Dalton- No surprises in Kiwi America's Cup report

by Fiona McIlroy on 4 May 2003 The report outlining what went wrong in the 2003 Team New Zealand campaign is due to be released to the public in a matter of weeks.

Newly appointed managing director Grant Dalton has seen the draft and told TV One's Good Morning on Wednesday that it doesn't hold any surprises.

'I don't think you're going to see a lot in the report that you couldn't have seen just from watching television,' Dalton said.

'You observed we had a boat that wasn't strong enough, you observed a dysfunctional crew sailing it in parts, and a design team that was really pushing outside the envelope a little too much.'

Within the onboard crew Dalton says deficiencies existed in the afterguard and trimming, and they will be targeted areas for new blood, but that the grinding and bow areas on the boat worked just fine.

'We will not necessarily ditch them [the afterguard and trimmers] out of the team but we may ditch them into other areas.'

And although Tom Schnackenberg has been retained, Dalton says he will not be the head of design again.

'Tom Schnackenberg will stay in the team and rightly so. He is now Mr America's Cup but there will be changes.

'He's better in a roving capacity, putting input into all areas of the campaign not just design.'

Dalton believes the syndicate needs a 'name designer' someone to fill the role such as Bruce Farr has within the challenger of record - Oracle.

'There has been a lot of talk about hiring a new design co-ordinator who actually brings it all together and can filter through the numbers and get to the nut of the problem, which Russell Coutts is so good at doing, and that's what we're certainly doing at the moment.'

Dalton is also working with other re-signed members of Team New Zealand, including skipper Dean Barker, to put together a campaign budget of between $100 and $150 million.

They will be looking offshore for a core sponsor and the bulk of the money.

'We're doing a lot better than would obviously be evident from the outside because there is a core of key sponsors that were there last time and there are indications that some of them would wish to continue, however, we need more money than last time because we're going offshore to Europe.

'The money is an ongoing process, by Christmas we're not going to have $120 million, but we'll have an amount of money that we feel comfortable that we can move forward on and push the go pedal.'

While funding the campaign is a high priority, so too is securing key people and Dalton is confident there are enough good people available to combat the strong quintet of New Zealanders within Alinghi.

'If they're not within the team now or within the defectors, or in New Zealand we'll take them from offshore,' said Dalton.

'There are five key guys that work for Alinghi and everyone else in on the market.'

Source: nzoom