Departure gate opens at Team New Zealand
EMIRATES TEAM NEW ZEALAND continues to lurch from one crisis to the next with chief designer Nick Holroyd departing the America’s Cup syndicate.
Holroyd was a key figure in the Kiwis leading the foiling technology race in the giant catamarans at the last regatta and was crucial to Emirates Team New Zealand’s design plans as it works with the late changes initiated for the next challenge in Bermuda 2017.
The flying catamarans were initially reduced to 62-foot versions and then controversially made smaller again, with 48-foot versions now in place for the next America’s Cup.
Holroyd’s intellectual property was valuable and a rival syndicate may be keen to lure him.
Grinders Winston Macfarlane and Derek Saward have also left Emirates Team New Zealand, as has pitman Jeremy Lomas.
With smaller boats being used for this iteration of the Cup, fewer sailors are required, but only three members of the original 2013 crew remain at the Kiwi syndicate.
The latest departures come hot on the heels of board chairman Keith Turner quitting. That followed the messy departure of skipper Dean Barker who was squeezed out when he was relieved of helming duties.
Barker has reinvented himself as chief executive and skipper of the new Team Japan syndicate and interest will centre on his ability to lure Kiwi talent to make the new team competitive. Barker has already lured big name stars like Chris Draper, former Luna Rossa helmsman, who was left without a syndicate when Luna Rossa pulled out of the 2017 event.
Emirates Team New Zealand retains a key brains trust at the top of its sailing team in co-helmsmen Glenn Ashby and Peter Burling, as well as rising star Blair Tuke.
They are facing a race against time to start the World Series in competitive fashion. That series, to be raced in smaller foiling 45-foot catamarans, starts in Portsmouth, England, in July.
Roger Lacey
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