America's Cup win with team Principal Matteo de Nora. Photo / Supplied
During a lunch on Imagine in Auckland, a poker-faced de Nora deftly pinched lamb cutlets off Dalton's plate each time his attention was diverted, causing great mirth among the other guests.
And they share a love of all things fast, in particular Formula 1 and MotoGP motorcycle racing. De Nora raced cars and offshore power boats with the likes of Le Mans champion Jacky Ickx. And Dalton owns race bikes and has raced on the Isle of Man.
When they're not talking sailing or Team NZ details, they'll be swapping race results.
Knowing I'm writing this interview, Dalton takes time to ring from Europe, on his way home, to talk about de Nora.
He gets impatient at de Nora underplaying his role in Team NZ, saying "that's bollocks".
Team NZ quite simply wouldn't exist without him, Dalton says. Many private benefactors have helped, including Sir Stephen Tindall, but de Nora is "the glue". He backed Dalton and the team at times when they faced many critics.
Apart from his considerable and ongoing financial contribution, amounting to millions of dollars over the years, Dalton says that de Nora became increasingly valuable from a management perspective and as a mentor.
Highly intelligent, he is one of those rare people who can "unjumble thinking in your brain and lay you a plan and he can do it in a minute".
De Nora likes things to be perfect, has a "massive" memory and is immensely focused on detail, qualities that Dalton can relate to. That, and de Nora's values.
"He thinks very, very much like a Kiwi. He is hugely loyal. He believes in trust, that your word is your bond. He is a special human being."
To that end there is no contractual arrangement. Dalton knows de Nora will be there whenever he's needed. He's been able to open doors for the Team NZ boss, arranging meetings with potential sponsors and bringing together a network of private benefactors who are fans of Team NZ.
Peter Burling, Glenn Ashby, Grant Dalton, Kevin Shoebridge, Matteo de Nora and Stephen Tindall thank fans during the Team New Zealand Americas Cup Welcome Home Parade. Photo / Getty Images
They talk daily, often more than once, de Nora solving problems and taking on tasks, getting them done quickly.
Before the America's Cup in Valencia, Team NZ's two massive masts were stuck in Sicily due to a trucking strike. De Nora and his crew lashed the two masts to the deck of Imagine and sailed them to Valencia, enabling the team to have weeks of extra time on the water.
Wherever Team NZ is, Imagine is not far away. The sleek, 44m sloop won Best Sailing Yacht at the World Superyacht Awards in 2011. Imagine's immaculate pale cream and white interior looks too good to touch, yet de Nora has used her as a hospitality boat for hundreds of Team NZ guests, crew and friends, and to transport Team NZ cargo.
Days after that euphoric moment when Peter Burling and Glenn Ashby held the Auld Mug triumphantly aloft, de Nora is close to exhaustion. The months of tension, stress and unsettled sleep patterns have taken their toll.
He agrees to this one interview because he wants Kiwis to know just how special this Team NZ is. For him, winning the America's Cup was not the only prize in sight.
It is one of the few areas of thinking in which he differs from Dalton. For Dalton, it was always the America's Cup or nothing.
For de Nora, it was about helping a small nation build the best sailing team in the world. To that end, every win was something to be celebrated.
"For me it felt like a miracle every time we won a race."
He doesn't see coming second in Valencia and San Francisco as a disaster, saying people underestimated what Team NZ actually achieved.
And as for winning the Louis Vuitton Cup three times in a row, "that has never happened", he says. "It means that the team have been at the super-top for 15 years. This is why they are champions. It is extraordinary."
Grant Dalton and Matteo de Nora are sprayed with champagne by helmsman Peter Burling after Team New Zealand won the America's Cup in Bermuda. Photo / Supplied
After San Francisco, and up against the Oracle/Russell Coutts culture and a team they knew would do anything and spend anything to win, Team NZ knew "normal" wouldn't work.
"We knew we had to be 20 per cent better in every area and every department, otherwise they would find a way to do us over, be it legal or whatever," de Nora says.
That meant they had to make a series of decisions that were bold and, for some, brutal. Replacing seasoned helmsman Dean Barker for a younger sailor was one of those tough decisions.
De Nora sees part of his role as shouldering some of the strain that inevitably falls on Dalton's shoulders and, as he puts it, "supporting decisions that are unpopular but are right".
And some of it was unpleasant. After an intense review saw Barker deposed as helmsman in 2015 and offered a job as sailing coach and performance manager, a role de Nora says was "incredibly well paid", a hurt Barker claimed he only found out he had been dumped through the media.
Not so, says de Nora. Barker was well aware of the changes long before, and the deadline for a decision was extended while he considered his options.
De Nora says it was Barker's "100 per cent right" to decide he still wanted to be a helmsman.
"What I do regret was not that he went to work for another syndicate, but that he went to work for the one syndicate that was created to help Oracle win against New Zealand."
But de Nora doesn't regret supporting the tough decisions that had to be made.
"Burling, the bicycles, the foils ... it could have been a disaster," de Nora says. But it wasn't. "We were right. It turned out to be a beauty."
De Nora says it's too early for him to decide whether he'll continue his involvement with Team NZ. But he may not get the option.
Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton gets a pat on the shoulder from team Principal Matteo De Nora. Photo / Supplied
"It might be too early for him, but it's not too early for me," Dalton says. "For my well-being and everything else that we do, making smart decisions and getting the right pathway, he absolutely has to.
"He'd have to find a really distant city that I've never heard of and a really obscure address to get away."
But even if not through the America's Cup, de Nora will always remain connected to New Zealand.
"There is no way I can stop that, it is not even my choice," he says. He has a penthouse in Auckland, beautifully refurbished with de Nora across every detail.
His holiday property in the Bay of Islands reflects his personality. Discreetly hidden on a headland by bush, onlookers don't even know it's there. Below are hectares of farmland on which he has developed wetlands and planted native trees. His large boatshed, full of various sized boats, fishing gear and lifejackets is like everything he owns - immaculate.
Not that he gets time to go there and use the toys. Members of Team NZ, friends and those he helps, including medical researchers, have spent more time at the holiday home than de Nora.
His generosity was recognised in 2011 when he was awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to yachting and medicine. De Nora funds tinnitus research in New Zealand and supports the neurology research unit at Auckland University.
Witnessing the devastation in Christchurch after the earthquake, he made a substantial contribution to the appeal and, after hearing of the plight of a wheelchair-bound young Northland girl, de Nora flew a top paediatrician and rheumatologist to New Zealand to examine her and other rare cases at Starship.
With ongoing help from de Nora the girl, who has connective tissue disease, improved enough to get out of her wheelchair.
Last year de Nora received a Friend of New Zealand Award at the KEA World Class New Zealand Awards. He told the guests that over the years he had learned about Kiwi resilience and hoped to be back in Auckland this year with some very good news.
He thinks very, very much like a Kiwi. He is hugely loyal. He believes in trust, that your word is your bond. He is a special human being.
True to his word, de Nora arrived back at Auckland Airport with the team this week - with proof of that good news in the shape of the America's Cup.
Only now, as the realisation of what Team NZ has pulled off sinks in, will Dalton and de Nora have time to think about the next four years.
There's little doubt that de Nora considers Dalton the key to keeping hold of the Cup.
There is a difference, he says, between running a top sailing team and running an America's Cup campaign and few have the right combination of talents.
It was not enough to take a group of top sailors and throw money into a campaign.
Looking back, he says, the setbacks Team NZ faced made it stronger.
"This team was absolutely simple, straightforward. There were no inside battles, zero politics."
That tightness worked in their favour at a time when Oracle did not have the same cohesive unity.
De Nora thinks the tense relationship between Jimmy Spithill and tactician Tom Slingsby worked against Oracle, causing tension on the boat. Slingsby, a 2012 Olympic gold medallist and world champion sailor was originally going to be at the helm, he says.
"Spithill took Slingsby's job by going directly to the boss (Larry Ellison), and yet they still had to work together. "
As a result the relationship didn't work, evident in Slingsby's reaction as Spithill made mistakes.
"You can see it in TV footage where Slingsby is hammering the boat with his fist and getting angry."
Compare that with a scene de Nora describes at the Team NZ base towards the end of the campaign.
"On the last day there were 50 people all with their arms around each other. No-one told us to do it, it came naturally. It was like going to war and the little Kiwis won the war.
