Can the Aussie knock off the Kiwis?

by Rob Kothe on 27 May 2007 The trans Tasman rivalry between the South Pacific neighbors Australia and New Zealand is legendary across all kinds of sports from cricket, rugby, netball, league, horse racing and of course sailing. Now the ‘Bloody Aussies’ are once more providing sporting grief for their Kiwi rivals.

Australian James Spithill is the looming roadblock for Emirates Team New Zealand’s bid to win the Challenger series and the right to race against Alinghi in the 32nd America’s Cup.

The tall 27 year old from Sydney’s Pittwater, is helming Luna Rossa in his third America’s Cup.

Growing up in Elvina Bay (opposite Ken Beashels boatshed where James worked as a tender driver on weekends as a lad). Spithill and his siblings went to school each day by dinghy, rather than school bus. Spithill explains. 'I lived near Rob Brown and the Beashels, both of them sailed with Australia II, so it was natural to want to sail in the America’s Cup.'

Spithill ran into a problem common in youth sailing - how to fund his racing. His father Arthur was a school teacher and the family was a big one.

Spithill continued, ‘To be competitive in junior sailing, you have to have a boat and you have to have sails. We were still doing well, but we couldn’t afford new sails all the time.

'But the yacht clubs, like Royal Prince Alfred, have youth programmes for match racing. You don’t have to own a boat; you just have to be a junior member of the club. I really enjoyed it from the beginning.'

Immediately he started to win and attracted the attention of some of the big boat owners. He was starting helmsman on Syd Fischer’s Farr 50 offshore racer Ragamuffin at the age of 17.

'Syd was trying to get a big, well-funded, Cup challenge together,' Spithill explains. But that fell through. He said to me, ‘we have the boat, (Fischer’s`1995 AC boat), we’ve already paid the entry fees and the shipping costs, if you can raise some money and get a crew together, you can go and do it.' Spithill and his friends did just that, with a campaign called Young Australia.

They turned up in Auckland and stayed in a youth hostel. Sailing the slowest boat they were behind the eight ball, but Spithill won a lot of starts.

In 2002 Spithill was engaged as the second boat tune up helmsman for Craig McCaw’s One World campaign. His talent shone through and he became the starting helmsman and in the 2003 Louis Vuitton series Spithill sailed One World to victory over Luna Rossa, taking third place in the Challenge series.

Sensibly Francesco de Angelis recruited him for his 2007 campaign and last week on the wheel of Luna Rossa, he handed a sailing lesson to Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle team with a 5-1 victory.

Camping all over Chris Dickson, Spithill reminded the New Zealand team that the short course America’s Cup races are about, above all else, the starts.

Dickson was soundly beaten by the aggressive Australian off the start line and once tactician Torben Grael decided to take a conservative policy of covering, covering and covering, there was little BMW Oracle could do.

The best of five final between Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand is going to be an interesting series.

Dean Barker and the Emirates Team New Zealand crew are confident ahead of the final series, but that ‘bloody Aussie’ skipper is standing in their way.

Australian cricket has never been forgiven for Greg Chappell's famous underarm bowling decision which denied the Kiwis a historic victory.

If Luna Rossa wins there may be another mark on the wall.