This week, the America’s Cup regatta gets under way with the beginning of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series. Michael Burgess visited Barcelona to see how preparations are going ahead of the event and assess local interest in the Cup.
At the Emirates Team New Zealand headquarters in Barcelona, they are putting the finishing touches on a hospitality area in one corner of their base.
It’s modest – some tables and chairs, with a small bar to come – on a space about the size of half a basketball court. It’s designed as an area for visiting Kiwi fans and supporters to congregate and celebrate – “a chance to get together” – as one team member put it.
It will be well used, as they are expecting plenty of European-based New Zealanders to visit Barcelona over the next couple of months – especially during the Cup match in October – as well as a few planeloads of well-heeled Kiwis to make the trip from home.
But it was another small reminder of the incongruence of what will unfold in that time, as Team New Zealand defend the Auld Mug more than 19,000km from home, far, far away from red socks, flotillas of Ma and Pa dinghies and the waving support from North Head and Waiheke Island.
It’s a feeling you can’t escape, as you wander the few hundred metres from Las Ramblas, along the waterfront, and encounter massive billboards, with photos of Taihoro and a tagline explaining, in Spanish and English, that Team NZ are the defenders of the 37th America’s Cup.
It’s a brilliant location, with the team’s operations housed in buildings previously used to service the giant passenger ferries that take people to the neighbouring islands of Mallorca, Ibiza and Palma, among many others. Those boats now dock a few hundred metres away.
Apparently, the port bosses had been looking for an excuse to move the terminal – which hosting the Cup provided – but it is also another example of the attraction of coming here, with local authorities keen to facilitate any requests, aside from the massive financial injection that the city, local and regional governments are providing to have the Cup here.
“It’s been fantastic,” says Team NZ chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge, ahead of his 10th Cup campaign. “And I’m not downplaying New Zealand because New Zealand was fantastic as well. It’s just that this time, you know, Barcelona has really taken it on. It’s a fantastic city and venue and there’s no question it has enabled us to get more entries in the competition purely because it’s in Europe.”
The three teams from the 2021 edition are joined by Alinghi Red Bull Racing – the Swiss returning after a 13-year hiatus – and Orient Express Racing Team, the first French challenge since 2017 in Bermuda, which will make for a much more intriguing challenger series.
One of the first things you notice about Barcelona is the scale. While Aucklanders are rightly proud of the attractions of the Viaduct Harbour or Wynyard Quarter, the Catalan capital probably has 10 areas – or more – that rival those for dining, entertainment and nightlife options.
Auckland’s east coast beaches are summer hot spots but not comparable in patronage to Barcelona’s city beaches, a stretch of almost five kilometres which tens of thousands of people pass through every day. And while the Queen city is a popular destination for cruise ships, eight mega liners arrived across the weekend of my visit, with Barcelona’s port the biggest in the Mediterranean.
That all means more potential eyeballs on the Cup, more viewers and spectators, more commercial opportunities in a friendlier time zone; another attraction of coming north.
However, the local impact is harder to define. According to recent surveys, most residents (more than 70%) are aware the Cup is on but the level of interest is more difficult to gauge. There is no local team in the main regatta, of course, and not a widespread sailing culture, with nautical pursuits generally reserved for the upper class, such are the financial barriers.
“We all know about the Cup but we don’t really know what it is,” explained one local. “People will be curious, for sure. We know the Government has spent a lot of money on it but we are not sure why.”
It was a view backed up by others. A mother and daughter on a harbour ferry said it was “probably a beautiful event, that some will enjoy. But there are so many other things more important for the Government, to use our [taxpayer] money,” adding that the city “doesn’t need more tourists”.
Even those involved with the event, including staff at a Cup exhibition, were ambivalent.
“No one knows how it is good for the city,” summarised one, echoing the feelings of her colleagues.
Proponents of the event will point to benefits already accrued, including infrastructure upgrades. The 1992 Olympics are cited as a turning point for Barcelona and there is hope that this event, on a much smaller scale, will showcase the city once again. And then there is the economic impact; albeit always hard to measure. Legions of superyachts are expected, while both Luna Rossa and the French Orient Express team told the Herald they are expecting to host “a lot of visitors and guests”.
A city official added that the Cup will attract “high-value visitors”, also known as the “right kind of tourists”. That’s a delicate issue, with ongoing high-profile protests about the effects of mass tourism on the city, which receives around 30 million visitors per annum. There are plenty of hot spots in Europe – including Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris and Amsterdam – but perhaps none that have been as affected as Barcelona, given its enduring popularity across the spectrum, from family groups to the “party crowd”.
The Herald arrived on Friday at 6.30pm and encountered two groups of hen’s nights, already a few sangrias deep, on the walk to my accommodation in the Gothic quarter. When leaving the following Monday – at 11am – another group of “lads”, seemingly from northern England, were stumbling out of a bar. “I’m a bit tipsy, me,” laughed one.
Parts of the city have become tacky and tawdry, epitomised by the souvenir T-shirts on sale in many outlets, from “I love big boobs” and “I love 69″ to much seedier, to the number of cannabis outlets, estimated at around 200, many centred in the popular old town. And males wandering through particularly tourist areas at night will be asked, on every third or fourth corner, if they want “a smoke” or “drugs” or be invited to a strip club.
Prominent signs across the city request responsible behaviour – “At home we don’t make noise at night. Outside we don’t either” said one – pointedly all in English. But along with the “bar-hopping, drink-until-you-drop-and-get-stoned” sector, the overall concern is the quantity of visitors that has choked up the central city.
Aside from price increases and crowded beaches, plazas and restaurants, the conversion of rooms to Airbnb properties has squeezed rental accommodation to the point where the council has promised to divest 10,000 Airbnb licences over the next four years. On a micro level, locals are tired of sharing their apartment buildings with short-term guests or being unable to find a table in a central city restaurant, while huge rental price increases have harboured mass discontent.
Conversely, the massive, constant influx of visitors will be a boom for the Cup. It creates a vibe that is hard to beat, the kind of buzz such events thrive on. The sprawling Cup village won’t have a problem attracting crowds, while the bars, restaurants and hospitality venues in the vicinity will be packed, creating a memorable experience for all involved. And there is plenty of excitement – mixed with curiosity about the event – shown by the 2300 volunteers enlisted, around three times the amount attracted to the 2021 regatta.
The bases are much more spread out than Auckland. Luna Rossa’s enclave is 2.5km away (or a shorter ferry or water taxi away) from Team NZ, with American Magic’s base not much closer. INEOS Britannia and Alinghi are clustered together centrally, while the French are hidden away on the outskirts of the port, a brisk 15-minute walk from the New Zealand facility. That may be a shortcoming but the vantage points from the various beaches are much closer and more accessible than what was available in 2021 in Auckland.
Hopefully the Cup will also deliver on the water. Early indications have Luna Rossa as the closest challengers but American Magic and Britannia won’t be far away – though the mega-funded British campaign flattered to deceive in last week’s preliminary regatta. Alinghi have also impressed in testing, while the French have had their moments but are racing the clock.
“It’s definitely the most competitive group of challengers we’ve seen for the America’s Cup in a long, long time,” Team NZ skipper Peter Burling told the Herald. “The level of competition they’ll get through that challenger series is super high, so whoever does get out of it will be very battle-hardened.”
Luna Rossa chief executive Max Sirena agrees.
“It will be closer than last time,” he said, mainly due to the evolution of the class. Last time, Luna Rossa surprised everyone with their dual helmsman set-up – since adopted by everyone else – and are always looking for new tweaks.
“Yeah, we have a few tricks [coming] but I’m not going to tell you,” laughed Sirena. “We have something but not as fancy like that. But it will be a great show. It’s impressive how fast these boats are going now; way faster than last time.”
Back at the Team NZ base, there’s an air of quiet confidence. The last two years have been a massive logistical exercise – given the boat still had to be built in New Zealand under the Cup protocol – and transplanting all the requirements to set up and run a Cup campaign on the other side of the world has required military level planning and protocol.
But they’ve done it before, most recently in San Francisco (2013) and Bermuda (2017) and know what it takes, right down to the outfitting needed for each portable container office and where they need to be placed. There are more than 150 team personnel already in Barcelona, settled in apartments dotted across the city, with that number to swell by another 50 by October. The overseas mission has also sharpened the sense of focus.
“Coming in for a four, five-month period has been super efficient and it’s hard to replicate that when you’re at home,” says Shoebridge. “At home, you’ve got all the normal things going on, you go home to your house and you’ve got your dog and your family and all the other things, everything that goes on there. It’s much easier to be fully immersed here.”
Inside the gym, Simon Van Velthooven – the leader of the cyclor pack and a veteran of Bermuda, where the novel innovation was first launched – shares a joke and a laugh with fellow grunt man and rowing legend Hamish Bond, who is back in a high-performance environment, following his retirement from rowing after the Tokyo Olympics.
Co-helmsman Nathan Outteridge – one of the few foreigners on the team – has an association with Burling and Blair Tuke that goes back almost 15 years, when they were sparring in the 49er class, and can’t hide his enthusiasm for what is coming.
“Sailing conditions are quite different here,” explains Outteridge. “In Auckland, there’s so many places around the Gulf where you can find protected water so you can get flat water. So Auckland’s probably more shifty conditions with very little sea state. Whereas in Barcelona, there’s nowhere to hide from the waves.”
Burling agrees that sailing skill and execution will be vital, both with the conditions and the lack of disparity among the boats.
The final word belongs to Shoebridge, whose Cup history dates back to 1987 on KZ7.
“We are strong but the challenging group this time is highly resourced and highly motivated and there is no weak team,” says Shoebridge.
“There’s some teams that could do with a bit more time, but that’s just the way it is. But with some of those teams, you know, it’s going to be a big task. We’ll know more in a few weeks but, you know, in the Cup, everyone has their moment.”
Louis Vuitton Cup round robin: August 30-September 9
Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals: September 15-20
Youth America’s Cup: September 18-27
Louis Vuitton Cup finals: September 27-October 6
Puig Women’s America’s Cup: October 6-14
Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup match: October 13-22
Ineos Britannia (UK – Challenger of Record)
Alinghi Red Bull Racing (Switzerland)
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (Italy)
New York Yacht Club American Magic (USA)
Orient Express Racing Team (France)
America’s Cup teams: New Zealand, UK, Switzerland, Italy, USA, France
Invited teams: Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns.
OPINION: The latest backlash from challengers feels like a play for more power.