American Magic boss mixes brains and brawn
Am Cup veteran has hands full — on and off the water — and is thankful to have his old Kiwi mate at his side. Duncan Johnstone reports.
American Magic boss Terry Hutchinson didn’t have to think too hard, or look too far, for the right sailor to steer the syndicate’s America’s Cup hopes.
There aren’t many helmsmen about with the knowledge of sailing big, foiling boats in the sport’s most heated environment, and his old mate Dean Barker fitted the job description in every department.
There was a familiarity which was also reassuring for Hutchinson, with the pair being the key men in Team New Zealand’s 2007 campaign in Valencia that saw them win the Louis Vuitton Cup, and fall agonisingly short of reclaiming the Auld Mug in the match against Alinghi. Barker was skipper and Hutchinson his tactician.
Barker has now returned to his native Auckland wearing American colours to helm their AC75, with Hutchinson again his tactician but also his skipper.
‘‘I was always candid in my mind about the person that was going to steer the boat had to have a couple of qualities in them and Dean fits each one,’’ Hutchinson said during a break in training in Auckland.
‘‘He has America’s Cup experience, he has the whole package when it comes to the development of the high performance multihulls and the foiling multihulls, and then he also has the big boat monohull experience.
‘‘The final thing was having somebody that I could personally trust on the water and off the water.
‘‘You want the team to always be going in the right direction and with his hand on the helm we are certain that we have that.’’
Since 2007, Hutchinson and Barker have been rivals more than team-mates, and the Kiwi did enough to keep his name in the forefront of the mind of his new boss when it came to making a key decision for a syndicate backed by the powerful New York Yacht Club, the oldest name in the game.
‘‘ I always had a healthy respect for him as a sailor and competitor, and even more so as a person. In that regard, it made it an easy choice,’’ Hutchinson said.
They resurrected their partnership in the 2018 season on board Quantum Racing and did the demanding TP52 circuit, where they won the world championship and the super series.
Barker’s Cup role was sealed and his presence adds some real spice to the regatta, given the way he was jettisoned from Team New Zealand in the wake of their 2013 Cup heartbreak in San Francisco, with the Kiwis opting for younger talent like Peter Burling and Blair Tuke to take over,.
Hutchinson likes his own team’s mix of youth and experience and says Barker’s expertise is flourishing as he blends with the other key members of the sailing team, Paul Campbell and Andrew Goodison.
In Hutchinson’s mind ‘‘ we have all the pieces to the puzzle’’ though he concedes, as a new syndicate they ‘‘will never match the time some of the key personnel in the defender have, nor the regatta experience those guys have now from 2017’’.
Plenty of attention will fall on Hutchinson himself, who has the pressure of leading the New York campaign, captaining the boat and also providing a mix of brain and brawn.
In a Cup scene becoming increasingly youthful, the 52- year- old Hutchinson bucks that trend. The shift back to an 11-man crew means there is room for a tactician though with that comes a requirement for some serious work on the grinding handles at times.
In 2013, TNZ boss Grant Dalton took on a similar multidimensional task at a similar age on the giant 72-foot catamarans and had questions raised.
Hutchinson, a multiple world champion in big monohulls who is in his fifth America’s Cup campaign, says he’s isn’t feeling any pressure at the moment, comfortable that he can deliver tactical advice and provide power, though he admits it’s a juggling act.
‘‘I can assure you, if we’re not producing enough oil to make the boat go fast and to allow the guys to sail it properly, well then you just have to step aside to make sure you have the right athlete in there,’’ Hutchinson said.,
‘‘And yet, if all the functions of the boat are performing and you can provide good tactical input and help the boat win, it’s a nobrainer then as well.
‘‘We need to balance the physicals with the experience tangibles that take place.
‘‘We have some great sailors and some great athletes — I’m confident that the team we have going forward will be the right team to win the regatta.’’
Hutchinson got a grinding machine for his birthday this year when Covid-19 restrictions in the USA meant they couldn’t sail and had to keep their fitness work up on shore.
He said he had a developed ‘‘love-hate relationship’’ with the machine during lockdown, but knew the benefits it brought.
Discussing the dynamics of the decision-making on board their boat, Hutchinson it was a collective effort at times, but ultimately Barker is the man on the wheel.
‘‘Once the boat is off the starting line, as a tacticianstrategist, basically you’re presenting simple facts to Dean and Paul [Goodison, the wing trimmer] to position the boat in the proper spot.
‘‘But it is boundary racing and there is only one other boat out there. I’m 100 per cent confident between me and Paul, we’ll keep the boat in the right pressure. But the thing [boat] had better be fast,’’ he said of their new machine called Patriot. ‘‘If it ain’t fast, it isn’t going to matter.’’
And that’s where there are so many questions in a fleet that hasn’t even raced these radical new boats yet.
‘‘The hard thing about this schedule and the hard thing about Covid when you look at what it has forced all the teams to do — it has backed us into a corner.
‘‘We will go into the Christmas Cup and the only race I will have done in 2020 is a Wednesday night race with my family on a J- 70. That’s not exactly America’s Cup preparation.’’
‘‘I always had a healthy respect for Dean Barker as a sailor and competitor, and even more so as a person.’’ Terry Hutchinson