Yachting: Simon the Cup spy man

By Suzanne McFadden

Team New Zealand sailor Simon Daubney is the spy who came to lunch with Prada.

The job of reconnaissance in this America's Cup has been stormy - screaming, intimidation and boats ramming each other. But Daubney - the defender's reconnaissance man - has discovered some goodwill out on the waters of the Hauraki Gulf. The Italians have fed him with pasta from their chaseboat during his long hours observing Prada's silver yachts.

Team New Zealand will take more than an interested glance at Prada and AmericaOne during the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup next week, which determines who the Kiwis will race for the Cup. Armed with hi-tech cameras, it will be Daubney's daily mission to unravel the secrets of the challenger boats. It is all within the Cup rules, as long as he stays 200m away.

Daubney, a senior trimmer on the black boats and veteran of four Cup campaigns, was charged with the job of observing the challengers since they first began arriving in Auckland. He still sails on the Black Magics in the afternoons, but shadows the enemy from his chaseboat in the mornings.

"We've built up as much information as we can about these guys. We've got a file on everyone, so that when we finally get to race we have a fair idea about them," he said.

But photographic evidence is still not enough. "Every day someone asks us, `how are you going to do?' How can you say? It won't be until the first two or three minutes off the startline on February 19 that we will know."

Daubney photographs the rival boats' sails, with both digital and long-lens cameras. Design coordinator Tom Schnackenberg turns the photos into information, measuring them up by computer to see if the sail area of a boat has changed. "I get photos of the challengers from particular speeds at particular angles, and then I do a little bit of spying on our own boats from the same kind of angles, so we can compare," Daubney said.

"If you get them hoisting their sails at a certain angle, you can learn quite a lot about the boat -- its length and displacement.

"We haven't seen anything outrageously different or radical out there. But we have a healthy respect for these guys who are coming up with some nice sails."

Sails are the engines of these boats, and a fraction of speed earned from years of design testing can all go out the window with the wrong sail.

Spying has been around the Cup since the late nineteenth century when frogmen examined rival keels. But it has been severely muted in the past eight years.

"In Fremantle there were supposedly mini-subs. Back in 1992, you could hire helicopters to spy. Bill Koch spooked everyone with his van covered in aerials parked on the hill at Point Loma. It had to stop," Daubney said. Nowadays observation is within the rules if you are not within 200m of the opposition. Team New Zealand are fair game too.

"We've had people on us constantly. The New York Yacht Club spent three years watching us, and we see the Italians a lot," Daubney said.

"Even though it's legal, you don't expect people to let you come over and take stuff. Some of the teams have tried to chase me off. There's been jostling in the rubber boats."