Simmer-ing tensions
Forget Jimmy Spithill, says Duncan Johnstone, there’s a far more influential Australian trying to win back the Auld Mug.
Grant Simmer is very much Mr America’s Cup of Auckland 2021. No-one else can match his record. This is his 11th campaign and he has won the Auld Mug four times, with three different countries, often with a neversay- die attitude that defines his character, and is so suited to yachting’s pinnacle event.
Forget Jimmy Spithill, the softly- spoken 63- year- old silverhaired Simmer might be the most dangerous Australian at this regatta.
He’s now CEO with INEOS Team UK, overseeing the British challenge. Skipper Sir Ben Ainslie had been at him for a while, and he finally relented.
Ainslie knows how crucial the experience factor is in this game and no-one has more than Simmer, who has won the America’s Cup in the United States, New Zealand and Europe.
His record goes back to the legendary comeback victory of Australia II in 1983. He was navigator when a challenger beat the defender for the first time in 132 years, an upset victory that launched the Cup on a global journey that now finds its way back to the Waitemata Harbour.
Simmer knows these waters well. He was head of design and then managing director at Alinghi when they lifted the Cup from Team New Zealand in 2003, and beat the Kiwis again four years later at Valencia 2007.
He was general manager with Oracle Team USA for their incredible comeback victory against Team New Zealand at San Francisco 2013, where he had Ainslie on the sailing team.
He couldn’t repeat that with Oracle in Bermuda and thought his Cup days might be done.
‘‘ I’d joined Oracle halfway through the San Francisco campaign, when things weren’t going that well and Russell [ Coutts] asked me to do it, and just steady the ship a bit, really. Try to pull everything together and coordinate things,’’ Simmer explained.
‘‘They had a really strong sailing team with Jimmy [ Spithill] and co, and they had a good design team, but it just wasn’t quite all working together.
‘‘I mean, we were lucky to win
the Cup, there’s no doubt about that, but we certainly turned things around in the 14 months that I was there.’’
Ainslie wanted Simmer to head his British challenge for Bermuda 2017, but Simmer stayed loyal to Oracle. When the Americans lost to the Kiwis and pulled out of the Cup game, Simmer was a free agent and the persistent Ainslie finally got his man.
‘‘Ben and I had gotten to know each other better over the years. So I decided to do it. It’s not easy joining a team; it’s not like we’ve made a new team here. Ben Ainslie Racing had a lot of good people.’’
Simmer said he had never been concerned about national allegiances, especially with Australia’s patchy participation record.
‘‘It’s just a professional game and you are so focused on trying to win and put together the best package,’’ he said.
He has witnessed a design evolution turn into a foiling revolution. He’s been through seven America’s Cup class changes including the 12M, IACC, the giant multihulls of the 2010 Deed of Gift match, the foiling 72- foot and 50-foot catamarans, and now the 75-foot foiling monohulls.
Nothing surprises him, and he’s all for good change.
‘‘ Personally, I think the America’s Cup needs to be the cutting edge of technology and that is why having a foiling boat is absolutely critical,’’ Simmer said.
‘‘I think if you are a teenager
today, you would only be thinking that if I’m going to sail, I’m going to sail a foiling moth or some foiling dinghy. The America’s Cup needs to be something that young people aspire to be involved in, so we have to have high technology boats.’’
He doesn’t lament that some pure sailing skills have been lost as the need for power has increased. A helmsman, a wing controller and a flight controller of the foils are now the three key positions in an 11-man crew on the AC75s.
‘‘The fact that guys – and this happened in the last Cup – are just grinding without real involvement in any of the tactical decision making or anything, that’s not new,’’ Simmer counters.
‘‘When we raced 12m boats, we had rowers who were grinders and you wouldn’t want to put them in a Finn dinghy — they wouldn’t know what they were doing. But they were bloody good grinders.’’
Simmer is trying to guide Britain’s first successful challenge in a competition they invented, but lost at their first attempt. He does have a bit of time for nostalgia though.
Not surprisingly, he lists the 1983 breakthrough moment at Rhode Island as his most favourite. Australia II came from a 3-1 deficit to edge Dennis Conner’s Liberty, 4-3.
‘‘Just because it was such an extreme — the first Cup to be won off America. We were a really tight, small team. We all ended up being mates, and we’re still mates.
‘‘But there have been lots of good ones. The Alinghi one here in ‘03 was a really good Cup. San Francisco — bloody hell, that was an incredible thing.’’
He senses something special could happen at Auckland 2021, despite the small numbers.
‘‘It’s a high quality fleet that is mastering these volatile boats. I have been impressed with how all the teams have coped with that, and how they are manoeuvring with consistency.’’ Manoeuvring and consistency – hallmarks of Simmer and his influence.
‘‘The America’s Cup needs to be something that young people aspire to be involved in, so we have to have high technology boats.’’ Team UK boss Grant Simmer