“The haters will always hate — I’m
not particularly worried about that.
The America’s Cup is very polarising
— we would definitely look at going
back, but if the same problem exists,
then the same problem exists. But
who knows, in a different time, maybe
with a different government, maybe
the same government, maybe a
different regime might see value in it.”
Since the last cup TNZ has made
one very significant addition to their
sailing team in the form of the
Australian “wind whisperer” and
Japanese SailGP skipper Nathan
Outteridge. Dalton confirmed that
Outteridge would definitely be on the
race crew for the cup and did not rule
out the possibility that he might share
helming duties on the Kiwi AC75 with
the skipper Peter Burling.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said.the five expected challengers — Ineos
Britannia, American Magic, Alinghi
(Swiss), Luna Rossa and K-Challenge
(French) — the decision to head to
Catalonia has been met with dismay
by many in New Zealand who wished
to see TNZ stay at home on the
Hauraki Gulf.
Dalton is unapologetic, saying the
money was simply not there to defend
competitively in Auckland, implying
people were not being realistic if they
thought it was. “Do they honestly
believe the money is there, because
I can tell you it is not,” he said.
“Would they like the team to just get
smashed?”
But he did not rule out returning to
home waters in the future, despite
some New Zealanders suggesting the
team would no longer be welcome —
people Dalton described as haters.the Solent. Like many observers, he
also believes TNZ could suffer as they
conduct a second defence of the title
they won in Bermuda in 2017 away
from home.
But Dalton sees it very differently
and argues that moving away from
Auckland will strengthen his team. “If
you study the history of teams in the
second edition of defence, there’s a
pattern with it. They get sloppy and
they end up as a bunch of
individualists. The don’t get focused
and they are normally not fast either.
I think you can put a lot of that down
to the fact that they lose their edge,
and to me, that would be created by
being at home. I would argue that we
are like Vikings — we raid better than
we do participate in our own
environment,” he said.
While Barcelona is popular withT
he man leading the Team
New Zealand defence of the
America’s Cup, which will
take place off Barcelona in
2024, says that Sir Ben
Ainslie and Sir Jim Ratcliffe will be
formidable challengers who will have
a “bloody good crack” at winning.
Grant Dalton is well known to be
an admirer of Ainslie, having talked
him up before the last Cup in
Auckland early last year, when the
British team were thrashed in the
challenger final by Luna Rossa of
Italy.
But he has not changed his opinion
about either Ainslie or Ratcliffe, the
billionaire co-founder of the multi-
national chemicals giant Ineos.
“Ben and Jim Ratcliffe are winners,”
said Dalton of the pair who lead the
Ineos Britannia sailing team, funded
to the tune of more than £100 million
and now based at the Mercedes
Formula One HQ in Brackley in
Northamptonshire. “Ben is supported
by a man that is a winner, that is
immensely clever — he’s just one
impressive individual.
“And he’s not taking this on to get
beaten,” Dalton added. “He has put
the resource in place — and that is a
lot of money plus the people — to
have a bloody good crack it. But who
knows how they will do until the boat
Sport
‘Kiwi Vikings
will launch a
Barcelona raid’
Defence of America’s
Cup away from home
will strengthen Team
New Zealand, their
leader tells Ed Gorman
goes in the piss [water].” A key
determinant of how good the British
AC75 foiling monohull will be is
whether the design team at Brackley
are using tools on a par with TNZ.
Ainslie has said that he believes the
programmes and hardware the team
are using are on the money and
Dalton reckons he may be right.
“Their tools will be at a higher level
than ours,” he said. “It’s just whether
they can operate them — you’ve got
to have both, the tools and the
operators. Their CFD (computational
fluid dynamics) tools, their
mechanical tools in terms of their
hydro systems, are absolutely first
class — they just need to harness
that.”
Ainslie and Ratcliffe know that
historically the Challenger of Record
(CoR) — the role being fulfilled by
Ineos Britannia in Barcelona, which
gives the team a big say in how the
cup regatta is organised — has been a
poisoned chalice, with no CoR team
ever winning the America’s Cup in a
multi-challenger format.
But Dalton does not believe this is a
significant issue. “Whatever,” he said
when asked about it. “I don’t think
that has got anything to do with it.
Maybe that happens if the CoR and
defender end up fighting so much
that they lose focus; maybe that’s why,
or maybe it’s a sheer fluke that they
never win. We’re not going to let
them beat us, by the way, but I’ve
seen not one instance, not one full
stop in a sentence, that isn’t agreed
between us.”
The choice of Barcelona has been
welcomed by Ainslie, for whom the
Spanish Mediterranean port is the
next best thing to a home regatta onTeam New Zealand tasted victory in the 2021 America’s Cup, but will defend their title in Barcelona rather than AucklandSAILING ENERGY/GETTY IMAGES