Emirates Team NZ co-helm Liv Mackay takes a break during training for the Women's America's Cup in Barcelona. Photo / ETNZ
Suzanne McFadden for LockerRoom
Liv Mackay’s first connection to the America’s Cup goes back to New Zealand’s original hunt for sailing’s holy grail – a decade before she was even a twinkle in her father’s eye.
Her father, Hugo, was in fact a shearer – a Kiwi working in Western Australia – who went to watch KZ7 race in the challenger series for the America’s Cup in Perth in 1987.
“I’m not from a sailing family but my earliest memory of the Cup was as a kid hearing my dad talking about being in Fremantle,” Mackay, now 26, says. “I think he knew what was going on.”
It was her farmer dad who took 9-year-old Mackay and her brother to the Napier Sailing Club for a bit of a fun family activity. But Mackay soon became determined to learn the ropes and get serious about yachting.
Now her dad – and mum – are on their way to Barcelona to watch their daughter co-helm the New Zealand boat in the very first Women’s America’s Cup, starting in three weeks’ time.
It wasn’t until 2013 – when Mackay was at boarder at Havelock North girls’ school, Woodford House – that she discovered the America’s Cup for herself.
“Every morning, we’d put the racing on and I’d make my whole class watch it,” she recalls. “I remember our whole school – there were only 300 of us – watching the final races together.
“It’s pretty special seeing how the country gets behind this sporting event and how significant it really is. I remember thinking it was similar to watching the Olympics, and at that point, I was really curious about the Games and quite driven to get there. Then watching the Cup really intrigued me.”
Back then, the Olympics were really the only pathway to elite sailing for female yachties in New Zealand. Did watching Dean Barker at the helm of Team NZ’s catamaran on San Francisco Harbour made Mackay want to sail on one?
“Yeah, but how?” she laughs.
“To me, the America’s Cup back then was all about design and engineering and having that type of brain. As a teenager, I was interested in those things, but I wouldn’t say it was my skillset [she has a degree in business studies, accounting and international business]. I didn’t really think it could be an option for me.”
But now that’s changed, and Mackay is a professional sailor wearing the Emirates Team New Zealand livery. Her timing is impeccable.
“I don’t want to say everything I’ve achieved is because of luck, but I’m extremely fortunate with timing in women’s sailing. So I feel very lucky in that sense,” says Mackay, who’s also the regular strategist for the Black Foils in SailGP. “I’m trying to make the most of it, and keep building on it and bringing more women and girls along with me.”
On the eve of the first Women’s America’s Cup, Mackay is getting to grips with the very different waters of Barcelona.
As co-helmswoman of the Team New Zealand crew, Mackay learned to how to handle the AC40 foiling monohull on Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf earlier this year. But Barcelona’s sea swells – and waves up to 2m at times – have thrown up a new challenge for the Kiwis.
“The wave state is a big feature – it’s definitely lumpy out there,” Mackay says [as could be seen on the first day of racing in the Youth America’s Cup this week]. “And it really changes the way you sail the boat, so it’s been a big shift for us.
“Seasickness has been a bit of a feature for us, too. Fortunately, I haven’t been struggling with that.”
There are other dynamics that sailing in Barcelona bring for the five-woman team, who’ve been on and off the water over the past few months.
“Being in a bigger city, there are a lot more boats on the harbour to be wary of, and there’s obviously the Louis Vuitton Cup going on, too. So there are a lot of factors involved in just getting on the water,” Mackay says.
“But once we get out there, we try not to overcomplicate things, and just concentrate on going sailing.”
For now, the Kiwi women are land-bound, as the Team NZ youth crew use their shared AC40 in the Youth America’s Cup. But they still use their racing simulator at the Team NZ base, to keep up the “gaming” skills needed to manoeuvre the AC40. And they’re out on the team’s chase boats, getting up close to the action as part of their own learning curve.
But Mackay is relishing a string of firsts in her sailing career – being part of the America’s Cup defenders’ camp, and an all-women’s crew.
“It’s so good being in the same environment as the guys and being part of a much bigger team,” she says of Team NZ.
“For all of us, it’s a dream to be part of the America’s Cup, and enjoying being in this environment for the first time, and facing different challenges together has brought us quite close as a crew. We just went away for a few days’ break up the coast and got a house together. So we’re feeling quite tight as a team.”
Mackay and Gemma Jones helped set up the simulator and unpack the boat in Barcelona while their crew-mates Jo Aleh, Molly Meech and bronze medallist Erica Dawson were competing at the Paris Olympics.
“Gemma and I are sailing on the same side of the boat – I’m helming, Gemma is trimming – and building that relationship has been really important,” Mackay says.
Liv Mackay (left) and Gemma Jones have formed a strong sailing partnership in Barcelona. Photo: ETNZ
The women’s and youth crews have moved into their own race village at Port Olimpic, a few kilometres from Team NZ’s base at Port Vell, but Mackay still goes their most days to use the simulator and check in with the Cup defenders, now in their final development phase before the Cup match starting October 12.
“Insane” is the word Mackay uses describing her first time behind the wheel of the AC40, early in 2023.
She and Leonard Takahashi (who’s on Team NZ’s youth crew) were invited to spend six weeks working with Team NZ, driving the AC40s in their two-boat trialling programme on the Hauraki Gulf.
“The whole first week was really windy, so they were quite apprehensive to put us on board the boat. Then one day I was sitting on the chase boat with Grant Dalton, Kevin Shoebridge and Blair Tuke, and Blair said ‘Right, let’s just get you on’,” she recalls.
“It was blowing 15-20 knots, and Pete [Burling] was trimming for me and Nathan [Outteridge] was helming on the other side. It was pretty freaky, but I felt so much confidence having those guys around me.
“I was really surprised you could just push the boat straight away. And my perception of speed was quite different – it didn’t feel like we were going 40-45 knots. It was quite disorientating.
“I really appreciated their belief in putting me on the boat.”
It’s been a monumental year for Mackay, sailing in her third SailGP season with the Black Foils who won four events on the world circuit, and skippering the Live Ocean Racing team for a third season in the ETF26 foiling catamaran series in Europe.
“It’s been pretty wild,” she says. “I’ve done a lot of travel around the world this year, and a lot of serious racing. But I just want to make the most of it. I have so much to learn.
“With women’s racing, it’s very much just the beginning. There are so many ideas of what this could be long-term. For now, we’re focused on October and putting our best selves out there and winning as Emirates Team New Zealand. We’re very driven.
“But if this continues on, in the long term I think it’s going to be super exciting.”
The Women’s America’s Cup will be sailed from October 11-17, with the final match race running between flights of the America’s Cup match. Teams from 12 nations will take part, including the six America’s Cup syndicates.
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.
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