Team NZ offers to help likely Cup challengers

Emirates Team New Zealand is willing to help potential America’s Cup challengers, should they need it.

The first entry period ended yesterday, with three heavily-financed teams opting to line up against Team New Zealand in Auckland in 2021.

Challenger of Record Luna Rossa, Ben Ainslie’s Ienos Team UK and the New York Yacht Club have left a choppy wake for smaller teams to follow.

Earlier this year, British sailor Sir Ben Ainslie announced his next campaign received a significant boost of $217 million, scaring many other competitors. Team NZ chief executive Grant Dalton told NewsTalk ZB’s Martin Devlin he was shocked by Ainslie’s backing and said other teams struggle to see how they can compete.

“About four of the smaller teams are looking at that and going, ‘wow, this is a big mountain to climb’.”

“It is a lot of money [speaking of Ainslie’s backing] that would have done the last two-and-a-half campaigns for Emirates Team New Zealand.

“They’re big teams that have a lot of people and a lot of resource and they’re going to spend quite a lot of money.”

Dalton is in negotiations with four other teams and says Team NZ is willing to assist them with design and set-up but insists that money isn’t everything.

“My answer to them is to use the Emirates Team New Zealand example. We were always the smaller team and look what you can do in a lot of cases with half the resource.

“We’ve shown that David can beat Goliath and can beat him well if you make smart decisions,” he said.

Dalton added that it’s hard to find legitimate sponsorships in the sailing market but Team NZ should be in the clear with a budget similar to the Bermuda campaign.

Questioning whether he put too much strain on teams with the deadline, he said in reality there was only space for a total of six teams.

“It might be that we put the pressure on a little early and they need more time,” Dalton said.

“I think that late entry period right till the end of the year certainly gives these other teams more time.

“But in the end, there’s one thing, we can only actually — in terms of the facilities — we can only take two more teams anyway.”

On August 31, the location and course area of the Cup match and Prada Cup are confirmed.