America’s Cup whistleblower Grant Calder dies

Grant Calder has died at 41. Photo / File

Events manager Grant Calder, who turned whistleblower to raise concerns about how public funds were used for the last America’s Cup, has died.

He was 41.

Calder’s cause of death has not been released but has been referred to a coroner, a coronial spokeswoman said. The death is yet to be assigned to a coroner to investigate.

His family declined to comment via an intermediary.

Calder was a principal of event company Mayo & Calder, along with co-director Tom Mayo.

The pair spoke out two years ago after turning Government whistleblowers.

Their claims included mounting safety risks and alleged issues with the way taxpayer money was being spent in the lead-up to the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland, which Mayo and Calder was contracted to help deliver.

They were described as “spies” by Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton, who suggested they had leaked confidential information to other teams.

Their accusations included claiming Dalton operated Team New Zealand and America’s Cup Event (ACE) as a “dictatorship”, that there was not a single board meeting in the first 18 months of ACE and that this made it hard to raise concerns the budget would be inadequate for on-water safety and for security around a Cup village on the Auckland waterfront.

ACE took legal action against the company, suing them for breach of confidence and claiming they were responsible for a $2.8m payment into a Hungarian bank account, after scammers impersonating a European contractor sent Dalton an invoice.

Calder and Mayo spoke to the Herald in 2020 regarding their concerns. They did not go into detail due to the legal action, except to say they did not believe they were being given the funds required to run a safe event, and their concerns were being “actively ignored”.

“Appropriate resources were not being provided for, with the advice of the appropriate authorities,” said Calder.

ACE strongly denied their claims.

Mayo & Calder was best known for organising the Auckland stopover for the Volvo Ocean Race, which they said attracted more scrutiny than the 36th America’s Cup, held from December 2020 to March 2021.

The legal case of Team NZ v Mayo & Calder was ongoing at the time of Calder’s death.

Calder lived at a home in Drury in rural South Auckland with his family.

He attended Saint Kentigern College in Auckland from 1993 to 1998.

Calder later studied Sports Science and Recreation Management at AUT. He had extensive experience in the events industry, including management roles with the Fifa 2008 Women’s Under 17 World Cup, the 2010 World Rowing Championships, and several Volvo Ocean Race stopovers in Auckland, Melbourne and Hong Kong.

The 2014-2015 stopover was awarded Best New Zealand-hosted Major Event event by the New Zealand Association of Event Professionals.