America’s Cup gone for good: Home defence a no-brainer
This is the last straw — Team NZ set up to fail offshore
It is unlikely we will again see the battle for the Auld Mug contested on New Zealand waters. Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron struck a deal to host the next America’s Cup in Barcelona — and the deal gives the Catalans the right of renewal if
Team NZ defends the Cup.
It was obvious to me from the outset Grant Dalton didn’t want to be here. The guy who could help raise the money, Mark Dunphy, was cut out of the process from the get-go.
I sense Dalton was fed up at the scrutiny he was under in New Zealand being chief executive of America’s Cup Events, set up to run the regatta, and also the boss of Team NZ.
By going offshore to Barcelona, he is setting Team NZ up to fail — and I think he sees this as the last campaign for him.
Team NZ would always have had a better chance of defending on home waters — it’s a no-brainer.
It’s worth remembering this is Dalton’s game. He designed the class rule, decided on the protocol. He holds the commercial rights to everything.
He has determined the operating cost — it’s his game. He has done it.
So for Team NZ to say it’s all too expensive and therefore we’ve got to go offshore is no excuse. Loyalty, parochialism, patriotism, all that stuff Dalton has rammed down everyone’s throat over the past 10 years, is all bulls***.
The deal with Barcelona sounds light, €70 million ($112 million) to run the event and fund the team.
This saga has left many in the sailing community and wider New Zealand public disillusioned. Surely, this is the final straw. There have been economic-impact studies done over the past
20 years telling everybody about how billions of dollars get poured into the New Zealand economy from the America’s Cup being held here. Suddenly that benefit is gone. There are many things that could have been done to make the cost of the campaign cheaper.
They could have had a shorter time frame, which would have made a big difference.
You could limit the size of the teams and personnel and make the boats more user-friendly so more teams could challenge and it wouldn’t be a mountain to climb to get the technical side of these boats completed.
But Dalton has chosen this.
It’s his game, he can’t complain how much it costs.
The team has been successful here. Their base of operations is in New Zealand and that’s going to change. So I can’t see them moving from here until they have to, they’ll just show up in Barcelona at the end. And if you ask me, that’s just a recipe for disaster in terms of trying to defend the trophy.
● The Secret Sailor is an internationally acclaimed yachtie with a strong history in the America’s Cup.