Team NZ basks in its splendid isolation
Team New Zealand believe isolation is its ally for now, though it is eager to engage its America’s Cup opponents when it suits them.
Team New Zealand is in the final phase of testing and training in Auckland and will air-freight their AC50 to the regatta headquarters in Bermuda in a fortnight.
By then its opponents will already have had three rounds of official practice races under a controversial late change to Cup protocol, conveniently passed by its five opponents as the Kiwis sit in Auckland.
Whether it’s the official rules that gag teams from controversial comment or just the chirpy nature of Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby, he was playing the unexpected development down when the syndicate opened up their base and showed off the boat in action to a select group of media yesterday.
Asked if he felt his team was disadvantaged by the late change around practice racing, he replied: ‘‘I don’t think so, at this stage of the game.
‘‘I almost look at it as an advantage at the moment. Those other guys, really, they see each other every day, they are sailing each other every day and they might be in their own little world.’’
He felt there was enough time left to get a feel for their opponents without revealing their own strengths too soon.
‘‘Everyone is still most likely likely in a huge development stage of their programme. We are racing ourselves down here and we have 15 people in a chase boat who all have a pretty good idea of how we should be racing ... you get plenty of feedback.’’
Ashby had little doubt they would be popular on arrival in Bermuda, despite their ‘‘lone wolf’’ stance throughout this cycle of the cup, regularly butting heads with the other five syndicates over rule tweaks.
‘‘The other teams will be doing everything they can to get out and get a gauge on us as soon as we arrive,’’ Ashby said, welcoming that from his team’s standing as well.
‘‘We haven’t sailed against another boat through our whole campaign of testing, so it will be as much of a learning experience for us as it will be for everyone else,’’ Ashby said.
‘‘I don’t think we will be able to hide up there, everyone is sailing around on a really small area, so everyone is going to be in each other’s pockets as I think as they probably all are at the moment.’’
The Auld Mug isn’t won on practice race results and Ashby emphasised it was more important to keep the development going.
Team New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling is equally comfortable with the current situation and felt they had been learning plenty through their reconnaissance in Bermuda which suggested cosy design partners Oracle and Team Japan were the quickest at present.
‘‘It’s been really interesting to see those guys race and it’s obviously a little bit different how it has come about but we’ve just got to get on with it,’’ Burling said.
‘‘We feel like we are learning more than we would up there by being here where we have been set up the whole time. We’re really happy with where we are at. We have just got to keep pushing forward rather than worrying about them.’’
They continue to refine their radical pedal power system and are happy with progress in that and other key areas.
‘‘We have to keep charging on. We know where the bar is and we just have to reach it,’’ Burling said.
‘‘We definitely have a pretty cool boat here with a lot of innovation other than the one that everyone always talks about.’’
Burling was more coy on the practice racing scenario.
‘‘It’s something we will weigh up at the time,’’ he said. ‘‘At some stage you want to race another boat, you don’t want to be doing that first race of the Louis Vuitton series without racing against another boat.
‘‘It will be interesting to see if they want to race against us. We definitely have done a lot more different areas then they have and they have done a lot more racing amongst themselves. We have probably got a lot more to learn by racing against them than they do against us.’’