weight in the first weekend. The difference between minimum and maximum weight is 100kg, so talk of lightening the boat more than this is nonsense. The next step to light- ening the boat is to sail with a lighter crew, but that starts to hurt performance if you fall behind charging the accumulators. There is also a minimum rudder elevator
area, and I expect that Oracle went to that. This is a meaningful drag reduction but it makes manoeuvring more challenging. Longer tips: in light winds and when
speed is down during manoeuvres it’s hard to have tips that are too long. Yes, there is a downside when going at your normal speed, but getting in front of your oppo- nent happens when you are downspeed. On Saturday Oracle felt they were back
in the fight, but on Sunday, in slightly lighter winds, normal service was resumed. Make no mistake, this was a masterful display by ETNZ, right up there with their dominant performances in 1995 and 2000. In fact, it was even better, given the talent and funding available to the Challengers and the Defender.
BREATHLESS – Ken Read Done deal… Emirates Team New Zealand righted their wrong from four years ago. But they also did more than that – they showed what a world-class team they were and how they had managed to combine guts and ingenuity to create the fastest boat. There will be a lot more analysis over the coming weeks and months about exactly how ‘right’ ETNZ managed to get it and where it all went wrong for the rest of the fleet but for now I have a few thoughts on this event. The one thing that really amazes me
about this America’s Cup has been the fact that once the event started the schedule and the pace were relentless. For all involved it has been non-stop. But for the sailors and the shore teams I can’t even fathom what they have been going through. It’s not just the workload and getting ready for every day, but it’s this constant innovation that has very clearly taken the world by storm. It’s been the talk of the town. It’s every-
thing from what mode you’re going to be in the following day, to what changes you are making, what needs to be fixed or tweaked, what needs to be checked, what might possibly go wrong? To add to it all, really for the first time in
America’s Cup history the event and the racing have been run more like a rugby, football or cricket match. What I mean by that is everybody comes down in the morn- ing, the boat gets rigged and they go out sailing at around 10am, and go ripping around. They’re probably checking on all the things that were changed overnight, trying different stuff, using the boards they want for the day, whatever it may be, and then they come in and take a break. Often they’ll go out a second time and do a little burn around. Remember, you’re going
42 SEAHORSE
from the dock to out on the racecourse in these boats in just three and a half minutes. You just go zipping back out again. You
go do a burn. You come back in. You have lunch. You stretch. Change your clothes. Whatever. You get prepped. You go through the weather, the technical analysis. Then you finally come out for the racing. It’s really so much more like a stadium-
style pro sports game – when the players come out in their warm-up gear at the beginning of the night and get loosened up. Then they come out in their equipment and go through a bunch of drills. Then finally out they come for the game itself. It’s exactly the same concept. It has been fasci- nating and a seismic shift for me to see. There’s no more leaving the dock and
you’re committed and out for the day. It’s really the first time I’ve ever seen racing done like this in my career – the fact that there is opportunity to actually make con- stant changes even during the day, not just from one day to the next, is amazing. And, by the way, I absolutely think they
were changing things every time they left the dock, whether it was software, hard- ware, gear, people. The pace and the amount of work being done has gone up a number of levels and it also forced every team to go to a 24-hour workday. It’s funny, you see the shore teams from
the teams that have been eliminated, of course they’re not happy (because they didn’t win) but they’re also so happy, if you get my drift. There’s a fine line between being happy about a result (which they aren’t) and just happy (to not be on the relentless cycle). They definitely are just happy and I think that shows what they have to put into a campaign like this. The boats and the event are completely
different from any other event I have expe- rienced. Even San Francisco – what we are experiencing here is completely different from the 34th America’s Cup. In terms of being in Bermuda, I think
you would be hard pressed to find a person to say this little island hasn’t been tremen- dous for this America’s Cup. Anybody who goes to the race village couldn’t fail to be impressed with all the things around it, including the concerts, the hype, the thou- sands of people in the grandstands, the TV screens, the local hospitality and so on – the list goes on and on and on. There is no doubt it is a professional sporting venue. Remember, the Cup village was just
water before. They put in landfill and created it from nothing. TV for sure high- lighted what Bermuda has to offer – with the colour of the water, the beautiful weather and the unbelievable backdrops. But they have also worked hard on this
event, they have taken it to heart and really made a big deal out of it. I’m just mad that I wasn’t smart enough to get a kickback, maybe a hotel room, every time I said Bermuda is beautiful. I’d never have to pay for a hotel room here for the rest of my life. When it comes to the TV it’s hard for
anyone not to try to pick holes in a TV broadcast, whether you’re watching a sit- com or a movie or a sporting event. Every- one does it, me included. But it’s also, I think, impossible to say that this hasn’t been by far the best-produced TV of sail- boat racing in history. The people behind the scenes (for sure not me) who have put this whole thing together have done an unbelievable job. It’s 100-plus people working every day behind monitors, elec- tricians, sound people, helicopter pilots and cameramen. It’s just an unbelievable group of people who have put this on. I’ve had the easy part. I just get to sit
there and talk about some of the coolest boats flying around a stadium-style race- course competing for the oldest trophy in sport! The TV set has brought this to life. The hope was always to make it under- standable, not just for core sailors but for sports fans. That, I think, has been a massive success. Now one side of TV that is certainly
controversial is the fact that a lot of the television is on pay-per-view programming in some parts of the world. Unfortunately sailing just doesn’t have the viewing figures of many major sports, so companies like BT Sports, NBC and so on are just not going to pay millions/billions to get sailing on air. They’re going to pay just enough to win the contract, and then they’re going to try to milk everybody for whatever they can. Whether it is through advertising or individual charges. Producing a TV broad- cast like this isn’t cheap. I apologise on the one hand that some
people feel outed because of this pay thing, but unfortunately the reality is that some- body’s got to pay for it. I really hope that, on reflection, people can look at what they’re seeing and understand that this is by far and away the most amazing broad- cast of any sailing, ever. I’m proud of that. That part has been fun. For sure this has been a unique month
for me, with North Sails duties, America’s Cup commentating duties, and of course sailing duties (in the J Class), but that’s been the really cool part of it – being able to be involved with so many different sides of our sport. In the end Emirates Team New Zealand
have shown themselves to be a level above any other team. As it started to slip away we knew that Oracle had the budget, brains and motivation to come out and fight this back from the brink but this time it was just too much for them. ETNZ were just too strong and they
brilliantly combined innovations that we can talk about another time. This event will go down in history for sheer tenacity and the huge gap that the Kiwis managed to create over all of their opponents. This is yet another chapter in elite racing for a very proud sailing nation. Ken Read is a two-time America’s Cup helmsman, the president of North Sails and commentated for AC TV in Bermuda
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