Cup Fever Runneth Over : New Zealand Is Obsessed With Winning the America’s Cup--and Taking the Wind Out of Dennis Conner’s Sails

Hannah Ickert got away from the excitement of the America’s Cup this week. She left New Zealand and came here.

There, you go into a gas station or food market, it’s on TV, said Ickert, the wife of Mickey Ickert, one of Team New Zealand’s sail designers. Everybody’s talking about it, particularly since Dennis Conner won the defender finals. Dennis has a bit of a reputation in New Zealand.

It was something of a relief when she landed in Los Angeles and a customs agent asked why she was here.

The America’s Cup, Ickert said.

What’s that? the customs man asked.

Kiwi madness has been felt, however, in one small pocket of the Northern Hemisphere--at the Team New Zealand compound on Shelter Island Drive. That’s where the team is preparing to meet Conner’s Stars & Stripes crew sailing PACT 95’s Young America in the best-of-nine match starting Saturday. Receptionists Michelle Hebditch and Charlotte Craig field hundreds of phone calls daily.

“I don’t want to count them,” Craig said. “I’d have nightmares. Basically, they’ve all gone mad down there.”

Down there is a two-island country about the size of California but with only 3.5 million people. Simon Daubney, the headsail trimmer on TNZ’s boat Black Magic, said they are all sailing experts now.

“(The Cup) is as good as back home, if you read all this stuff,” Daubney said as he flipped through New Zealand newspapers. “They’ve dusted off the mantelpiece. The first time we don’t cover because we see some more breeze in the other direction and lose half a boat length, they’re going to be crying for blood.”

Can anyone blame them? Months ago, the team issued a manifesto, noting the America’s Cup has become part of New Zealand’s psyche. It posted a schedule starting Jan. 1, 1993, when research and a development program began, and ending May 20, 1995, with “Return to New Zealand with America’s Cup.”

The Kiwis’ hopes have been dashed twice before--three times if they count Sir Michael Fay’s 1988 rogue challenge when Conner trumped Fay’s magnificent 130-foot monohull with a catamaran, two straight.

At Fremantle in 1987, they reached the challenger finals 37-1, then Conner smacked them down, 4-1.

At San Diego in ‘92, they hit the challenger finals flying at 26-5 before Il Moro di Venezia’s Paul Cayard--now Conner’s helmsman--swatted them away with their own bowsprit, 5-3.

This time, they are 37-1 facing Conner--sound familiar?--including a victory over oneAustralia that was later reversed on a silly protest about a crewman up the mast looking for wind.

Daubney experienced all except the brief ’88 campaign.

“At Fremantle, we were such a raw sort of bunch that it’s hard to imagine that we won as many races as we did,” he said. “We surprised ourselves. The NZL-20 thing (in 1992) was the opposite. There was a lot of talk about ‘breakthrough boat’ and how this was as good as won. You look at all those races we won, but at the end of the day, it’s second place in the Louis Vuitton Cup--never get to sail in the America’s Cup. That’s why this time, when we’ve been getting people (asking) us, ‘What do you see your chances?’ everyone says, ‘Well, we just take it one day at a time.’ ”

Although Team New Zealand has two fast boats, this Kiwi campaign is more lean and less mean.

“(In ‘92,) it was a much, much bigger team,” Daubney said. “We’re a tiny team by comparison. The sailing crew is not stepping ashore into their cars. We’re among the last to leave.”

The management style also has changed.

“There are different types of management style, and (‘92) was basically Michael’s . . . putting the running of the thing in the hands of the designer, from crew selection to the sails,” Daubney said.

In ‘92, it was apparent designer Bruce Farr had the ear of Fay, right down to the firing of skipper Rod Davis in favor of Russell Coutts before New Zealand lost the last two races to Il Moro. Coutts is back as skipper this time around.

Peter Blake, the syndicate chief, was manager of the ’92 campaign but had come in late and, despite his spectacular success in the Whitbread Round-the-World race, lacked a feel for the dynamics of the America’s Cup.

“This time, there’s been a different sort of philosophy going on,” Daubney said. “This whole thing about having a sailor-driven campaign is very easy for a lot of teams to say, but it doesn’t actually happen that way a lot of the time.

“That’s what has impressed me about this team. Blake has had the faith in, first of all, Russell Coutts, and Coutts gives all the sailors responsibility and ownership of their particular area, whether it’s sails, spars or whatever. They say, ‘This is your responsibility,’ and expect you to take care of it.”

And, as the pressure mounts, the Kiwi crew continues to take care of business in the same fashion as it did before each round-robin series.

“We’re off the dock at 9 o’clock every morning, out there doing some testing,” Daubney said. “We know we have to keep the whole program going.”

Blake said: “It’s not a hype. It’s how can we go better and faster, what must we avoid, what have we forgotten about . . . just making sure there are no holes now in our game plan, and keeping an eye on what’s happening with the opposition. It’s business as usual.”

If the Kiwis are feeling pressure, Blake said, it’s not from the prospect of facing Conner, their nemesis, but what will become of them when the Cup suddenly ends.

“People are thinking, ‘Well, come (a short time), I’m out of a job.’ A lot of people have been away from home for a long time, and if their families are here they haven’t had much time with them. It’s important that we don’t lose sight of what we want to do.”

Easy to say, difficult to do when, as Blake said, “It’s the biggest thing New Zealand’s ever seen.”

New Zealand, a nation of sailors, has dominated the Whitbread. In fact, most of Conner’s crew on the American entry Winston in the last Whitbread were Kiwis. All four helmsmen in the challenger semifinals, including those on Nippon and oneAustralia, plus Mighty Mary’s Leslie Egnot, are Kiwis.

Is sailing their way to escape global isolation?

“There is no feeling of isolation in New Zealand at all,” Blake said. “I fly around the world 10 or 12 times a year. I’m not isolated. Most people travel. There’s nothing in the mentality about wanting to get away. It’s just that they are quite heavy to take on the big boys.”

And if they won. . . .

“It would put New Zealand on the map. It’s a tiny country. There are more people in (greater) San Diego itself.

“It would be nice to have some real positive vibes go into the country. Recently, the economy is on a huge upper, but it’s taken some hardship to get to that level. This would be a nice present to give back.”