Reaping the benefits of cup defence
OPINION: For half an hour or so I felt I had stepped into the future.
Iwas travelling at 40 knots, foiling across the Waitemata¯ Harbour in a comfortable boat that was not only well short of its top speed, but also emission-free thanks to its hydrogen-powered engines.
The next day I headed to work on the ferry as usual, a big, loud, diesel-emitting vessel that some time over the next decade will probably give way to something more resembling the emissionfree vessel.
My futuristic outing was in a carbon fibre-hulled chase boat designed and built in-house by America’s Cup defender Team New Zealand, with state-of-the-art fuel cells provided by longstanding sponsor Toyota.
Having proved the concept, the team has required all challengers in the 2024 Cup to run a similar zero-emission vessel, cutting the climate harming gases pumping out by traditional petrol-fuelled chase boats.
It’s another example of the team being at the cutting edge of the country’s important boatbuilding industry, and a reminder it is simply one of Aotearoa’s highest-tech design and manufacturing operations.
Many people’s views of the America’s Cup and New Zealand’s 35-year history in it are based on a perception that it is rich boys and their toys, and that the decision to stage the 37th cup in Barcelona, not Auckland, has severed its meaning to this country.
The reality is that until the racing begins, and it moves into the realm of sport, Team New Zealand campaigns are about high-tech manufacturing – which has, over decades, changed the marine sector.
While major challengers for 2024 have formed design alliances with motorsport Formula 1 teams, Team New Zealand will use its inhouse expertise ranging from an F1-level design chief, to bright graduate engineers from a local university.
Most of this is funded by offshore sponsors, and while budgets in the Cup are always secret, past economic assessments of Team NZ’s offshore campaigns show most of that money is spent locally.
The decision to take the next defence offshore in order to bolster funding for the team’s sailing campaign means Auckland misses the buzz, and the country willmiss the influx of cup-related visits and spending.
However the real, lasting economic value of particularly Auckland-based marine technology will continue to build.
Team New Zealand closely guards its race-winning edge, but remains part of an eco-system of high-tech, high performance.
Its designers carried out analytical work for Panmure-based EV Maritime’s development of electric ferries, two of which have been commissioned for Auckland commuter routes from 2024.
EV Maritime itself, an offshoot of long-established boatbuilder McMullen and Wing, was involved in discussions with the team as it explored the concept of the hydrogen-powered chase boat.
In the flow of expertise and personnel in the industry, links extend to Auckland-based Seachange, which is working on a hydrofoiling car ferry, initially for the Cook Strait run.
Down the road from Seachange, Zerojet, has developed a battery-powered jet propulsion system for small runabouts and dinghies.
In Warkworth, a firm owned by Larry Ellison’s Oracle racing, and which built components of the foiling catamaran that beat Team NZ in 2013, is now called Sail GP Technologies and builds the fleet used in the global series.
Ironically, the staging of the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona could provide an ideal platform for marine and other export sectors to promote their wares globally, more easily.
Trade show and promotional activity by New Zealand firms during the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco, in 2013, was estimated by the government to have contributed ninemonths later to deals worth $200 million and a further $120m of new sales opportunities and investor interest.
It might be the racing that ignites public interest, but Auckland is reaping the benefits of Team New Zealand’s defence of the America’s Cup already.