America's Cup - Peter Burling on the key factors behind the Cup win

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ on 30 Jun 2017 A lot of attention has centred around Peter Burling, a double Olympic medalist, a multiple world champion and now an America's Cup champion - all by the age of 26 years.

Sail-World's NZ Editor, Richard Gladwell caught up with him at the fence around the Emirates Team New Zealand base and asked what he thought the key factors were in the team's win?

'We are a very tight team here. We are just one massive family. Whenever we had an issue, we were very open about it. We were not afraid to take risks. We tried to be innovative. However, we definitely faced a lot of adversity ion the way through with the capsize

Early on there was bits and pieces going on, but that core group held tight and made some good decisions which got us to the point where we are now.

Emirates Team New Zealand is one of the most inexperienced teams in terms of sailors who are in their first America's Cup regatta. Two of the team had their first ever yacht race in the Qualifiers.

'I think that shows how experienced a few of the guys in the background were,' Burling replies.

'You can't under-estimate the impact that people like Ray Davies and Murray Jones had on the chase boat. They have been amazing all the way through- really helping us to grow and get better. They have been amazing support.'

While the team is the lightest in terms of America's Cup experience, it is easily the strongest with at least five Olympic medalists in the nine-strong sailing crew. Does that make a difference?

'I think it definitely helps. We were under no illusions when we came here that for us to win the America's Cup, we would have to win eight races,' Burling responds.

'We knew that coming here we would have a fair bit of pressure to do that, and when we did get put under that pressure, we proved what we were made of and did come up with some pretty good results.'

The sailing crew have followed their Olympic practice of having any debrief at their accommodation rather than sitting around the base in lengthy debrief meetings

'Normally we would have a debrief back at one of our houses', Burling explains. 'But we also stay here and check everything out on the boat. There are often little bits and pieces in our area that we need to work on.'

'These are incredibly complex boats and if one little thing isn't working it can really set you back. We were very fortunate throughout the whole thing which is due to the engineers and shore crew.'

'We didn't have one race where a failure on the boat cost us a point. It has just been an amazing push from the guys.'

Ray Davies and now six-time America's Cup winner, Murray Jones came on as coaches for the sailing crew. Their involvement seems to have worked very well, with mistakes reducing and not being repeated.

'Ray has been with this team for a very long time - and was tactician last time and had some good strategies from there', explains Burling.

'Murray has re-joined the team later and has obviously done a lot with the America's Cup over his career.

'He has a good all round, broad knowledge, and with this win here he is probably tied with Russell as being the most successful ever America's Cup sailor. He definitely knows what it takes to win.

One of the standout features of the 35th Match for the America's Cup has been the way Emirates Team New Zealand being rookie match racers were able to dominate the highly experienced crew aboard Oracle Team USA

'We were really happy with the way we went about it', says Burling. 'We came in here with good boat handling and some good ideas as to how we wanted to start. We were very open minded as to how we wanted to evolve that.'

'It just shows you how quickly we learn as a group. We have some very good young guys on board who can grow and adapt and learn. That even showed with the boat speed. We were never afraid to chuck the gear on and test things.'

'The whole way through this we were doing very similar things to Oracle where we were out sailing at night time with new bits and pieces that had come up from New Zealand or been built here.

'We are just trying to get more speed out of the boat, and that really showed as to how much quicker we are now than when we started.'

When they arrived in Bermuda in late April, Emirates Team New Zealand had never raced another AC50. The other teams had been sailing against each other for the past two months.

'I don't think we were that short on experience when we got here', Burling says. 'But we definitely did have a lot of the equipment that we knew was coming. As a group, we really trusted our tools and knew we were going to get a lot faster than when we arrived. We really backed our ability to be able to adapt to any situation.

'We have learned a lot from looking across the road at the Oracle guys as well as Softbank and Artemis in areas where we thought they were strong.

'It has been amazing how we have been able to adapt our weaknesses into strengths but also be able to keep the strengths that we had, ' he concluded before heading back into the victory celebration party.