Yachting: Day starts early for the coolest job

By Suzanne McFadden

Wonder how Team New Zealand fill their days waiting for the big match in February?

Team New Zealand senior crewman, trimmer Simon Daubney, describes a 13-hour day in the biggest office in town - the Hauraki Gulf.

6.30 am: Some mornings it's a game of touch rugby at an inner-city park or shooting hoops at the basketball backboard on the base.

They're a fiercely competitive bunch these guys - there's another contest on the golf course on days off.

Other mornings they are at the gym.

"The 100-kilo guys lift real heavy weights, and others concentrate on aerobics," Daubney says.

8 am: The crew start filing into the big black shed in the village, where they shower and get ready for breakfast in the crew room.

8.30 am: A flurry of meetings take place around the base - design meetings, mast meetings, sail meetings. The weather forecast is checked and a decision is made whether to go sailing or not.

If the call is to sail - which it usually is - the black boats, NZL32 and NZL57, are towed out to the gulf at10.30 am.

10.45 am: The sailors eat their lunch on the tow-out.

They have to bring their own sandwiches.

"Every minute sailing is valuable so there's no time to stop and have a picnic," Daubney said.

On the trip out to the race course, the guys talk and tell jokes. "A lot of us have been sailing together a long, long time - we're a pretty tight group of friends. You might think being that close for so long could cause problems, but we have a lot of fun.

"But as soon as the sails go up, and we start in racing mode, the whole tone changes."

11 am: The sails are hoisted off Rangitoto light or Takapuna, and testing begins.

The crews change on the old boat and the new boat every day - sometimes during a day there will be shuffles.

Russell Coutts, Dean Barker, Murray Jones, Rick Dodson and Brad Butterworth take turns steering.

Team New Zealand don't always stick inside the inner gulf.

"If you are testing downwind sails in a southerly, the Sky Tower gets very small very quickly," Daubney says. Sometimes they are closer to Great Barrier Island than downtown Auckland.

They share the outer gulf with dolphins, sharks and whales.

It is starting to get congested in the race course area - this week there have been up to seven cup boats out on the water, and there are another 11 in town being readied to go out next week.

"It's amazing to think all these boats are finally here and sailing off the East Coast Bays. You get the same feeling driving down Ponsonby Rd and saying 'that looks like Guido going into Prego'," said Daubney.

"And it's amazing the number of times you cross paths with another boat out on the water.

"You'd think it was a big ocean, but it's getting smaller and smaller every day.

"It's not a problem - it gives you something to look at."

No one engages in battles, though.

Daubney challenges the public perception that hours of testing must be boring.

"People ask 'what are you doing going backwards and forwards for three years?'

"It's actually really interesting - we're testing stuff and everyone is involved."

4 pm: The Black Magics head for home.

The return time will stretch out as the summer days get longer.

Sometimes the two boats have a race back to the Waitemata Harbour.

5 pm: When the boats dock, the sailors divide into their areas of responsibility as they clean the boats and put them to bed.

There are more meetings.

One of Daubney's duties on the boat is sail shape evaluator, shooting pictures of the sails with a hi-tech digital camera, another aspect of the design and testing programmes. "There are a lot of photos to evaluate and e-mail around the group," he said.

7.30 pm: Most of the team have left by now, but the designers can sometimes be poring over their computers well after dark.

But the lights can still be shining in the early hours of the morning, if sailmakers are working to make recuts.

Team New Zealand does this six days a week, with Sunday their rest day.

But they say it isn't a grind.

"Love it? This is the coolest job in the world," Daubney says.

"And for once, you get to work from home."