Young sailors Shaun Mason and Mike Edmonds. Photo / Doug Sherring
The America's Cup might be over for Team New Zealand but it's only just beginning for the next generation of sailors.
More than 60 Kiwi sailors were involved off the coast of Valencia and Mike Edmonds would love nothing more than to be involved next time the Auld
Mug is put up for grabs.
Edmonds is one of 34 in the Lion Foundation Youth Programme, a scheme designed to train the next generation of America's Cup sailors.
For the past two-and-a-half years, the 18-year-old has turned up at 8am almost every Saturday and Sunday for a day's sailing. That meeting time was a bit of a struggle over the last few months, given what was happening in Spain.
"I was living on Valencia time," Edmonds said.
Every other day, Edmonds and fellow student Shaun Mason crew aboard NZL 40 or 41, the America's Cup boats at Auckland's Viaduct Basin that take tourists out for a taste of what the world's oldest sporting competition is all about.
The programme was established out of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in 1987 and has produced a catalogue of top sailors.
Team New Zealand's Jeremy Lomas, Chris Ward and James Dagg went through the course, as did Oracle tactician Gavin Brady and three-times Volvo Ocean Race winner Mark Christensen.
Students race on three-man 6m Elliott keelboats and, over three years, spend one year each on the bow, mast and helm. By graduation they know how to run a year-long campaign, like the America's Cup or the Volvo Ocean Race.
Edmonds is quite clear where he wants to be in the future. "Hopefully with an America's Cup syndicate," he said. "Something like bowman, that would be pretty cool.
"The next cup would be awesome but the one after that might be more realistic."
