America's Cup 2017: Team New Zealand look to exorcise the demons of San Francisco

Oracle and Team NZ do battle in San Francisco back in 2013 (Getty file)
Oracle and Team NZ do battle in San Francisco back in 2013 (Getty file)

It's not a time anyone really wants to revisit, but retracing Emirates Team New Zealand's path to Bermuda begins in San Francisco four years ago.

Oracle Team United States' remarkable America's Cup comeback denied the Kiwis a victory many back home had been waiting a week to celebrate, but the sight of a despondent Dean Barker showed none felt the loss more than the team itself.

"I don't think anyone who was involved in that campaign will ever forget how it played out in the end," skipper Glenn Ashby told Newshub from Bermuda.

"But at the end of the day it's sport. There's a lot more things in the world that are a lot worse than what happens on the sporting field."

For Team New Zealand it felt like it could have been life and death. And the gut-wrenching defeat made the beginning of the next campaign even harder. How could that have happened? Who was to blame? And suddenly the goodwill from the sympathetic public began to evaporate.

"There was a bit of a media storm there a couple of years back," Team New Zealand veteran and chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge says. "And we just retreated - let's wait until we start sailing, let's wait to start going to regattas and getting good results, and going back to the old way of letting the results do the talking."

An internal review led to a restructure and the acrimonious departure of Barker. But it also formed a platform for the years to come.

It was a long week of anguish for Team NZ supporters as they conceded a seemingly insurmountable lead (Getty file)
It was a long week of anguish for Team NZ supporters as they conceded a seemingly insurmountable lead (Getty file)

"A 20-point plan once that was over," says Shoebridge, "and I think you'd look back at it today - and we do look back at it from time to time, and we are very much on track and dealt with all those issues and strengthened up in areas whether it be reconnaissance or ongoing development - all those things that sound obvious now."

There is also the issue of the opposition. The loss of the original challenger of record, the withdrawal of close allies Luna Rossa, and Oracle's close ties with the other challengers left the Kiwis isolated. When it came to frequent rule changes the Kiwis were generally on the wrong side of the decisions, the vote often five to one.

"We are the one quite frequently," laughs Shoebridge. "We're not upset by it. No, we don't agree with everything that gets done but we're allowed to not agree, it's as simple as that. We're not all on the same page."

In the past Team New Zealand would likely have sounded off. In fact the rule around openly criticising the event is colloquially known as 'the Dalton rule' for outspoken Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton. A polarising character at the best of times, Dalton has stayed out of the spotlight of late, taking away an easy target for dissent and allowing energies to be focused elsewhere.

"There's always stuff going on in the America's Cup, but it doesn't really have any effect on us" says Shoebridge. "We don't let it have any effect on us. We just want to stay true to what we think is right, get the best team and the fastest boat on the water. In the end, that's all that really matters."

Developing that fast boat has also taken a much different course than the last campaign, when letting the foiling cat out of the bag too early was seen as one of the major failings.

"When you consider the period of time that it was over, it was a two-and-a-half-year period that whole thing took place, it's amazing really it was kept under wraps for so long," says Shoebridge of Team New Zealand's unconventional pedal-powered grinding setup, that was only revealed two days before the boat was officially launched in February.

It was a big risk, but from the fibreglass KZ7 to the innovative Black Magic, thinking outside the square has always been a strength of New Zealand's teams. Of course there's also been bowsprits and hulas along the way, but from small beginnings the idea of bikes on boats slowly became a reality.

"Funnily enough that happened completely indoors," Shoebridge explains. To keep the idea away from their snooping rivals, all testing was done out of sight with a full scale mock-up.

"A room with a padlock on it at the base. There were guys within the team that didn't have the code to get into that room. That was a really nice little undercover project."

"As we went through every step of the process we kept learning more," says Ashby, who also runs the sailing programme. "And we'd get another green light and move to the next stage, and then get another green light and move on to the next stage. To actually put it on a yacht was a big call but we thought we'd done our homework well enough to definitely give it a go, and the numbers and everything proved that we were going to get some gains in specific areas."

"These campaigns are often won and lost with decisions that are made a long time before the actual event," points out Shoebridge. "We had a pretty strong direction that we wanted to go design-wise and how we wanted to do it, and today even we're pretty comfortable with the route we've chosen to go."

Kevin Shoebridge (Getty file)
Kevin Shoebridge (Getty file)

The bike approach has meant a big change in the makeup of the crew. What were originally grinders are now listed on the Team New Zealand website as cyclists. Olympic track cyclist Simon van Velthooven and London gold medal winning rower Joe Sullivan have little or no sailing background, but are key members of the crew pumping out power on the bikes.

"Every team needs to refresh after every time whether it's win, lose or draw," says Shoebridge. "And this team is physically built around the requirements of what we have to race which was different from last time. I think we had the right team for San Francisco and I think we've got the right team for what we we're doing this time."

Ashby is the only sailor that returns to the crew. With the likes of helmsman Peter Burling and his 49er mate Blair Tuke coming on board for this campaign, little baggage from San Francisco remains.

"It's not even really mentioned," says Shoebridge. "It's a new team and it's a fresh start, and at some point if you keep looking backwards you're not going forwards. We've been pretty focused once we had the test boats in Auckland and the new race boat, that was all that mattered. It's come so far in three-and-a-half years, a lot of it's almost irrelevant now."

"So campaign is super easy and super smooth and personally there's a lot more grey hair, that's for sure," admits Ashby. "But the team that has been assembled and put together, grown and worked together has been exceptional.

"We've learned a lot of valuable lessons coming away from San Francisco, and hopefully a lot of those lessons and knowledge that we've gained from that experience will help us build a strong team and ultimately give us a chance to be able to mix it up and be successful over here."

Newshub.