America's Cup: Kiwi women stepping up to sail in the Cup

by Suzanne McFadden 4 May 2018 04:47 PDT 4 May 2018

Olympic silver medallist Molly Meech would like a crack at the America’s Cup.

While her focus is sharply on stepping up to gold with her 49erFX skiff partner Alex Maloney at the 2020 Tokyo games, Meech wouldn’t dismiss the chance to crew on an AC75 yacht on Auckland's harbour.

“If there’s ever an opportunity to sail on a different boat, I always make sure I look at it,” says the 25-year-old, who won gold in the World Cup at Hyeres this week. “I’ve always tried out for the Youth America’s Cup crews.”

But a Kiwi woman has yet to break into a crew in the Youth America’s Cup, created as a pathway to professional sailing.

“Being quite tall and strong, I think I’m potentially able to do more roles on different boats. So I wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to sail in the America’s Cup.”

But will that opportunity come her way in the next Cup in 2021? Or have Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa squandered a chance to open a door and usher in a new generation of women’s Cup sailors?

Dave Abercrombie, CEO of Yachting New Zealand, reckons they’ve missed the boat. “I’m disappointed. There should have been a rule to have a woman on board the new Cup boats,” he says.

“I know people will say women can join America’s Cup teams as designers, engineers and sailmakers - and they do. But there needs to be a specific position for a woman sailor on the boat.

“It’s short-sighted. It would open up a whole new level of sponsors, and a whole new level of exposure.”

The new AC75 class rule released in March outlines the size of the crew, which is restricted to 11 “human beings”. Unlike the ground-breaking rule in the latest Volvo Ocean Race, there is no specified quota for female sailors.

But Team New Zealand’s technical director Dan Bernasconi, who led the design of the AC75, can’t see any reason why women couldn’t sail these foiling monohulls.

“There’s an average crew weight of 90kg required on board. So when you have a number of grinders approaching 100kg, you will certainly need some crew who are lighter, in the helming, trimming and tactics roles,” he says.

“I don’t think there’s any built-in bias in the rule against female sailors. It’s purely who are the best people for the job. So, yes, it’s wide open.”

The last time a woman sailed on an America’s Cup boat was in Valencia in 2007, when Alicia Ageno was a navigator for the Swedish Victory Challenge. Before that it was Auckland 2000, when Dawn Riley’s America True had a co-ed crew. Riley was a trailblazer in women’s sailing – the first to have an active role on an America’s Cup yacht, as ‘pit-person’ on Cup winner America3 in 1992; and captain of the America3 women’s team in the 1995 Cup defence.

With Kiwi yachtswoman Leslie Egnot at the helm of Mighty Mary, that all-women crew (bar tactician Dave Dellenbaugh) came agonisingly close to becoming the America's Cup defender to race Team New Zealand.

The only time Team NZ has had a female sailor on board was in 1995, when Maury Leyland – an engineer in the design team - called tactics on NZL38 in a challenger round-robin victory over the Spaniards.

Back in 2015, Leyland told me she shouldn’t really still hold the record for being the only woman to race on a Kiwi America’s Cup boat. “There are so many good women sailors in New Zealand. But I guess these new Cup boats are exceptionally physical – raging bulls. I was lucky there were very light winds in San Diego, and even though I was strong, size wasn’t an issue,” she said at the time.

Perhaps that will change this time around. Elise Beavis is in her second campaign as a designer with Team NZ, and has the sailing credentials. She sailed at the 2010 Youth Olympics, and is the current women’s national champion in the Waspz – a single-handed foiling dinghy. She would love to be on board one of Team NZ’s two AC75s as they work towards their defence of the Auld Mug.

A major issue holding women back is strength. The recent generations of America’s Cup catamarans were cantankerous, dangerous beasts to control, with only six crew. After parting with the silverware, Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill said: “I think the America’s Cup is so physical now, it’s right up there with a lot of mainstream sports. There are definitely roles on board – certainly steering and skippering the boat – that don’t require such a big physical side, and it would not surprise me at all to see women in the America’s Cup in the future,” he told redbull.com.

Case in point, four-time world champion Annabel Vose proved her worth as strategist in the winning British team at last year’s Youth America’s Cup in Bermuda.

For the rest of this story www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/05/03/107170/kiwi-women-stepping-up-to-sail-in-the-cup