KEY POINTS:
Three times they tried, three times a New Zealand assault on yachting's holy grail failed. Singed, but not burned, by New Zealand's collapse in the 1992 Americas Cup, Peter Blake made a decision later that year - encouraged by friend and former sailing journalist Alan Sefton - to challenge on New Zealand's behalf for the 1995 event in San Diego.
Blake, who had managed the '92 effort, put up US$75,000 of his own money for the entry fee, got the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron on board, and scored a major coup by signing up world matchracing champion Russell Coutts as skipper and nuclear physicist Tom Schnackenberg as head of design.
In today's terms, it was a small team of 66, run on a budget with "no fat" - the $27 million cost a paltry sum in America's Cup ledgers. But it was a challenge driven by team loyalty.
By assembling the Family of Five sponsors and topping up the budget with a supporters club and fundraising (just short of resorting to a sausage sizzle), Team New Zealand scraped together enough to build two boats.
It was a decision that could have brought the syndicate to its knees. But, NZL32, first out of the shed, was built to win the America's Cup - and its sister, NZL38, was a more than able trial horse. By encouraging rumours that Black Magic I was a "dog", slower than the old red sled, NZL20, and that it didn't measure up to the rules, Team New Zealand won the first round of the psychological battle that is the America's Cup.
But they didn't really need mind games - NZL32 and NZL38 were quite simply the fastest America's Cup boats of their generation.
What an understatement. NZL32 - from the drawing boards of veteran Laurie Davidson and America3 maestro Doug Peterson, with input from an expert design team - was black and sleek, narrower than boats of the previous genre, and unquestionably quicker.
Sister-ship NZL38 was first on the start-line when the Louis Vuitton Cup began, and first to the finish-line in every one of its races in the first four round robins (the only loss in 24 races the result of an off-the-water protest by OneAustralia).
Black Magic II was then retired and the original Black Magic was unleashed on an unsuspecting sailing world in the challenger semifinals. NZL32 suffered only one loss - in the final versus OneAustralia due to a combination of hydraulic and electronic failure - the only day Blake and those feted red socks weren't on board.
Victory over Dennis Conner and his borrowed boat, Young America, in the first-to-five America's Cup match, was a blackwash - a 5-0 scoreline, with no winning margin less than 1m 50s.
Conner's helmsman, Paul Cayard, lamented: "I have never been in a race where I felt I had so little control over the outcome I didnt even feel as if I was in a sailboat race.
Once the flurry of tickertape had settled on the main streets of New Zealand, Blake (now Sir Peter) went to work organising a regatta in Auckland unlike any other. His vision to bring all syndicates together was realised, transforming the viaduct basin into a vibrant village - which would become a fitting memorial to the man.
But running both an international event and a defence proved fractious and ultimately destructive, despite success on both fronts.
Behind closed doors, the team began to implode - hostility grew on either side of Halsey St, between management on one side and, on the other, the sailing leaders, Coutts and Brad Butterworth, slated to run the next event should Team New Zealand win.
On the water, the cracks didn't show. The defenders had continuity, a fluid relationship between designers and sailors, and four years to get things exactly right.
Another two fast boats - NZL57 and NZL60 - were created, this time born in the Cookson Boats shed, and were put to work in an intense in-house racing programme on the Hauraki Gulf. Without a defence series, Coutts needed to assemble a large sailing team with most of the crew from '95 augmented by young up-and-coming sailors, including the skipper of the B boat, a talented protege named Dean Barker. In training, Barker gave Coutts a run for his money, which paid off handsomely for both men.
As Coutts and Barker jointly hoisted the Auld Mug on the pontoon within the Viaduct Harbour, to the world it seemed a Team New Zealand empire would rule the America's Cup for decades to come such was their supremacy and power on home waters.
No one dared predict it. Prada, skippered by the genteel Il Barone, Francesco de Angelis, had beaten AmericaOne in one of the great America's Cup encounters to become the challenger - the first time an American team would not be in the America's Cup match since 1851.
The Italians, loved by the crowds in Auckland, were popular opponents and expected to put up a fiery, passionate challenge. But when it came to the Cup match, they turned on barely a fizzle. Team New Zealand trounced the Italians, with an all-round outstanding boat in NZL60 and a crew whose experience could not be matched. Prada were not only battle-frayed, they were simply out-classed.
Stepping ashore for the final race, and handing the helm to Barker, was a selfless act by Coutts, who could have broken the record for consecutive America's Cup victories. It was the storybook finish to another Team NZ conquest handing over the reins to the next generation, while assuming a new leadership onshore. But unbeknown to most, turmoil was already simmering.
Could Coutts have got it more wrong? When he and Butterworth left Team New Zealand, barely two months after winning the Cup in March 2000, it undermined one of the most dominant teams in America's Cup history.
Their departure, citing difficulties negotiating with the Team New Zealand trust to run the 2003 event and its defence, began a lahar of experienced sailors, designers and shore crew jumping ship. When the chequebook raids by some of the world's richest men finally ceased, more than 20 Team New Zealand veterans had gone to different syndicates.
Team New Zealand scrambled to put together a syndicate, under the leadership of Schnackenberg, experienced chief executive Ross Blackman and Barker, head of the sailing team.
But from the start they were behind the eight-ball.
They were faced with a $90 million tab to defend and run the Cup.
The programme became heavily weighted towards design - which saw some radical inventions like the hula - and their boats were the last to be built.
The sailing crew were generally inexperienced - many had never known the parry and thrust of America's Cup yachting.
But, crucially, there was no single leader to call the shots and oversee the entire project.
None of this became obvious until NZL82 lined up against Alinghi.
But even in the minutes before the two adversaries entered the start box, things were literally falling apart.
On the day of race one of the Cup match, NZL81 - Team New Zealand's back-up boat - cracked, its hull and deck failing as it warmed-up the defender's race boat. The same boat had suffered crippling hull damage two months before, shattering the confidence of the team - who then treated NZL82 as fragile, never pushing it before racing started.
As one Alinghi crewman said: "We wore woollen hats and went out sailing for 12 hours a day.
"We rarely saw them [Team New Zealand] out there. We were ready for real street fights on the water."
Team New Zealand weren't even ready for a cat scrap - their premium boat crumpled when tested by the conditions.
No one will forget the mind-boggling images of bowman Matt Mitchell trying to bail NZL82 out with a little blue bucket in race one ... or the futility of the snapped rig in race four.
Poor tactics, ill-advised sail selection and battered confidence accounted for the other losses - not to mention the competence and speed of Alinghi.
In the autopsy months later, Team New Zealand admitted its management structure had failed, not adeptly pulling together the sailing, boat design and administration of the campaign.
Schnackenberg, Blackman and Barker, as well as the teams directors, shouldered the blame.
If Team New Zealand was to be revived, it would need to find one man with strong shoulders to carry the weight of a comeback.
Upset by what he had seen from his couch, Grant Dalton put himself forward for the job. Within weeks, he had signed on as managing director of a challenge not even guaranteed a ticket to Valencia.
He pledged his faith in Barker, re-signing him as skipper, and then spent a year trying to net sponsors. A skeleton team gave itself a 12-month deadline to find $150m. But days before the deadline, Dalton asked for more time. An interest-free loan from arch-rival Ernesto Bertarelli, and a $33m pledge from the Government kept them in the running, and the naming sponsorship from Emirates virtually sealed the deal.
Gone from 2003 is Schnackenberg, asked to leave after just three months. Dalton and Barker have pulled together a multi-national team of 90, but the sailing crew is predominantly Kiwi.
The race boats, NZL84 and NZL92, were built early, following the lead of Alinghi last time. The skinny, ugly ducklings with their slab sides and full bow have already proven they're fast.
The true test will be whether they are fast enough to take Team New Zealand to the America's Cup match for a fourth successive time, and make amends for one of the saddest chapters in New Zealand sports history.
