[Kiwi Spy]

Ben A is with TNZ because:


(i) the GBR challenge is run by the same old guys. They couldn't get Iain Percy either. The best attract the best. GBR have a lot of work to do on a number of fronts.

(ii) he's gets on well with Dean Barker - they have been training together in the Finn. They have been match racing together. TNZ is a pretty young team - all the greyhairs got vacuummed up by the chequebooks in 2000.

(iii) TNZ have never finished outside the Challenger Final or been the Defender in every Cup since 1986. GBR have only mounted one half-arsed challenge in that period.

As for Cameron and Kelvin, they are both very good. While the emphasis might be on the starting crew, the reality is that the "mushroom crew" are the real power in the challenge. The more they can push the "starting crew" in in-house racing the stronger the challenge will be. You have to have very good guys on your "mushroom crew" otherwise the training for the Cup crew will just be a walk in the park, and they cop it like a chook once the serious stuff begins.

Also there's no guarantee who will sail in the Cup - TNZ will probably cycle a large squad. They are a Challenger now - not just a crew that are put together for five races.

I don't think Ben A would have had to think too long or hard on this one.

KS

[Jem]

I think I read that he had an offer at the last AC and found he was only packing the sails or getting tea, or somesuch.

So he declined.

[Kiwi Spy]

Don't forget Ben Ainslie bailed from OneWorld after 12 months - for reasons that have never been publicly explained (aside from the PR lines). Fair to say that it is once bitten twice shy.

He could still do the same from TNZ if things don't work out.

KS

[European Bloke]

Ah yes, the human pendulum batten tacker. You can see why he felt the need to move on.

[Presuming Ed]

Don't expect him to hang around long if he isn't given a respectable amount of wheel time.

[Ex-yachtie]

Presuming Ed, on Jun 10 2004, 11:17 AM, said:

Don't expect him to hang around long if he isn't given a respectable amount of wheel time.

Are you sure his ego is that big?

[Jono]

Ben and Dean date back to youth Lasers. When the Laser worlds were in NZ in 1996? Ben stayed and trained with Dean. Plus Dean is training with Ben in the Finn. Must have been a nice way to get up to speed.

[Kiwi Spy]

Q: What do Ainslie, Percy, Mitchell and Scheidt all have in common?

A: They have never skippered an America's Cup challenger in a LVC.

Q: Name a skipper who has made an LVC final on his first attempt?

A: I can only think of two - Dickson in 86/87 (didn't have much choice there as no Kiwi helms had Cup experience) and Coutts in 95 - although he had two races in the '92 LVC Final - when NZC lost.

The tenor of the game has picked up considerably in recent Cups and will go higher again in 2007 with budgets going up by another third.

These bright young things, albeit the Rockstars of the Olympic scene, need at least one Cup apprenticeship, before they are allowed on the handlebars.

KS

[Kiwi Spy]

It's only late afternoon in Kiwiland.

I half-agree with you on the GBR talent stream. Mind you it has been there for many years going back to the days of Rodney P, but they have never been able to pull it all together and weld some brillant individuals into a great team. NZC and TNZ have done the reverse - pulled some good (but not great) sailors together and welded them into a great team.

The test for TNZ this Cup will be whether they can progress on the re-build they were forced to start in 2003.

It's all a matter of getting the culture right, plus the money, plus the planning, plus the technology, plus the right people, having a good useful set of inventory to start off the campaign and then being able to execute.

Its a lot more complex equation than getting a Laser around the Olympic track in first place (although that's still a brillant individual effort). AC is a team effort and if you rate the teams on the above factors you get a pretty fair idea of who is going to finish where in three years time.

KS

[Kiwi Spy]

If you rated the syndicates on the five factors I mentioned, then Alinghi would be ahead (probably getting a 5 in all categories), Oracle would be second, and TNZ third. These three are a long way ahead of the rest, whoever they may be.

Alinghi have set up the game very cunningly so that they can keep sailing against the Challengers right up to the last and then have a much shorter period out in the cold outside the CSS. (Their way through this minefield was to offer the common weather system with its grid of bouys and then run VS against this - and probably inserting Alinghi in as a shadow boat - so they could monitor the rate of performance gain made by the Challengers in the CSS vs Alinghi's gains in their in-house racing.)

However the weather deal will probably get tossed by the Challengers, so Alinghi might be consigned to a watching and guessing game - and of course risk being overtaken by the Challengers in the home straight.

Have there been any defections from Alinghi? Who has been added since 2003?

KS

PS nice to have a "Guest" who doesn't shat all over a thread - just about a first for SA?

[Recidivist]

Kiwi Spy, on Jun 11 2004, 05:37 AM, said:

PS nice to have a "Guest" who doesn't shat all over a thread - just about a first for SA?

KS

Guest seems to have more than a bit of understanding - particularly re GBR.

Perhaps an SA regular who wanted to remain anon?

[Marko]

Fairly sure that the 92 challenger was Paul Cayard who was a first-time skipper (although he had been involved with Tom Blackaller in the 80s).

[Trevor B]

Just heard again, from a pretty good source- not the ED, that Coutts may walk sooner than later from Alinghi.

That would be pretty radical, if true.

[Pete M]

Hey Trev, the last Seahorse had a blurb about Coutts, maybe, allegedly, going to TNZ via Emirates $$$

Something like that?

[Trevor B]

Nope.
Cooler than that....

[STYACHT]

Trevor B, on Jun 12 2004, 03:10 AM, said:

Nope.
Cooler than that....

TrevorB,

log out, log back in as some Guest Anarchist and post it!

D

[Chris 249]

Guest, on Jun 11 2004, 05:09 AM, said:

GBR is a slightly different case. Unless you have sailed there, it is hard to explain the attitude - it is sort of a hard to fathom superiority ... which probably didn't help when they had to see a bunch of colonials having more success (that includes the Americans as well as the Kiwis). The whole Hamble/Cowes... thing is too insular for them to ever do ok given the current setup.

My 1c worth

[QUOTE]

I find that an interesting comment. I've never raced in the UK but there does seem to be a long-held superiority complex from the UK sailing media about their best sailors. They really put their top sailors on a pedestal, to judge only from the way they are treated in sailing magazines. The pedestal is so high that not only are they placed well above the good UK sailor, but above every other country's champs as well.

One old example is Lawrie Smith. Yep, a good sailor - but the UK sailing press always put him up as one of the worlds's very best; in the top 2 or 3 perhaps. What has he ever won to deserve that sort of ranking?

This is NOT, repeat NOT knocking the sailors themselves. Those I've met/sailed against (Ainslie, Nick Rogers and crew, the old windsurfer guys) all seem to be really good people. The only morose/unpleasant one is their women's windsurfer rep, and the irony is that she's an Aussie who sails for the UK for the cash.

i know other countries have had the same arrogance; we Aussies had it bad for decades; but the UK sailing media seems to have it worse, for longer.