Southern Spars expand horizons with new Olympic projects underway

by Suzanne McFadden on 8 May 2017 Southern Spars have had a hand in creating Team New Zealand boats for the last six America's Cup campaigns. Now they're expanding their expertise into helping all kinds of athletes get that extra edge

They built the fastest America’s Cup yacht that New Zealand has ever sailed, and the wheels that transported Kiwi cyclists to six Olympic and world championship medals. Now Auckland mast-makers Southern Spars want to help more New Zealand athletes on to the winners’ podium, by taking their cutting-edge technology in ingenious new directions.

Maybe it will be Eliza McCartney’s vaulting pole; the New Zealand eight’s rowing oars; Luuka Jones’s slalom canoe; or even Liam Malone’s running blades. Southern Spars want to look at any sporting equipment that could be made from lightweight, strong and reliable carbon, and apply their design and construction expertise to it.

“Because of the way we think and design, we could really add value and give these athletes an edge,” says Southern Spars director Mark Hauser. “New Zealanders think a little differently from the rest of the world. That’s why we come up with boats with cyclists on them.”

For almost three decades, Southern Spars have been world leaders in designing and manufacturing masts and rigging for yachts around the world. Their history stretches back to Sir Peter Blake’s all-conquering round-the-world race yacht Steinlager II, in 1989, and Team New Zealand’s victorious Black Magic boats in 1995. When the America’s Cup was raced in Auckland in 2000 and 2003, the New Zealand company made all the masts in the fleet.

In this America’s Cup, which starts in Bermuda in three weeks’ time, Southern Spars have broadened their horizons and painstakingly built Emirates Team New Zealand’s AC50 yacht, from the wing sail, to the twin hulls, right down to the hydrofoils.

But this latest change in tack began with a different sport - when Olympic rowing gold medallist and former America’s Cup sailor Rob Waddell walked into Hauser’s office inside the sprawling Southern Spars factory early last year, armed with a couple of oars.

Waddell, chef de mission for the New Zealand Olympic team in Rio, wanted to see if Southern Spars could design a better oar for the rowing team.

For the rest of this story click here