Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton lifts the America's Cup. Photo / Gregory Bull
Grant Dalton is set to reveal within the next two weeks how the 36th edition of the America's Cup will unfold - and there could be several surprises.
The Team New Zealand boss hinted that foiling boats are likely to be retained, but they may become mono-hulls instead of the sleek catamarans that captured imaginations in Bermuda.
Dalton wouldn't say when or where the next regatta would take place but team financial backer Sir Stephen Tindall told the Mike Hosking Breakfast that the America's Cup would be held in Auckland in 2021.
"We've done a lot of research. Auckland in four years: it will be huge," Tindall told Hosking.
Dalton was peppered with questions about Team NZ's plans for the defence of the Cup in Auckland during the Kiwis' post-race press conference after they sealed a 7-1 victory over defenders Oracle Team USA this morning.
He pledged to "do the right thing" by sailing and the Cup itself before confirming Italian syndicate Luna Rossi as the official Challenger of Record to the New Zealand Royal Yacht Squadron and revealing some detail of Team New Zealand's early thinking around a defence.
"For me it is a privilege to hold the America's Cup, it's not a right," Dalton said before pledging that the rules would not unduly favour Team New Zealand over its rivals.
"Rest assured, we will do the right thing," he promised.
"We will put in place rules that if we are good enough, we will win. We won't impose our will where we have to win at all costs attitude."
Pressed for further detail, he replied: "I'm going to dodge that question. We do have a plan. It will play out in the next couple of weeks."
"It's important we make it affordable but we also need to remember it is the America's Cup. It's the pinnacle of sailing; it's not a little beach regatta. It's a fine balance of not being cost prohibitive but also not so cheap it looks like a beach regatta."
Pressed further on the foiling catamarans, Dalton explained the current boats might not cope with the sailing conditions in Auckland as well as they have on Bermuda's Great Sound.
"I don't know how they would go on the Rangi [Rangitoto in the Waitemata Harbour] in a northeasterly with the tide running out. They could go right down the hole like we did one day," he joked.
"We are in a lagoon here and if Oracle had won, the next regatta was going to be in Chicago on a lake. So there's a lot to consider."
Contrary to some claims, Dalton said he would not be throwing out everything from the Bermuda regatta.
"There was a lot of good stuff here [in Bermuda]. Just because we didn't sign the agreement, it doesn't mean we disagreed with everything. It was just the things like the two-year cycle. There were some good things here," he said of Team NZ's refusal to sign the Deed of Gift binding all syndicates to how the Cup would be played out in the future.
"We have some ideas, we have some plans. It still needs to be a race of yachtsmen. Pumping oil around a boat isn't necessarily yachting in one sense. But the boats [in Bermuda] were spectacular and fast."
Asked to reflect on the Kiwis' achievement, Dalton reserved special praise for his Australian skipper Glenn Ashby and one of Team NZ's key financial backers, Italian Matteo de Nora, saying both had stuck by him "through thick and thin".
"New Zealand owes great thanks to Mateo," Dalton said. "When we started this, we knew we couldn't outspend [Oracle]. They could spend $5 to our one, seven to one, whatever it took.
"We had to out-think them really. The lesson from San Francisco is that we were out-designed. After that we had a saying that became a catch-cry in the organisation, which was about throwing the ball as far out as we could and then going after it.
"We did that and we achieved some amazing things, some revolutionary things."
Dalton also referred to a "brutal debrief" after the debilitating San Francisco setback as a turning point. He said it was led by Bob Field, chairman of long-time Team NZ sponsor Toyota.
"We came up with 20 points out of that debrief," said Dalton, adding the paper became a "road-map" for Team NZ's success.
"It was all about investing in the right people and not shackling them to restraints."
