Sailing Professor Mark Orams with the nuts and bolts of the 37th America's Cup

Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton has declared the America's Cup regatta - starting overnight in Barcelona - ready to go.

Sailing starts tonight with the final preliminary regatta involving his team, before the Louis Vuitton Cup next week and then the America's Cup proper in October.

Mark Orams is a Professor of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University, he's also a former Team New Zealand member, and he joined Simon Barnett and James Daniels ahead of the start of the 37th America's Cup.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Simon Varnett and James Daniels Afternoons
podcast from News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
The thirty seventh America's Cup is about to kick off.
Mark Orham's is a professor of well, it's actually sport
in recreation, which is interesting in itself at the Auckland University.
Is also a former New Zealand and World champion sailor
and a former Team New Zealand member. He joins us
now a very good afternoon to you.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Mark, Yeah, good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
So before we get into the nuts and bolts, how
does the competition work? What is happening tonight?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
So overnight tonight is what they're calling the preliminary Regatta,
which is four days of racing for all of the
competitors including Emirates, Team New Zealand, a defender, and the
five Challenges. It doesn't really count for points, although if
there is a tie during the Louis Baton Challenger Series,
that tie is broken by the result of this Polar

(00:56):
Preliminary Regatta over the next four days. So in many
ways it's more important that for the teams in that
they get to finally race after three years of design
and construction and testing and getting their configurations sorted out,
they find they get to lay it out there overnight
tonight off the orders of Barcelona.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Right, and mark a slight change with this regatta as
opposed to pass America's Cups, because I think Ten New
Zealand designed the rules so normally the defender wouldn't actually
take part in the Louis Vuitton series. But Tea New
Zealand are are they going to compete in the whole
Louverton or.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Just part of it, just the first two round robins,
So it's not with our precedent and somewhat ironic that
when Team New Zealand was the Challenger and Oracle Racing
put themselves into the Challenger series back in the Bermuda
series where ten New Zealand won the Cup. Back Ten
New Zealand was a really strong critic of that approach
because it does give an advantage to the defender. But

(01:55):
now that they are the defender the thing, so you know,
it's sort of a funny old game the America's Cup.
The reason that they've done it is because the biggest
risk for the fender is isolation, and that is the
challenges get to compete against each other, get race sharp,
get faster and faster, and if the defender's just off
on their own, they can end up being taken by surprise.

(02:17):
So Team New Zealand has created a situation where they
really negate that advantage for the Challenges by both racing
in this preliminary regatta and then the first two round
robins of the Louis Vauton Challenger Series.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Right as land lubbers, we understand that Team New Zealand's
and France's boats are quite different to the challenges. Is
there any reason why that is so?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well? Actually, interestingly, this is the second time these AC
seventy five forty monoholes have been used, so that they're
calling this a version two of the boats. So they're
slightly different than what was used in the design rule
that they had for Auckland here three years ago. And
what they've done again emerates Team New Zealand's been quite

(03:00):
smart and that they've sold their design package, their basic
design package for the brand new French and that's Orient
Express Racing. So what that does, firstly, it gives them
some cash, which is helpful, and secondly, it gives them
a surrogate boat which in effect is the same fundamental
design that they are competing with that goes in through

(03:21):
the Challenger series depending on how far the French go through.
So the New Zealand team will be able to watch
very carefully how the Orient Express boat stacks up against
the challenges and in effect get a bit of a
read on how the challenges are going compared to themselves.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Very smart. So this is Emirates Team New Zealand inny
Ospritannia are Lingy Red Bull Racing Lunar Rossa. The part
of Rally Team New York Yacht Club is Dennis Connor
still involved.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
No no, no, Dennis Connor is not. In fact, the
American team is quite different. It's actually the two helmsmen.
They have co helmsmen this time in all of the crews,
and the co helmsman for American Magic the New York
Yacht Club entrant Tom Slingsby, who many will know as
the Australian skipper of Australian sale GP team. And then

(04:08):
Paul Goodison, who's an Englishman who's a previous Olympic gold
medalist and world champion in the small foiling moss class.
So very high quality team. A very different boat, quite
radical compared to the others. So it'd be really interesting
to see how the Americans boat goes overnight tonight.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Mark how much would Grant Dalton or Emirates Team New
Zealand have spent in the last three years since the last.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Cup, Well he pick a number and add a bunch
of zeros on the back of it. I think these
are very very expensive campaigns, and it's not just at
the cost of the boat and the sails and the
rigs and all the support and so on, the cost
of the team. So keeping the team together, there's a
team of well over one hundred people, engineers, designers, boat builders,
sale makers. The sailors themselves are actually only a very

(04:54):
small part of the team. So Grant has done what
he thought was necessary to raise the money to keep
the team together to be competitive. Remembering what happened to
Team New Zealand when Alingy picked off all the talent
back and all the way back in two thousand and three,
so he's been very conscious of both retaining the talent
and retaining the intellectual property because in New Zealand obviously

(05:17):
had a step ahead when we defended successfully here in Auckland,
and he's wanted to keep that steping ahead continuing.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Mark, great to chat with you, Thank you for the
wrap up.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Thanks mate, Absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
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