Team NZ adopts aggressive mindset
Team New Zealand have an increasingly aggressive mindset as the clock counts down on their defence of the America’s Cup.
March 6 marks one year until the America’s Cup Match in Auckland when the Kiwis will line out against the top challenger next year.
But Team New Zealand say it’s about winning the America’s Cup, not defending it.
They’ve got a lot going on. They are pushing their development with the scaled down test boat and pushing ahead with the build of the second generation 75-foot foiling monohull that will be used for the winner-takes-all match.
The first boat Te Aihe has just switched container ships in Singapore on its way to Sardinia for the opening World Series regatta in Cagliari at the end of April – an event still on but with administrators eyeing the impact of the coronavirus in Italy on a day-to-day basis as the spread of the disease impacts more and more major sporting events.
A function at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron last night marked the 365-day mark on the countdown clock but most of the team members will be busy working rather than sipping champagne.
Team New Zealand chief operations office Kevin Shoebridge spoke of the shift in mindset within the team for this campaign after their stunning success in Bermuda in 2017 when they caught everyone unawares with their radical design.
‘‘For the challengers, all you are trying to do is win the cup. When you are the defender you also have other considerations, but at the end of the day, no matter who you are you still need to win it. So this mindset is a subtle change, but I think a correct one and it’s how we are all thinking here,’’ said Shoebridge.
In a game where time is the one commodity these big-spending teams can’t buy, Shoebridge felt his team were placed.
‘‘One year to go has come around really quickly. It is a pretty exciting time for us as a team. Everything we have put in place over the last couple of years is aiming at the 6th of March 2021 and the subsequent weeks.
‘‘We feel as though we are in a good space. We have a lot going on this year with developing boat one, developing the 12m test boat, we have boat two under construction and we are about to head off to the ACWS regattas. So by the time all of that happens, we are going to be getting pretty close.’’
The world series regattas – Portsmouth and Auckland will follow Cagliari – will give an early idea of how Team New Zealand stack up against heavyweight challengers American Magic, INEOS
Team UK and Luna Rossa.
But unlike the last Cup where holders Oracle Team USA, for the first time in history, included themselves in the challenger series, the 36th edition in Auckland returns to the traditional format of the defender waiting on the winning challenger for the Cup Match.
The intrigue of the first start and the opening dash to the first mark often tells the way the whole match can go in terms of revealing who really does have the fastest boat.
‘‘It’s going to be an amazing day on March 6. No one is really going to know on that day how it’s going to play out,’’ Shoebridge said.
‘‘The defender and challengers wouldn’t have sailed against each other since the last world series regatta in December. So March 6 is quite a long way after that and a lot of things can happen in that period of time, so it’s going to be a really exciting weekend.’’
For some of the team, like the boat builders under the eye of construction manager Geoff Senior, there are earlier deadlines to meet.
‘‘For us, this is it right now. This is our mini America’s Cup within the campaign,’’ Senior said of getting the second boat completed.
‘‘If we don’t deliver this boat on time then we have failed. So there is a bit of pressure on us, but we are used to that and we know how important it is for the team to receive the boat on time. So we are all guns blazing from here, weekends, we are doing night shift as well. So we take it all pretty seriously.’’
Shore team manager Sean Regan is one of the key people to make sure the increasing deadlines are met.
’’We all know what we are here for, we are certainly not here for the party. We have to produce a weapon for our sailors to go to war on the water with.’’