The Jimmy riddle
Who is Jimmy Spithill?
He’s arguably the Aussie Kiwis love to hate the most.
A proven winner who loves to run off at the mouth, take potshots at Team NZ and to top it all off, is brother- in- arms with our America’s Cup villain Sir Russell Coutts.
As helmsman of Oracle, he is the experienced campaigner, going directly up against Kiwi newcomer Peter Burling.
Spithill, 37, has won the America’s Cup twice ( 2010 and 2013 Oracle Team USA).
He was just 19 when named skipper of the Young Australia challenge for the 2000 America’s Cup in Auckland.
It made the brash Sydneysider the youngest skipper in America’s Cup history.
Then, the syndicate stayed in hostels, used mountain bikes to get around central Auckland and a rusty barge doubled as their waterfront base — a far cry from the set- up of cashed- up syndicates.
Spithill been dubbed “Pit- Bull” and “James Pitbull” by some At 15, the pair had won their first world championship title.
At 16, Evans and Burling were being pushed into the 470 class and encouraged to have a crack at the qualifying for the Beijing Olympics. A year later, at just 17, they were on the start line of their first Olympic Games.
Then came the move to the 49er, a high- performance skiff, and the beginning of the highly successful partnership with Tuke.
“He always had that natural courage and he always had a natural determination. I remember a P- class regatta and he’d rubbed the skin off the back of his legs from his hiking strap. From [ his ankles to the midcalf ] it was raw, oozing. It would have hurt like hell, but he stuck out every race,” says Heather.
That determination i s matched with a highly analytical mind and natural curiosity about the ways things work.
If they weren’t on the water, the Burling boys — encouraged by Richard, who put his teaching career on hold to be a stay- at- home dad while Heather, a doctor, established her practice in Tauranga — were forever tinkering in the shed. They’d build things, then promptly demolish them and start again.
“Peter used to make land yachts with wing sails on them,” says Richard, who considers himself to be “practical with these things as well”.
“He must have been 12 or 13 at that stage — he built this model, but it was too powerful, so he got the jigsaw out opponents and yachting fans for his dogged determination, aggressive tactics and never- saydie attitude.
Who can forget his taunt at a 2013 America’s Cup press conference when Team NZ took a massive lead — and later choked: “I think the question is, imagine if these guys lost from here, what an upset that would be.
“They’ve almost got it in the bag, so that’s my motivation.”
He was back at it when he welcomed New Zealand reporters to Bermuda.
“First of all it’s great to see all you Kiwi media back here in the press conference room, I miss you guys.
“I’m certainly looking forward to the days ahead.”
This year, Spithill has again tried to stir the pot — claiming he has a “leak” inside the New Zealand camp.
“Both times we’ve raced Team New Zealand they have made some pretty fundamental mistakes . . . at the start line today and obviously at the top mark again.” and cut a third of the wingsail off and put adjusters on for light weather.
“He’s always been a fix- it typeof person. At the 420 worlds — the one they won — they broke one of the trapeze wires that they hang off, so they only had one. So he just threw it around the other side of the boat, and fixed it up there,” says Richard, marvelling at his son’s presence of mind in the heat of competition.
Burling was two years into an engineering degree before sailing took over his life.
His mother doesn’t expect he’ll return to it any time soon — it’s unlikely Burling will find the time to squeeze in another two years of study while he concentrates on getting his “PhD in sailing”.
“He’s the kind of guy that if you were stranded on a desert i sland you’d want to be with Pete because he’d figure out how to build a shelter and how to find food and how to get out of there — he’s got that immense practicality to him,” says Heather.
That practicality shone through in the squalls on the Great Sound last week as Team NZ’s boat, and campaign, teetered on the brink.
After the catamaran was righted, and Burling was freed from the cockpit, which had been suspended some 15m in the air, he immediately went to survey the wreckage.
While most of the Team NZ crew came ashore, some in need of medical attention, Burling stayed with the