Drink in the thrill of the America’s Cup

TO AN observer, NZL 68 must be flitting across Waitemata Harbour with effortless ease. But on board, the crew are grinding hard.

Four teams of eight are assembled round what are essentially hand-powered bikes, furiously spinning them to generate enough power to shift the sail and catch the wind. And they’re kidding themselves that they’re doing it fast enough to compete with the best.

NZL 68 was built for a German yachting club that was going to challenge for the America’s Cup, but then dropped out. It then passed into the hands of the New Zealand team competing in the 2007 America’s Cup and was used as a training vessel.

Nowadays, it finds itself, along with another identical America’s Cup-class yacht, NZL 41, moored in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour, manhandled on a daily basis by amateurs who are probably not going to be any threat to New Zealand’s newly crowned America’s Cupwinning team. Herded along by four remarkably patient professional crew, bumbling novices are allowed to learn the rope sand sail the precisiondesigned racing yacht.

In practice, of course, this means grinding. Arm muscles get a thorough workout, and bad backs are put to the test. But it doesn’t take long for people to get into it, powering away with relish. The rewards, of course, come when there’s no need to tack or jibe and the yacht charges across the water.

It’s a magnificent beast, 80ft long and with a 113ft-tall mast, but with no fripperies that get in the way of speed and manoeuvrability.

It generally glides along at between nine and 12 knots – that’s getting up to just under 14mph, or roughly the speed of the ferry ploughing between Auckland city centre and beach suburb Devonport. For those more accustomed to a leisurely sail, there are some unnerving facets of proper yachting to get used to.

Firstly, we can forget about comfy seats – everyone has to park themselves along the edges of the boat and hope not to get splashed by a rogue wave. Secondly, those edges don’t stay neatly on a level. The initial lurches as the yacht tips almost on its side are more than a little terrifying – especially when the skipper idly says it’s not supposed to go over that far. Nobody’s sure if he’s joking.

But after ten minutes or so, it becomes the new normal. Commands (‘Grind forwards!’) and barked motivation (‘A flappy sail is an unhappy sail!’) become part of a life on the ocean wave. But when the wind’s behind you, Auckland’s Sky Tower to one side and volcanic island to the other, any thoughts about issuing a serious challenge to the world yachting champions happily drift away.