American Magic helmsman Dean Barker. Photo / Photosport
American Magic helmsman Dean Barker. Photo / Photosport
American Magic helmsman Dean Barker admits the team have plenty of catching up to do, despite being the first America's Cup challenger to dock in Auckland.
The syndicate reached a significant milestone on Monday with the arrival of the team's first AC75 'Defiant' into Auckland on the container ship BBCDestiny.
Unpacking started today, with Barker completing his 14-day quarantine this morning.
Speaking to NZME from the team's viaduct base, Barker said there was plenty of work to be done.
"We've got a pretty long list of items that we need to work through to try and catch up on the lost time," Barker said. "We've over the last three months lost a fair chunk of time so we've got a big list of things we need to do when we get out sailing.
Dean Barker admits the team have plenty of work ahead of them. Photo / Dean Purcell
"With all things going well we'll be looking forward to boat two getting down here and ripping into that."
The team's second boat is under construction in Rhode Island and will be flown to Auckland in late September.
Barker said it'll be quite different to 'Defiant'.
"We had three months from when we got given the rule to designing boat one so the guys did a great job to get what we have here and it's been a great platform to develop a lot of the different systems but boat two, like I'm sure for the other teams, is very much the race boat and we already know there's some big gains to be had there," he said.
"We're certainly looking forward to getting that down here, getting that onto the water for the final run into the start of racing."
American Magic boat which has arrived in NZ to start preparations. Photo / Dean Purcell
Meanwhile, American Magic has joined INEOS Team UK in distancing itself from spying allegations levelled at an as-yet-unnamed person by Team New Zealand.
The defender dismissed contractors who had full access to their base and allegedly leaked sensitive information, which came back to them via Europe.
Barker said it had nothing to do with them.
"We have no idea what it's all about, clearly there's some issues going on amongst the event and Team NZ so who knows what's behind it," he said.
"It's not unusual for the America's Cup to have some controversial things going on and this is certainly going to be no different I'm sure ... I can safely say it's got nothing to do with us, we're just as interested as I'm sure a lot of other people are to hear what it's about."
