How to trash an AC Class boat

by Julie Ash, New Zealand Herald on 20 Feb 2007 Grant Dalton, now Emirates Team New Zealand's Managing Director, says he often draws on his round-the-world experiences, even if just recently his America's Cup team probably wished he hadn't. 'Every time you do a round-the-world race and something smashes and you are lying on your side for the 50,000th time in the Southern Ocean getting a flogging... you say 'God, why didn't I just go out in the Hauraki Gulf, put a spinnaker up, turn the boat on its side and lie there until something broke'? '

So Dalton did. One of Team New Zealand's 24-tonne America's Cup boats was taken out to the Hauraki Gulf, loaded up and heeled over so its mast was almost running parallel to the water. 'It was as funny as hell. All the America's Cup guys were face down going 'Jesus, what's next?'. And all the round-the-world guys were walking around... like it is just another bad watch.

'It was tempting after the first spinnaker blew to go 'that's it, she's right, let's go in'. But we stayed and did it again and again for about three hours. Four spinnakers later we had enough information and came in. It was pretty radical for the America's Cup,' he said, grinning.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10424388