News Around the World
Jimmy Spithill might have maintained his bluster for the first half of the 2017 America’s Cup but then even he struggled to pretend there was any way out for Oracle. The USA team talked a lot about the Kiwi superiority in the ‘lighter conditions’ of the Match, but the reality was that working alone thousands of miles away Team New Zealand came up with a far superior solution in terms of sailing an AC50; less well known is that Team NZ also persisted with a path of foil development rejected out of hand by several of their rivals. Barring catastrophe skipper Glenn Ashby and helmsman Peter Burling’s Kiwi crew was always going to win the 35th America’s Cup
a whole heap of tests between leg and upper-body generated power. As far as numbers go on an explosive reading the lower body
created a bit more wattage than the upper body. However, over a longer period both Graeme and I produced more power from our upper body... This testing was kept pretty quiet, but when I was speaking and comparing data with triathletes I know I was producing the same amount of power from my upper body as they were with their legs. So we thought let’s continue down this path, which is what all the other teams did. However, what we didn’t see was the freeing-up of the hands when using leg power. Looking back it’s a no-brainer, as the foot buttons used when we were kneeling or stand- ing threw us off constant power production. On ETNZ the flight-control system was taken away from the helm
and that liberated Pete Burling to focus on steering, which is the system we now run with on the F50s in SailGP. But in Bermuda there was so much responsibility on Jimmy as helm, both steering and flying the boat, and flying those boats is bloody difficult… Now on the F50 we have an independent flight controller and look how often we touch down, a lot! Every SailGP team does, but in Bermuda we were in the high 90 per cent range of dry sailing with also dry lap races. So ETNZ made things simple, schooling us in the Cup! SH: There was no guarantee, though. The ETNZ skipper Glenn Ashby said they could have arrived and made fools of themselves… KH: They could have, yes, but I think they knew all along that they had a pretty good package! SH: Tom Slingsby did cycle for a period onboard Oracle. KH: He did. We put a really small bike behind Jimmy on the AC50, for Tom to produce power where he could while running the tactics, which was his job, and so instead of being on the handles trying to look around he could sit there and scan the conditions. But he really had to pedal hard to produce any power and so it may not have been enough to make a significant difference. SH: In the challenger races ETNZ pitchpoled against BAR – it was quite an effort for them to recover from that. KH: It was, and we really believed god was on their side! Racing was
30 SEAHORSE
cancelled for the rest of that day and then the following day was also cancelled due to the weather; if racing had taken place they would have lost a significant number of points and they probably wouldn’t have made the final as it took them around 24 hours to repair the boat. Looking back, they were meant to win it really, but even today I stand in my belief that we had the best crew out on the water. SH: Going into the first Cup race it had been four years since the last remarkable ETNZ-Oracle race in San Francisco and so there was plenty on. This was your first actual AC race. Nerves? KH:Mate, I am a racer! It really doesn’t phase me. I love the nerves, I love the atmosphere and the high, I crave that, and I was counting down the days from the day I joined the team to the Cup races. I wasn’t part of the AC45s, they had their crew for that in the World Series, but for Bermuda, well I just loved it! So against ETNZ we just had to do our job and I feel we all did that. SH: Do you get calmer as race time approaches? KH: This is where it gets a bit strange… Having been a solo athlete for so long I normally go into a cocoon where I don’t talk to anyone and just concentrate of the job, with the gameplan in my head. In a team environment I like to share my energy around, and I remember towards the end of those Cup races I stood up in front of the guys and tried a motivational talk, but I am an emotional racer and I became quite emotional during that pep talk and it didn’t come out the way I planned! I tried to stay focused most of the time, as those boats, in positions 1, 2 and 3, mate, they hurt! It was a dogfight and I was grateful I was fit and could produce what the team needed. SH: Race one and two must have been a shock to the team, par- ticularly race one where you were almost stalled then OCS… KH: I haven’t gone back and looked at the races, I was pretty mentally broken really. The last time I felt like that was when I failed in the Olympics. It is not a good feeling. SH: In the break in between races you took a lot out of the boat and re-moded it. That made a difference? KH: Yes, but not enough, not nearly enough. We capitalised in one race where the Kiwis made too many unforced errors, but they knew
INGRID ABERY
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