Brian Rudman: Council's Team NZ base buy a bottler of an idea

COMMENT

Auckland City has bought the old Team New Zealand base at the Viaduct Harbour for $230,000 and now wants suggestions on how to use it. Pardon? Are they kidding?

The answer seems so obvious. Scuttle the unloved proposal for a $10 million ship-in-the-bottle memorial to slain America's Cup icon Sir Peter Blake and celebrate his life - and the total America's Cup adventure - in the historic tin shed where so much of the drama was played out.

Not only would the costs be more manageable, but instead of locking away the cup-winning NZL32 in the sterile confines of an outsized museum display case, it could star in its natural environment, the tin shed where a nation's dreams were both realised and then lost.

True, Black Magic's glory days were in San Diego, not Auckland, but it's still hard to think of a more appropriate resting place than the base from which subsequent teams sailed out to defend NZL32's honour.

Team New Zealand moved out of the base three months ago to a new home in the nearby old One World base, but the spartan surrounds remain unchanged.

For those who believe walls talk - or for the rest of us happy to just soak up the atmosphere - it's all there. The room where the crews met before going out on the Hauraki Gulf to do battle, the tracks in the carpet where Sir Peter Blake and other team leaders paced about planning tactics. Okay, so I'm making that bit up, but you get the idea.

There will be plenty of room for the displays that the national museum, Te Papa, is creating to commemorate and record not only Sir Peter's life but also the history of New Zealand's great America's Cup adventure. And all on the site where the final years of the saga were played and fought out.

For the more commercially minded, already in place is a souvenir shop at the street side, and out on the Viaduct Harbour edge, a purpose-built raised entertainment area where celebrities were wined and entertained while waiting for the yachts to sail to and from the field of battle. This would make a great spot for tourists to rest their weary bodies and wait for a water taxi to whip them back to town. Or to linger over a leisurely meal.

When announcing the deal last week, Scott Milne, chairman of Auckland City's recreation and events committee, said the council was "committed to the development of the Viaduct Harbour as a dynamic centre for marine and land-based events". Purchasing the base "shows we are putting our money where our mouth is".

Team New Zealand managing director Grant Dalton offered his total support. "The building was at the centre of some of City of Sails' greatest yachting triumphs so it has a lot of recent history attached to it. It's fitting that the building should be retained in a marine events precinct."

An America's Cup museum highlighting heroes such as Sir Peter Blake - but not him alone - on this site appeals to me in a way Te Papa's glass box never did for all the above reasons. But the most persuasive appeal of all is the financial one. When Te Papa and the Auckland City launched the glass box proposal back in May, the question of where the $10 million was to come from was rather lost in all the excitement.

All we were told was Auckland City would contribute $2 million over four years, the Government would provide $2.5 million and Te Papa would raise $5.5 million from private backers. Te Papa, as of mid-year, had spent just $50,000 on commissioning work and had budgeted $400,000 for the year to start developing the Blue Water, Black Magic exhibition.

Te Papa was later forced to reveal that expected income of $60,000 to $120,000 a year was well short of the $500,000 to $1 million in depreciation costs and $70,000 to $90,000 running costs.

After widespread public opposition to the scheme, Te Papa, under pressure from Auckland City, agreed to audit it with a view to reducing costs.

Two weeks ago Te Papa publicist Paul Brewer told me a team was reviewing the design "with a view to getting costs down".

As to funding, it was "too early to make announcements there but that's reasonably positive". I take that to mean "HELP!!!!"

Offering the old Team New Zealand base as home for the museum is just the sort of help to make everyone happy.

It's already built and paid for. It's on the ideal site.

It also leaves oodles of cash to buy and set up that other Blake memorial - the Kaikoura Island nature reserve.