Yachting: Kiwis give grunt to US syndicate

By JULIE ASH

Being welcomed by Craig Monk and seeing Andrew Taylor working away in the background means visitors to the One World syndicate could be excused for thinking they were at the Team New Zealand base by mistake.

The former Team New Zealand sailors are back in Auckland with One World for another summer's training in the countdown to next October's Louis Vuitton Challenge.

The syndicate have spent the past few weeks out on the Hauraki Gulf with their two training yachts USA51 and 55 - formerly America True and Stars and Stripes - and they have already broken a mast.

"It has been a good process because we have worked out the important elements of that mast and what caused the failure," One World sailing director Peter Gilmour said.

"With these boats we do a lot of technical testing and typically we do it as non-destructive testing. It is quite interesting to be able to do destructive testing, where you reach the limit before failure."

Gilmour said the process of testing was by no means riveting.

"It is a tedious and time-consuming process. You come up with, say, 10 ideas to test. Maybe two of them will improve you and eight of them will have been done before or be of no use.

"Hours on the water are very important. The Hauraki Gulf is a specialist patch of water. To predict what is going to happen next on any given day, you need a lot of experience."

One World Challenge, owned by telecommunications tycoon Craig McCaw, are the first challenge from Seattle.

McCaw, who helped to finance Team New Zealand's 2000 cup victory, decided to set up his own campaign this time round.

The first person he hired was Laurie Davidson, the designer of New Zealand's last two winning boats.

Soon after that came Gilmour, the Australian who skippered Nippon in the last regatta and has been involved with Australia II, Kookaburra and Spirit of Australia.

Now the One World team boast 10 Olympic medallists, three round-the-world winners, 60 world championship titles in various classes, and 16 America's Cup winners, including at least six New Zealanders.

"Quite frankly, I think it will make Team NZ not weaker but substantially stronger," Gilmour said.

"Suddenly these youngsters have to go third rung to first straight away. For Team New Zealand, it is one of their positive aspects for their 2003 campaign. Straight away they were re-organised and on top of it.

"For Russell Coutts [now with Alinghi] and those that have joined One World challenge and so on, it is exciting for them, too, because they are equally challenged.

"They are trying to rebuild what they had and deal with a new culture. They have become youngsters again and their eyes are wide open."

Gilmour said there was no formula of money or crew that guaranteed success.

"I think a lot of it comes from examining the business model of Team New Zealand and how they went about it. They have clearly been the shining light for the past eight years or so in the America's Cup campaigning."

In a sport where it is hard to gauge the strength of the opposition, Gilmour would be keen to square off against the other challengers before the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Team New Zealand have expressed an interest in hosting a Road to the America's Cup regatta early next year.

"We would absolutely be interested, but I think only us and the GBR Challenge seem very positive towards it, which is disappointing."