Millpond calm emanating from NZ camp
We have got to go out there and keep learning and keep striving to go forward.
Shortly after stepping off the water following his fourth successive loss to Team New Zealand, a humbled but defiant Jimmy Spithill warned “we’ve been here before”.
The Oracle skipper’s words have rubbed at the sore spots of the New Zealand national psyche over the past five days while the 35th America’s Cup match sits in a state of suspended animation after the opening weekend of racing.
For a team that engineered the beginnings of one of sport’s greatest comebacks in the space of 48 hours, five days seems like a luxurious amount of time to try and scrub out Emirates Team New Zealand’s speed advantage.
And yet, despite the wounds from San Francisco having barely scabbed over, there is almost an unnerving sense of calm emanating from the Team NZ base sitting in the heart of the America’s Cup village.
Performance coach Murray Jones, who as a member of the Oracle camp in 2013 knows first- hand what the US team are capable of, said with a glint in his eye he is “quietly confident” Team NZ will be able to pick up where they left off when racing resumes tomorrow with the Kiwi syndicate leading 3- 0 in the first- to- seven series.
Famed for his role as Team NZ’s “man up the mast” in the historic 1995 victory in San Diego, Jones has built a career on knowing when the wind shifts are coming, and he doesn’t anticipate one here on the Great Sound.
Skipper Glenn Ashby, the only member of the 2013 crew back on board the New Zealand boat in Bermuda, is also remarkably zen. Team NZ may have been here before, but this time they’ve got a plan to respond — and the Australian is confident his adopted home syndicate will be able to stay one step ahead of Oracle this time around.
Ashby’s optimism is still tempered with caution.
But then, Team NZ have had to remain vigilant throughout their campaign. There were periods when the besieged syndicate thought they wouldn’t even be in Bermuda, let alone the America’s Cup match.
Ashby said they’re not about to drop their guard four wins away from fulfilling what for some in the team has been a 14- year quest to bring the Auld Mug back to New Zealand.
Team NZ has paid painstaking attention to detail as they go about their preparations for “phase two” of the stop- start America’s Cup match.
After two days in the shed undergoing mysterious “refinements” the New Zealand boat has been out on the water over the past two days, as the crew continue their ascent of the steep learning curve helmsman Peter Burling makes constant reference to.
Team NZ’s training days have mirrored their race day programme. The shore team launches the boat at the same time, the crew docks out at 1.15pm sharp, and they return by 4pm for debriefs and data- crunching.
“We have got to go out there and keep learning and keep striving to go forward. Make sure we look after the bus but keep the foot on the throat and stay tuned in while we are yachting,” said Ashby.
“In the back of our minds there is always that understanding that [ Oracle] can get better too. We need to advance with them.”
Across the water, the Oracle camp have been testing and training two, sometimes three times a day as they seek to negate the speed advantage of the Kiwi boat.
While Spithill and co are finding comfort in the parallels that can be drawn with the San Francisco regatta, where Team NZ enjoyed all the early running, it is the differences that should be weighing most heavily on their minds.
In 2013 Team NZ set the pace with their campaign, hitting all the major milestones ahead of their rivals.
This time around they started way behind the eight ball, launching their first test boat more than a year after the likes of Oracle, Artemis and British syndicate Ben Ainslie Racing. They must all be scratching their heads as to how a team that were so late to the game somehow managed to get so far ahead of it.
The key players are different this time around as well. Aside from Ashby, the young crew went into the event without any baggage from previous campaigns. What the likes of Burling and his Olympic sidekick Blair Tuke have brought is youth, energy and a healthy appetite for taking on risks.
At 26 and 27 they are too young to be thinking of their personal legacies in the sport, because this is the beginning for them, not the end.
Some, like Simon van Velthooven and Joe Sullivan, haven’t even competed at a yachting regatta before, let alone an America’s Cup. They might just be on the verge of pulling off something seasoned sailors worked decades towards without reward.
The events of the previous three weeks on the Great Sound have shown nothing can be taken for granted. We have seen high- stakes penalties, a helmsman lost overboard, crashes, and of course capsizes.
But as far as being caught off guard by an Oracle comeback again?
“This one’s just got a different feel to it,” Ashby said.