New Zealand Still Looking for Good Skipper
The Kiwis have been too quiet for too long.
When Queen Elizabeth II made Michael Fay a knight, she also made him invisible.
New Zealand’s newest America’s Cup boat--the “breakthrough” secret weapon--is a bigger secret than the Manhattan Project.
But most of all, they won’t say who their skipper will be. They wouldn’t even say who the mysterious intruder was at their Coronado compound. Maybe he’ll be the skipper.
Peter Blake will make the pick, with the approval of Sir Michael.
Blake is the 1988-89 Whitbread Round-the-World Race winner from New Zealand whose organizational and management skills Fay so admired that he thought he needed him to run the Cup operation after the International America’s Cup Class World championships last May.
With New Zealand’s economy severely distressed, Fay also needed more sponsorship, and with Blake came his Whitbread backer, Steinlager.
A coincidence?
“You’d have to ask them,” Blake said.
But it would be a coup for any country or brewery to sweep two of sailing’s three premier events--excluding the Admiral’s Cup team ocean racing series in Britain, which New Zealand has won in the past but couldn’t afford this year.
Blake said he planned to select the skipper “between now and the end of the year.” He’s playing it close to the vest, but he holds three aces: David Barnes, Russell Coutts and Rod Davis.
The skipper will be in charge, whether he’s steering the boat or not, which makes him the quarterback, but this isn’t a quarterback controversy. All three will be on the boat for all the races. The two not steering will contribute to tactics, as in May’s Worlds when the ubiquitous “Will Vary” was foremost in the Kiwis’ skipper rotation.
Even after the defection of Chris Dickson to Japan, the little country has a corner on the best match-racing sailors in the world.
The top-ranked Dickson had a falling-out with Fay after Fremantle in 1987 and now sails for the rival Nippon Challenge. But Blake is left with No. 3, Davis, and No. 4, Coutts.
There also is No. 5, Eddie Warden-Owen of Wales, who was hired as coach recently to give the crew tuning a sharper edge. Owen won’t be eligible to sail on the boat, but he will have some influence in who does.
No. 2 is Peter Gilmour of Spirit of Australia, No. 6 Peter Isler of La Jolla and ESPN. Dennis Conner isn’t ranked because he doesn’t compete regularly on the world match-racing circuit, as does what Warden-Owen calls “the Australasian connection” that dominates it.
Warden-Owen, who won the ’88 Congressional Cup at Long Beach, regards himself more as a tutor than a coach, “helping a group of students to expand their knowledge.”
The tutor earned his students’ respect, if he didn’t have it earlier, when he defeated Davis, who had defeated Coutts, in the sail-offs of the Omega Gold Cup at Bermuda in October.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” Blake said.
Warden-Owen sized them up:
“There are definite strengths and weaknesses--a style, really. Russell is much more of an aggressive match racer, while Rod is a very careful sailor who makes few mistakes.
“Peter Isler is good all-round but doesn’t show incredible aggression . . . (he’s) steady.”
Dickson is the most aggressive, intimidating the umpires as well as his opponents. He also is the most successful, having just won his third world title.
“He hits (other boats) a lot,” Warden-Owen said. “He has maneuvers where (the umpires) have to make a yes-or-no decision. He does take chances, and sometimes they backfire. It backfired against me in the (Omega) semifinals in two incidents. He thought he was right, but the jury agreed with me.”
Gilmour used to be a lot like Dickson. At Fremantle, sailing Kookaburra, he earned the nickname “Crash.” But Warden-Owen said, “He’s changed a lot.
“He had a great understanding of the rules, probably better than anyone else, and used the rules and the red (protest) flag in the days when you went into the protest room and put your point over.
“Since the introduction of on-the-water umpiring, he feels he’s lost that advantage because it’s not him talking to the jury and being a good lawyer. So he’s backed off. The judges are there watching him. He can’t fool ‘em anymore.”
And Warden-Owen’s style?
“I can’t be aggressive. The Welshman in me keeps lurking there . . . just sail the boat fast and get around the course.”
If New Zealand has a superior boat, will it prefer a conservative skipper--Barnes or Davis--over a more aggressive Coutts?
“What is a skipper of one of these boats?” Blake asked. “Is the skipper the helmsman? You might have a starting helmsman, a windward helmsman, a downwind helmsman.
“I’m gonna have a say, but my say is more weighing up what everyone thinks . . . getting a feel for the whole thing. I’m not on the water, so I’ve got to be confident in whoever is really gonna be in charge out there.”
Tryouts have been ongoing, not just for the skippers but the entire crew.
“We have five guys that want to be the bowman,” Blake said. “They’re all good. We have observation trials every day of the week. Everything the guys do, they’re having to prove to us that they are the right people for the job.
“If they’re late for meetings and don’t seem to be pulling their weight, we won’t be saying anything right now, but it will definitely make a difference.
“Then again, does it really matter if they’re late for meetings? You really want the people that are going to drive the boat the fastest.”
And with the skipper, Blake said, “If 99% of the potential crew say they want one bloke, you have to take that into account. All the crew will be asked, ‘Whom do you think is best?’ ”
Davis, 35, has the most match-racing and America’s Cup experience. But he was born in Florida and raised in Coronado. Could Kiwi national pride handle an American sailing their boat?
“That,” Blake said, “has absolutely not the slightest bearing on anything we do.”
Besides, Davis is a Kiwi-- and an American. Recent changes in U.S. law allowed him to take out a New Zealand passport this year without surrendering his U.S. citizenship.
And Blake said that Davis isn’t a “hired gun” in the mold of Dickson or Paul Cayard, an American who is skipper of Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia syndicate. They moved to those countries to sail; Davis went to New Zealand to live immediately after the ’87 Cup, when he sailed Eagle for the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. He had no guarantees.
“It’s not as though he’s been living in the country just to comply with the America’s Cup (two-year residency) requirement,” Blake said. “If he’s the guy for the job we’ll like him whatever his accent is.”
Barnes, 33, is the syndicate’s director of sailing operations and has been Davis’ tactician in match-racing events since ’87. He skippered New Zealand’s big K-boat in the bitter campaign against Conner’s catamaran in ’88.
But Barnes’ match-racing background is limited.
“That’s something he’s got to address,” Blake said.
Is it important? There is some question whether the new 75-foot IACC boats can be twisted and turned through the tight maneuvers common to match racing. The Worlds, all fleet racing until four sail-off races, offered few clues.
“I think you’ll find there’ll be a lot of match racing,” Warden-Owen said. “As the competition gets closer, it will be the edge you gain at the start, the edge at the weather mark that will win the race. The starting procedures are going to get tougher and more aggressive.”
Dark horses will try to force the action. Favorites will try to avoid close encounters.
“You’ll see the Italians scurrying to find a safe start,” Warden-Owen said. “The Australians will be trying to push them over the line. You’ll see match racing out there.”
Coutts and Davis might be better at that sort of infighting, but Blake doesn’t discount Barnes.
“For someone with commitment, he’s got it all. He knows these waters better than anybody. He knows the boats better than anybody.”
Coutts, 29, won an Olympic gold medal at Long Beach in ‘84, sailing a single-handed Finn, the year Davis won a gold as crew on a Soling with skipper Robbie Haines and Ed Trevelyan.
Davis is the only person to win three Congressional Cups, while Coutts has campaigned hard and well on the match-racing circuit the last three years, winning his share of events against Dickson.
But Coutts lacks the Cup experience of leading a crew of 16 in high-pressure competition.
“Each has attributes,” Blake said. “Maybe we’ll put different people on the wheel for different opposition.”
“I would not exclude anything at this stage.”
America’s Cup
While most syndicates are scratching for money, Mercury Bay is giving it back. After a public outcry, the Kiwis returned a $600,000 contribution ($1 million NZ) from the country’s Lottery Grants Board. The syndicate had applied for the grant from a part of the fund for sports projects, separate from that which aids national charities. But when they got it, there was more national outrage against the “rich man’s sport” receiving welfare than the All-Blacks rugby team being eliminated from the world championships--a catastrophe comparable, say, to a team of NBA all-stars losing in the Olympics next year.