Yachting: Black Magical day lives on in yachties' memories

Former Team New Zealand grinder Andrew Taylor recalls being surprised how little champagne the America's Cup could hold.

"It is this huge cup you can hardly lift but it only holds maybe a glass of champagne.

"But it was good to get our hands on it."

It's 10 years since Team New Zealand won the America's Cup in San Diego.

The Sir Peter Blake-led, Russell Coutts-driven syndicate and their superbly designed yachts stunned the sailing world with their invincibility, which led to a 5-0 win over arch-rival Denis Conner.

Of the 16 men who sailed Black Magic to victory in 1995, 13 are still involved in the cup.

Just the late Sir Peter Blake, Coutts and Richard Dodson, who is a director at North Sails in Auckland, will not be in Valencia in two years' time.

Of the 13, five [Brad Butterworth, Warwick Fleury, Dean Phipps, Simon Daubney and Murray Jones] are with defenders Alinghi and therefore haven't relinquished the cup since receiving it on the dock in San Diego.

Taylor and Tom Schnackenberg are with Luna Rossa

Ross Halcrow, Craig Monk and Robbie Naismith are with BMW Oracle Racing, Jeremy Scantlebury is with Sweden's Victory Challenge and Matthew Mason and Joe Allen are at Emirates Team New Zealand.

A decade on the Auld Mug remains a striking piece of silverware but reflecting on Team New Zealand's win highlights just how much the game has changed.

Following the failed New Zealand Challenge attempts in 1987, 1988 and 1992, Sir Peter Blake took charge and Team New Zealand began to take shape in 1993.

A carefully selected team was assembled in Auckland by January 1994. Their first race boat NZL32 was launched around August, the second NZL38 a little later in San Diego.

"I think we sailed for about six weeks in Auckland," Fleury recalls.

"Then I think we only had about six weeks in San Diego before the first race. That was it, that was the campaign.

Because time was so short we actually didn't do any practice or crew training.

"We were making such big gains with the testing we went into the first race without having done any training and we hadn't lined up against anyone so we didn't really know where we were at."

It wasn't long before the New Zealand team, labelled as the "underdogs", proved they had plenty of pace, losing only one match on the water and one in the protest room in five months of intense racing. To which Coutts later commented: "A little boat speed can make you famous."

Fleury said: "Back then Team New Zealand was made up of 65 people. Syndicates these days are in excess of 120.

"We didn't have enough sailors to sail two boats so we would get the sail makers and some of the office staff to come out to make up the numbers.

"It just really worked well. Russell [Coutts] hand-picked the people he wanted so you knew you had a team that sailed well together."

Their base in San Diego was barely more than a few containers shoved together and a kind of over-sized marquee to protect the black boats from prying eyes.

They shared a travel lift, a machine to get boats in and out of the water, with their neighbours the Japanese.

At around $20 million to $30 million, their budget pales in comparison to the $130 million or so Emirates Team New Zealand will spend on the next cup.

While plenty has changed over the 10 years, many facets from that campaign have carried on.

Blake's insistence of a sailor- or team-driven campaign is a philosophy Alinghi used during the last cup and one Team New Zealand have reinstated too.

The 1995 team also included a large design team which was not the norm at the time but is common now.

"When Peter Blake hired him, Russell [Coutts] really studied the successful teams from 1992, in particular America3," Fleury said.

"One of the things they did was have a big design team ... there was a lot of interaction with the sailors and that was quite different to what New Zealand had done before and probably quite different to a lot of other teams and is maybe still different."

On a lighter note, the 1995 campaign saw the introduction of black boats to replace the fire engine red of 1992.

"We just thought that black would be a really cool colour," Fleury said.

Ten years on each and every member has their own recollections of the match.

In typical cup fashion the controversial Conner decided his boat wasn't good enough to tackle the Kiwis so he changed to the Young America boat after the defenders series.

"I really remember the start of the first race," Ross Halcrow said. "A couple of minutes into it we knew we were faster."

Fleury: "At the back of your mind you were thinking this actually looks good but we didn't dare let ourselves talk about it or even think about it."

Taylor: "It wasn't something that just happened, it is something that New Zealand had been trying to win for a long time.

"We'd had a lot of heartache along the way."


CLASS OF '95

Where some more famous names from the 1995 team are now.

Team New Zealand

Joe Allen - operations

Matthew Mason - sailing team

Chris Ward - sailing team

Tony Rae - sailing team

Kevin Shoebridge - operations

Ross Blackman - administration

Burns Fallows - sail designer

Nick Heron - design

Barry McKay - shore crew

Alinghi

Brad Butterworth - sailing team

Murray Jones - sailing team

Warwick Fleury - sailing team

Simon Daubney - sailing team

Dean Phipps - sailing team

Ed Baird - sailing team (was B boat helmsman for Team NZ in 1995)

Mike Drummond - sailing team

Oracle

Jamie Gale - sailing team

Ross Halcrow - sailing team

Craig Monk - sailing team

Robbie Naismith - sailing team

Luna Rossa

Andrew Taylor - sailing team

Tom Schnackenberg - sailing team/observer

Victory Challenge

Jeremy Scantlebury - sailing team