Northland well placed for slice of America's Cup pie

Northland Inc chief executive David Wilson says the region boasts many advantages to help run an America's Cup smoothly. Photo/File

Northland's economic body is already working on bringing as much benefit as possible to the region from the next America's Cup - should it be held in Auckland - with hosting a syndicate, tourism benefits and high-end superyacht work for the marine industry all on the table.

All the talk is of the next America's Cup campaign being held in Auckland in 2021 after Team NZ won the Auld Mug in Bermuda yesterday and already planning for the event is underway.

Northland Inc chief executive David Wilson said Northland was well paced to get a slice of the America's Cup action if it was held in Auckland, with the region boasting so many advantages to help run the event smoothly.

Mr Wilson said we had a world-renowned marine industry in Whangarei and the Bay of Islands that could service and refit the fleet of superyachts expected to follow the Cup, superb tourism opportunities with the whole world watching and the willingness to help out.

He said Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed) was already probably well into its planning for the event if Auckland was chosen and Northland Inc would see if it could get on board with the organisation to offer help.

Mr Wilson said although Northland wouldn't co-host the event, he'd be keen to see a syndicate or two base itself up here - with ideal conditions for a syndicate to come north.

In 2012 then-America's Cup holder Oracle seriously explored basing itself in Ruakaka before the 2013 regatta in San Francisco before deciding to stay in the United States.

"Ateed has a huge and well-funded events team and they will be already working away on this. Our best option is to work with them - I wouldn't go as far as to say co-host - but we can offer a few solutions for them," he said.

"If you look at the capability and capacity of the marine sector in Auckland it's huge, but we've got great marine companies in Whangarei and Opua that are as good as any."

Gordon French, operations manager for Whangarei's Oceania Marine, said another Auckland-based regatta would have major benefit for Northland.

"For us, we don't do new builds, but in terms of refitting there will be plenty of superyachts that follow the Cup here and they will have their boats here for an extended time," Mr French said.

He said Oceania Marine would have its new travelift in place by the time of the next Cup which would help it get more superyacht work.

"There are only a couple of places that can haul out large superyachts so the potential for us is massive."

Mr Wilson said Oceania Marine getting a larger travelift indicated the kind of investment leverage that was needed and showed the rest of the world that Northland could do the work.