America's Cup - Kiwis put some coaching spine into team

by Sail-World on 24 Dec 2016 Over the past two weeks Emirates Team New Zealand has announced the signing of two members to join their non-sailing team.

The roles of each have not been clearly spelled out in media releases. Both have represented New Zealand at Olympic level and in that regard come from a common heritage with several members of the Emirates Team Team NZ sailing crew.

Long standing ETNZ coach, Rod Davis has been re-signed to assist with match racing training. But it is not clear how this will work in the seven six-month build up to the 35th America's Cup. It may be that the top match racer will just act in an advisory role to the team's afterguard.

Another option is to run the team members, some of whom do have good match racing skills, through a program top develop the team match racing skills in keelboats or the RNZYS Elliott 7's.

Earlier this week Emirates Team New Zealand added America's Cup veteran, Murray Jones, 'to help guide the team in the most important six months of the 35th America’s Cup campaign.'

A former double Olympic representative in the Flying Dutchman class, Jones placed fifth in the Korean Olympics and fourth in 1992 in Barcelona. Jone is a former European champion in the 470 class; he was selected for the still-born 1980 Olympic NZ team in that class.

He switched to the America's Cup after the 1992 Olympics, leaving Team NZ for Alinghi in 2000, and then joining Oracle Racing Team USA.

Since the 2013 America's Cup, Jones has been more focussed on his daughter Gemma's Olympic campaign in the Nacra 17. She placed an extremely creditable fourth in the 2016 Olympics - being her first Olympic campaign.

Jones is expected to be a 'pair of eyes' on the chase boat coming from a very practical sailing background rather than being a sailing technologist. A former spar maker, Jones co-founded Matrix Masts (now Hall Spars NZ).

Jones says he is excited to be back with the team he first won the America’s Cup with early in his sailing career.

“It’s great to be back, it has been a long time since I was part of this team. I have a lot of friends in the team and a lot of people that I have respected over the years and obviously a really great sailing and design team.”

“Up until now, I had stepped out of the cup this time around. But as the teams progressed in their campaigns I obviously started to get a bit more interested in what is going on and missing it a little bit and coincidentally Glenn Ashby called up and asked me if I was interested in helping out, so he talked me into it.”

To date the team is believed to have been self-coached, in contrast to Oracle Team USA who have long used the services of Philippe Presti and others.

Sailing team director Glenn Ashby says that having someone of Jones’ calibre and experience will be a huge asset going into the vitally important final six to seven months of the campaign. “Already some big decisions have been made, certainly there are a few more ahead, but we are coming to the stage of the campaign where refinement and focus on the final push for the cup in 2017 are most important and coming in at this stage Murray can provide a fresh perspective on progress and knows better than most of where priorities should lie from here.”

The addition of the two former Olympians is believed to be a response to a less than stunning final few rounds of the America's Cup World Series, where the New Zealand team were found wanting on a few vital occasions, being bested in some tight situations against experienced match racers, and making other unforced errors which cost the team dearly in the points score despite seeming to have good boats speed and generally good tactics.

Ben Ainslie and Jimmy Spithill, the most experienced match racers amongst the competing teams, were able to pull vital points at key times in the one design foiling AC45's. In the America's Cup regatta there are expected to be significant speed differences between the boats, however, the start is a key component and being pinged in the pre-start phase is one way for a slower competitor to negate a speed advantage held by their opponent.

Team NZ have moved to plug that short-coming.

The first launch date for the new AC50 class is just two days away on December 27, six months before the start of the Qualification series starting on May 27, 2017.