THATS OUR BOYS! A NATION celebrates
THE AMERICA’S CUP VICTORS MADE NEW ZEALAND PROUD IN BERMUDA
Once again, the America’s Cup is now New Zealand’s cup!” For the third time in history, legendary sailing commentator Peter Montgomery delivered the line the entire nation had been waiting with bated breath to hear. Twenty-six-year-old Olympic gold medallist Peter Burling, Australian Glenn
Ashby (39) and their incredible, innovative and humble team had done it – the Auld Mug was coming back to Aotearoa.
“What a rollercoaster ride it has been – highs, lows, joys and heartbreaks – but the reservoir of experience in the high-octane and unforgiving world of the America’s Cup has been invaluable... it’s been 22 years in the making.”
A rollercoaster ride, indeed. Broken boats, an empty purse and the usual mud-slinging we’ve come to expect from this type of yacht race made this win all the sweeter. But as Emirates Team New Zealand prepares to wing their way back home for a parade to end all parades this week, our proud nation is celebrating the people in and around that magnificent boat that crossed the finish line almost a minute before Jimmy Spithill’s Oracle Team USA.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better team,” says 1 News sports reporter Abby Wilson (32), chatting to the Weekly from Bermuda.
“They are that good. Predominantly, they’re a group of young, talented Kiwis who love what they do and are very good at it – and who did it proudly.”
And at the helm was Peter Burling, the lad from Tauranga who has captured the heart of the nation with his humble, dry and down-to-earth personality and immense talent on the water.
Often looking as though he was going for a casual Sunday drive rather than sailing a multimillion-dollar catamaran, Peter’s calm and unshakeable disposition – reminiscent of greats such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Richie McCaw – stunned the racing world and provided a perfect foil for his opposite, outspoken Australian Jimmy (37).
“It was our goal and dream to come here and win the America’s Cup, and to have it sitting there... we’re just blown away,” says Peter.
“To bring the trophy home is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Holding the famed cup aloft alongside the vindicated Grant Dalton (59), Peter, who won gold alongside Team NZ foil trimmer Blair Tuke (27) in the 49er class at last year’s Olympics, was certainly a long way from his humble beginnings in Tauranga.
Peter’s first taste of sailing came at age six, when he’d clamour aboard an old wooden Optimist dinghy called Jellytip. His older brother Scott was actually the one most interested in sailing, and Peter would tag along. But the youngster got “ridiculously good, ridiculously quickly” tells his mother Heather. Junior and senior success followed, until he made his Olympic debut in 2008, before claiming silver with buddy Blair in 2012.
Always confident, but reserved, Peter has usually left it to others to do the talking, preferring to stay in the background and just get on with the job – a trait he carried into this year’s campaign in Bermuda, until he was required to turn up to press conferences opposite Jimmy.
Mum Heather, who along with husband Richard has been in Bermuda cheering on her son, says that out of everything, watching him trade barbs – or, more often than not, ignore Jimmy’s – was the most surprising aspect of the campaign.
“He was a really shy kid,” she told the Herald. “Speaking in public was not something that came naturally. We’re really proud of him... He is grounded and has always been Peter, even with everything else going on.”
Still, Heather and Richard have both echoed Peter’s own insistences that he is but a cog in the machine, Peter himself refusing to take the credit for the incredible 7-1 win.
“I’m just a small part of a massive team,” he says, with Richard adding that the rest of the team makes Peter look good.
“[Peter] is the quintessential Kiwi, he’s down-to-earth, he’s got that drive, that quick sense of humour, he’s very humble,” says reporter Abby.
“I was watching the boats cross the line right behind Peter’s parents and I asked them if they could believe what had happened.
“And they replied, ‘We’re just an ordinary family from Tauranga, we had no idea his career would go on this amazing trajectory.’”
And it was family, friends and the entire team who partied into the wee hours of the Bermudan evening, in what was the most Kiwi of celebrations.
An ecstatic and slightly ruddy-faced Peter and Blair were spotted chugging a bottle of well-deserved beer while belting out The Exponents’ song Victoria before taking it in turns to cannonball off the jetty. Mince pies and lamingtons were devoured by the crowd.
Abby says the atmosphere was incredible.
“It was such a Kiwi environment,” she tells.
“You had their kids playing backyard cricket in the courtyard, people bombing off the wharf and then the party going on inside, playing Kiwi music.
“But I was really surprised by the emotion,” she continues. “Kiwi blokes, sometimes, aren’t very good at being open. But there were tears. It was so cool to see what this means for so many people.”
But, she admits, she didn’t wear red socks for the shindig –“I had them on for the first day and my goodness, about an hour in, I was like, ’Ooh, this is a bad idea in 30-degree heat!’” she laughs. “Though Blair Tuke’s brothers were wearing pull-on Kiwi suits. They must have been so, so hot!”
Despite a competition where many of the rules and regulations were set by Oracle that left Team New Zealand at a distinct disadvantage, the determined Kiwis still managed to compete on their terms.
Out-moneyed by Oracle and
their billionaire backer Larry Ellison, it was down to ingenuity, creativity and yes, a bit of number-eight wire to come up with the best boat.
CEO and sailing legend Grant Dalton admitted last week money was so tight, he couldn’t pay his sailors’ wages during the competition, as well as the fact the boat that won us the cup, the Aotearoa, was in fact broken for weeks following the almost disastrous capsize in the Louis Vuitton challenger series a few weeks before.
But their resolve to get their hands on that silver trophy was single-minded – indeed, when presented with expensive Louis Vuitton bags as part of their winnings, the team biffed them straight into the crowd, much to their supporters’ delight.
Now the focus shifts to the future. Immediately, the attention has been on the ticker-tape parade, due to be held in Auckland this week. But soon, New Zealand will host the next regatta and defend the cup, a responsibility Grant says they’re not taking lightly.
“What’s important, and this is a key message we want to relay going forward, is that it’s a privilege to hold the America’s Cup, it’s not a right. And it was embodied in the way Team
New Zealand was under Sir Peter Blake. If you’re good enough to take it from us, then you will and we’ll try very hard to be good enough to keep it. We won’t turn it [the rules] to make sure you can’t.”
In the meantime, some rest and relaxation is on the cards for our new heroes – or if you’re Glenn Ashby, “a cup of tea and a lie-down” will do the trick!
Job done, boys.
Welcome home.