Blair Tuke and Peter Burling. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Blair Tuke and Peter Burling. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
OPINION:
Contract negotiations in all professional sports can be touchy things but Emirates Team New Zealand's retention of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke has brought a new element into their defence of the 37th America's Cup: double helmsmen.
Pioneered by Luna Rossa in the last Cup, helmsmen on both sidesof the boat now seems certain to be employed by Team NZ in the next regatta.
There are significant advantages, even if they may seem only small to outsiders; the new boats are being made lighter, with fewer crew, to obviate previous problems in getting them off their hulls to foil in light airs. Ditching the idea of Burling and Tuke scampering from one side of the boat to the other seems utterly commonsense in that it reduces windage in an environment where even small gains can translate into big advantages.
That's particularly so when you have world-class sailors like Glenn Ashby and Nathan Outteridge on the other side of the boat; Team NZ's core sailing team now looks about a strong as it is possible to get. Why leave some of that class of personnel shore side?
From the team perspective, dual helmsmen also address a problem Team NZ didn't expect to have last time. In the judgement of some knowledgeable sailors, Burling and Tuke didn't sail the boat quite as well as they might have.
The ETNZ boat, Te Rehutai, was clearly the fastest in the regatta – and didn't even get the chance to show its paces across a wider range of wind speeds. The old America's Cup adage is: fastest boat wins; many sailors felt that the winning margin last time would have been even more clear-cut had the boat been sailed to its potential.
Peter Burling (left) and Blair Tuke. Photo / Nick Reed.
All that said, there also seem to be some home truths involved in Burling and Tuke's decision to sign on with the team again:
# Money: The nationality rule, so often forecast by Grant Dalton before ETNZ won the Cup in Bermuda, means it is very difficult for Kiwi sailors to skip to another team, like Alinghi. That team's 2000 raid on Team NZ's human resources cannot happen this time.
The sailing crew of any challenger has to be 100 per cent composed of people from the challenging country; they either must have a passport from that country at the time of the last Cup race in Auckland or spend 18 months out of the previous three years in that country. If they'd left Team NZ, Burling and Tuke's income would likely have been severely impacted.
# Focus: Many considered Burling and Tuke attempted to do too much in recent years, taking on the Cup, the Olympics and Sail GP, plus their abiding interest in their Live Ocean marine conservation foundation. This time round, they have decided not to compete in the next Olympics. It seems a sensible decision – and you suspect ETNZ pressed the point during the contract negotiations.
In terms of preparation, the duo had four months between the end of the America's Cup and the Tokyo Olympics and are thought to have spent about a quarter of that time in MIQ. Even with limited preparation, they managed a silver medal in the 49er class – though they were gold medallists in Rio in 2016 by the biggest margin ever, ahead of a bloke called Nathan Outteridge.
# Team unity: One of the strangest parts of all this was the pair's statement referencing the possibility of Jeddah as a venue for AC37: "We've committed to telling the critical ocean and climate story through our sailing careers, and we need to make choices that will allow us to step up to this ambition. Obviously we have concerns about the suitability of Jeddah which we have expressed to the team over the past few months. We are continuing to talk with the team as they work through the detail before we make any decisions."
It was odd to (a) say that at all and (b) to do so in public. It is easy to see how it might have driven some sort of wedge between Burling and Tuke and the rest of the team. That will now be healed by their decision to re-sign ahead of any announcement by a venue (due at the end of March).
Some will be tempted to think that Saudi Arabia and Jeddah might be out of the running, making the duo's decision easier. Probably not. Cork (Ireland), Malaga or Barcelona (Spain) and Saudi Arabia are all said to be in the running still.
In Spain, there's even been mention of nearby Cadiz joining Malaga in a bid to host the Cup but, as with all these potential venues, there is no sign yet of the private and/or central government funding needed to do so – though Ireland is apparently moving closer to a decision.
So the re-signing of Burling and Tuke has given ETNZ probably the best all-round sailing crew; if the advantages of the last regatta are carried over to the new boat and added to, it is more than possible extremely likely they will have fastest boat.
