Schnackenberg speaks on Team NZ departure

by Donna Chisholm, Sunday Star Times on 11 Jul 2005 New Zealand's leading Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Star Times, has run a major feature and news story on the departure of Tom Schnackenberg from Team New Zealand and his joining Luna Rossa.

An extract from the news story is as follows:

Team NZ design guru Tom Schnackenberg has spoken out for the first time about his sacking, saying it 'didn't seem the right decision'.

Schnackenberg, once described as the best brain in yachting, will move next month to Italy's Luna Rossa syndicate for the 2007 America's Cup after winning a restraint of trade battle.

Luna Rossa asked him last year to join it, but he declined. He made contact again when Team NZ let him go.

He says Team NZ boss Grant Dalton's decision to make him redundant, so the money could be spent elsewhere, came out of left field.

'In hindsight you could say I could have seen it coming - but I didn't. I felt I was getting less useful, because Grant was running a team that didn't ask my opinion, or didn't really enjoy getting it in very many things.

'I was a bit depressed - it's a bit of a blow to one's self confidence. You think 'oh God, now I know how it feels'.

'It's a new feeling, stamped useless. That's a bit of a shock. It's like when you fancy some girl and she decides to go after someone else. You realise you're not the greatest, at least in this person's mind.'

After 10 years with Team NZ, Schnackenberg, 60, says he and his wife, Annie, are now thinking only of a new life in Europe.

One of the couple's two sons, lawyer Carl, is in Rome for six months and Schnackenberg intends to learn Italian and Spanish so he can embrace the lifestyle in Valencia.

Full story on: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3340542a6619,00.html