The tale of two cities
by John Curnow, Editor, Sail-World AUS on 9 Oct 2017
The Coathanger and sailing have always been symbiotic. John Curnow
Sail in or watch enough One Design races, especially the Etchells, and you’ll very much know this term. After the start, the fleet virtually splits in two like some crazy atom, with the half the electrons going that way, and the others in the dichotomous direction.
Now it was our very own Peter Rendle, the irrepressible bundle of joy that he is, that got this little ditty’s theme going, when he was talking about AC36. You see, it is a while since the Kiwis had the Auld Mug (on its ever growing base), and in the intervening time, the very area that became synonymous with it, the Viaduct, has undergone something of a transformation. There simply is not the room to hold the event there anymore.
Of course, in looking to understand anything you always follow the money trail, and it all seems to start and end in Europe, so it is absolutely no wonder that Italy has been named as the first alternate. However, Bubbly Pete has come up with a really good alternative. Sydney!
It’s a lot, lot closer, by being in the same hemisphere for a start, we speak nearly the same language, and Air New Zealand can fly all the stuff in across the ditch. It also helps out a cash strapped Kiwi Government, that has an even more interesting scenario to have to go through for bipartisan support than our own! Wow. That is saying something.
Now best of all, it could even possibly help our fledging aspirants get a team up and going, by reducing some of the costs. Talk about win, win, win, win, win… So Auckland’s misfortune could end up being Sydney’s gain, and wouldn’t that be boon. Who knows, the Wallabies could even be back on top in the time leading into it all, and world order may have finally been set back to normal.
So the only other thing to say is that the AC itself is almost as good at creating a tale creating two cities. Some read and watch everything to do with it, and others just turn off completely. There are not many in the middle, so the choice of a high performance monohull driven by soft sails, when the wing sailed foiling cats captivated a new demographic better than the latest offering from Apple or Samsung at the Consumer Electronics Show, will continue to be way more than interesting.
Come November we’ll know a lot more about the mini maxi for AC36, and by March 2018 it will be even clearer. That is of course under the proviso that the Sikaflex so liberally applied from the caulking gun after the Italians blabbed has actually bonded. Anyone who has spent time with Sikaflex and a carbon boat knows that it is a constant programme of maintenance before each big event. It’s kind of akin to painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and there we go with the two cities again…
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