Oracle: ‘ Put your money on NZ’ Two tribes go to war
Jane Phare talks to the magnificent makers behind the flying machines — the New Zealand boatbuilders behind the America’s Cup finalists
Larry’s “toyshop” is not what you’d expect from an American billionaire. The mystery Warkworth boat- building factory that created most of Oracle — the bows have to be built in the country of origin — most of Japan’s boat and parts of other America’s Cup fleet boats is a little on the shabby side.
Turn past Mahurangi College into the Woodcocks Rd and Larry Ellison’s neighbours are exactly what you’d expect for an industrial estate — paint and panel shops, a commercial laundry and Porky’s lunch bar.
No 73 looks only a little more swish. There’s a sign, Core Builders Composite, three bare flag poles, and a sweeping driveway. Although Oracle owns the whole property, there’s not a bit of branding in sight.
Two “strictly no admittance” signs stuck in the grass outside the main building are the only hint something exciting might be going on.
What looks like a home built porch canopy sticks out over the entrance — a couple of bits of wood and a rough, unfinished top.
But it turns out the sweeping driveway, the “strictly no admittance” signs and flagpoles are relics from the property’s days as a paper store and printing press for the Rodney Times.
Inside, I’m expecting a corporatestyle welcome: a smart PR- type person brandishing an iPhone and a press pack, getting me to sign in. The photographer and I do sign in, but it’s in an old- fashioned visitors’ book.
A receptionist goes off to find Core Builders’ manager Tim Smyth, and Susan Lake, the super- smart composite structural engineer, to show us round. Their clothes are warm and casual, the sort of gear you’d expect to get dirty or dusty in a factory.
Smyth is a good- natured, likeable man who’s sailed in several Admiral’s Cups, is fiercely committed to New Zealand boatbuilding and technology and doesn’t seem at all defensive about Oracle’s performance so far. In fact he’s alarmingly candid.
What can Jimmy Spithill do to turn things around before the next race?
Practice his starts, Smyth suggests with a grin. In the next breath he credits the Kiwis’ innovation and pretty much says he thinks they’ll win the America’s Cup.
“You’d have to put your money behind Team New Zealand at the moment with the boat speed they’ve shown, which seems to be coming from their foil and wing package.
“Those are the areas that are able to be modified and adjusted but it takes 12 weeks to build a pair of those foils from scratch if you haven’t had the design, so that’s not going to happen. The odds would have to be New Zealand right now . . . but never say never.”
Smyth credits the “genius” behind the Team NZ boat as the “very clever Frenchman” Guillaume Verdier who has won the commission to design and engineer the new Volvo roundthe- world yachts.
In the meantime he thinks Oracle will be working on improving the wing, and Spithill’s starts. And then he’s back on to Team New Zealand.
“You’ve got a young vigorous team in New Zealand, a bunch of young guys who I think have choreographed the handling of that boat beautifully and they work really efficiently together.”
Smyth is nothing if not entertaining. Those young guns running round the boat was something you never used to see, he says. “You had an old fat guy like ( Brad) Butterworth on the back who couldn’t move to save himself. Now you’d never see a guy like ( Dennis) Conner or Butterworth on these boats because it’s a young man’s sport.”
And it’s that young man’s sport, or at least making the boats they sail, that Smyth and Lake are passionate about. In this very ordinary, no- frills factory, 45 per cent of the America’s Cup fleet was built. As well as Oracle and Softbank Team Japan, parts of the Artemis and Groupama Team France boats were built at Core Builders, and even some parts for Team New Zealand.
Oracle also “lent” TNZ its “tools“— the moulds for the AC50s — for a price.
Right now, Core Builders is in sleep mode. There’s a bit of work going on but most of the staff are taking holidays after, Lake says, Christmas was cancelled for two years because they were so busy. And yes, some of those staff are in Bermuda but not quite the rescue team Spithill led us to believe.
Smyth, who describes Spithill as a “lovely chap”, says the brash Aussie “loves to say that sort of stuff to wind you up”. The real story is that Core Builders hired an AirBnb house in Bermuda and told staff they were welcome to make their own way there. Three or four, including apprentices, are helping out at the Oracle base. The rest are on holiday.
Smyth tells how a former Core Builders’ employee staying at the house rushed to help Team New Zealand when they capsized, working overnight to get it back on the water.
That’s the thing, Smyth says. Kiwi boatbuilders don’t really give a toss about which side they work for. “I’ve got heaps of people here who’ve worked for Team New Zealand.”
Adds Lake: “And we’ve lost heaps of people along the way to Southern Spars ( Team New Zealand’s boatbuilders).”
Lake, an American, arrived in New Zealand 16 years ago to work for an engineering company, completed a masters degree in engineering and never went home. She joined Core Building in 2011, a year after the company set up in New Zealand.
Smyth began working for Ellison in 2001, first in California before Oracle moved to northwest Washington in 2005 to be near aerospace technology.
It was Smyth who helped build a business case to move to New Zealand, on the understanding the company would look for other work in between America’s Cups.
“It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of opposition to this move within our team. But Larry is an internationalist. He doesn’t see it like that.”
Not that Larry seems too interested in Core Builders. He’s never visited, not once.
“I don’t think he even knows we exist,” Smyth jokes. “We’re so successful Larry doesn’t have to worry about us. We return him a profit. He know he gets cheap product. We’re much more cost- effective than Team New Zealand’s manufacturers.”
Lake says Ellison’s accountants certainly know they exist. “We get audited and we do stocktakes so they know where every penny is spent, as any billionaire would.”
Smyth is annoyed when the media “bangs on“about how much money Ellison is throwing at the America’s Cup.
The whole reason for moving to New Zealand and buying the old printing building, ideal because of its 6m- high stud, was to save money.
Surprisingly, he says Ellison is “not fully engaged” in the America’s Cup. “It’s a hobby for him. He’s very active in his business still.” Apart from building boats that fly, Smyth and Lake are equally proud of the other work Core Builders takes on, an eclectic range of carbon fibre technology that has nothing to do with sailing.
They’ve made a mould for a set of foils for American big- wave surfer Laird Hamilton’s surfboard, worked on tidal turbine blades and made a $ 100,000 mould for a huge, outdoor spiral staircase in a new house in Remuera.
Lake worked on the interpretative centre at the Marsden Cross Historic Reserve in Northland, its undulating, paper- thin roof the creation of Core Builders. And the company built last year’s floating “Future Islands” for the New Zealand exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Smyth i s keen for that developmental work to continue. He’s nervous that if Team New Zealand wins it will invoke the ruling that requires America’s Cup boats to be built in the country they are representing.
That would mean Core Builders’ core business would evaporate overnight, another blow to boatbuilding. It will also make it harder, or impossible, for some countries to compete.
If the existing format i s kept, Smyth says, all the teams who competed this year would be in plus an additional three European teams “that I know of but am not allowed to say” would come. “We’d have the most amazing regatta.”