Yachting: Team NZ on for the Cup

Brad Butterworth isn't sure Team NZ have what it takes to win the next America's Cup under Grant Dalton. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Team New Zealand are expected to confirm this week they will challenge for the 35th America's Cup.

Facing the possibility of having to close their doors at the end of the month if they could not come up with $11 million to keep the syndicate afloat until February next year, it's understood several private investors have stumped up their own money to secure Team NZ's future.

Despite criticism the protocol for the next America's Cup heavily favours defenders Oracle, the size of the project has never bothered Team NZ, with boss Grant Dalton insisting they are in a better place to launch a campaign than they were at the same time in the last Cup cycle.

The team's concerns were purely financial, with the delay in naming a Cup venue until the end of the year leaving them facing a funding shortfall as they are unable to finalise sponsorship deals without details of the next event. But Emirates Team NZ director Sir Stephen Tindall yesterday confirmed to Newstalk ZB the syndicate have found the money to green-light the project.

"This time last week we were facing closure," Tindall said. "A few of us have put our hands in our pockets and we can tell you we've got enough money to get us through to the end of the year now. We're more confident every day we're going to be able to challenge."

In the meantime their financial crisis has given way to an even greater PR crisis following Dalton's plea last week for the Government to chip in further money to help tide them over until their commercial sponsorship kicks in. The prospect of the Government once again bailing out Team NZ prompted an angry public reaction, particularly in light of revelations in yesterday's Herald Dalton's annual salary was about $2m during the last Cup campaign.

Adding to pressure on Dalton are revelations four-time America's Cup winner and former Team NZ tactician Brad Butterworth made a bid to take over the leadership of the syndicate earlier in the year. Butterworth yesterday told Newstalk ZB he approached Tindall once the new board were appointed in March to throw his hat in the ring for Dalton's job, but his pitch was rejected.

Butterworth believes Team NZ's operation is "too much of a closed shop" and has failed to promote any competition for places on the sailing team. Asked if Team NZ had any chance of winning the next event under Dalton's leadership, Butterworth said: "It depends how they structure themselves and, at the moment, it's looking pretty difficult. It's looking like the same, old stuff.

"It's a tough game and there are a lot of things you have to get right. To get a situation where you are 8-1 up doesn't come along every four years. It might happen once in a lifetime so you've got to make the right calls and you've got to be able to stick by your decision."

But Tindall said if Dalton left, Team NZ would be "dead".

"The board is 100 per cent behind Grant. We've had a full review, a confidential review with the whole team ... we did not go into this lightly. We would not have chosen Grant Dalton if the other members of the team didn't want him, but they did. They wanted him. He is a galvanising factor for this team. He's a guy who can raise the money for us. He's a guy who can win it."

Tindall said they considered Butterworth's pitch carefully but his lack of experience leading a commercial team counted against him. While Butterworth has an impressive record as a sailor, in the last Cup campaign he ran Alinghi were comprehensively beaten by Oracle in the 2010 deed of gift challenge.

"[Butterworth] has worked for these mega-wealthy people who have provided the funds and has just been able to get on and look after the sailing side of things and not have to be commercial and raise the funds as well."

Team NZ's board plan to make some of their findings from their review into last year's unsuccessful challenge public in a couple of months once they have got through the current financial and political maelstrom. However, Tindall defended the team's salaries as well as use of tax-payer funds, pointing out it was a tax-neutral investment that provided New Zealand's marine industry with a massive boost.

"The Government put in $36 million in the last campaign. They got back $38 million in taxes - GST, PAYE, ACC. The public actually made $2m on the deal.

"The money that is being paid to our sailors is being paid basically by people like me, private funders, and our large sponsors. So that really has to be understood."