Bermuda: Kiwis are doing it their way

The greatest comeback in all sport, they trumpeted after the 2013 America’s Cup. Yet the 2017 regatta, if Emirates Team New Zealand can work the oracle, so to speak, could blur that line.

In October 2015, dispirited team boss Grant Dalton was flying home from a tough trip to Europe seeking sponsors. He dragged out his laptop and wrote a draft email at 28,000 feet – a press release expressing regret but advising of Emirates Team New Zealand’s closure.

Last I heard, that email was still in Dalton’s drafts folder — a reminder of just how far the team have come. So, if we are talking comebacks, this could be the best yet. The team had little money, few prospects and were being regularly savaged by the public — vetoing government money being given to the team and scornfully dismissing the America’s Cup as a rich man’s plaything. The same people are now eagerly watching every move Team NZ make.

They had come close to the point of no return. The team went on to reduced contracts; they basically shut down for six months while all the other syndicates were building and sailing their boats. The partial closure meant they were late building their boat and to Bermuda while everyone else was training. It looked like a case of bringing a knife to a gunfight.

On top of that, Team NZ parted ways with skipper Dean Barker and other crew/ team members in a messy divorce. They persevered on a pygmy budget of about $ 75m versus Artemis’s € 120m ($ 186m) and Ben Ainslie’s £ 100m ($ 176m).

God knows what Oracle have spent but it is likely to be enough to buy a small country in Africa or maybe match Elton John’s net worth ( allegedly $ 350m).

They kept only their design team working during “hibernation” — a decision that has paid off handsomely in Bermuda — but were robbed of a qualifying regatta in Auckland.

Partly as a result, they found themselves offside with Oracle and the head of the Cup event, Sir Russell Coutts.

Oracle set about gathering the other challengers round them, much as a mother duck fusses over ducklings. They welded challengers to their will by promising them regular racing in the America’s Cup World Series and, possibly, a Cup regatta every two years instead of the more usual four or five years.

The teams, seeing guaranteed employment through regular sponsor exposure, bought into this – with only Team NZ refusing to sign the agreement, thus leaving the door open for a different approach should they win in Bermuda.

That resulted in the Kiwis being frozen out not just by the defender but by the other challengers — hence Dalton’s “lone wolf” quote. It was a stance some challengers may now be regretting with New Zealand sailing into tomorrow’s Cup match.

The defender always stacks the deck in the Cup but never quite like this, with Oracle racing in the challenger series and chief duckling SoftBank Team Japan, skippered by Barker, training with Oracle after elimination. That’s like the All Blacks having a practice match against England after going out of the Rugby World Cup.

But this time Team NZ are not belligerent over Oracle’s manoeuvrings, deliberately standing on their dignity. There’s been a myriad of minor hindrances and irritations but they have chosen to remain mostly silent. One example is the fact rookie helmsman Peter Burling has had to front press conferences when event organisers changed the rules from skippers having to attend to helmsmen.

It is difficult to think of any reason for this other than to put pressure on the newbie . . . unless it is that cheeky Team NZ skipper Glenn Ashby presented Spithill with a legal kingpost at a presser last year ( the kingpost being the item Oracle were found to have cheated with during the 2013 America’s Cup World Series).

However, sources close to Team NZ say they are delighted with their design advances. The Kiwi foils are the most radical and perhaps most effective; their wing is trimmed differently from everyone else’s; and their hydraulics system seems to be the most efficient on view, although Oracle also seem strong in that area.

The Kiwi cyclors are part of that. Some of the other boats seemingly run out of hydraulic power late in races, as the grinders ran out of gas. The cyclors often don’t seem to be pedalling flat out, suggesting plenty in reserve.