Reflections on San Diego ‘94/95
As New Zealanders celebrated the home coming of the America’s Cup these last two weeks I reminisced on Team New Zealand’s (TNZ) victory in the 1994/95 campaign. I was one of two New Zealand police officers recruited by Sir Peter Blake to look after security at the team compound in Point Loma. This week I will discuss the points of difference that I think contributed to that famous win against the odds. In my next blog I will discuss some aspects of the security operation at Point Loma.
Every winning team in any endeavour needs a good leader to steer the course. That leader in San Diego was Sir Peter Blake. Like Grant Dalton, Sir Peter secured sponsorship to fund the campaign. “The Family of Five” contributed the $35M budget, a fraction of the budgets of our competitors. Sir Peter oversaw expenditure by personally authorising every invoice over $100US. His criteria was: ‘will this make the boat go faster?’ If the answer was yes, it was approved; if no, the money wasn’t spent. Sir Peter commanded so much respect that every team member was prepared to go the extra mile for him. We avoided hiring local contractors because all works for setting up our compound was completed by skilled Team NZ members; builders, electricians, engineers etc. Every team member mucked in which only contributed to the team spirit.
Team loyalty was another important factor. The vast majority of the team were New Zealanders and the few foreign nationals were personally known by senior team members. There was heightened sensitivity over design innovation intellectual property and the collective loyalty and trust within the team safe guarded that.
Sir Peter established a flat organisational structure. The syndicate was made up of seven teams. Each team leader reported directly to Sir Peter. This meant he heard of any issues as they arose and was able to nip them in the bud. He was also one of the 17 crew members on race days which also helped with the two way communication within the structure. One issue that arose during the two boat testing phase was friction between the design team and boat builders. An optimal winged keel configuration remained constant on one boat, while the keel configuration of the other was changed every night and performance data collected on the water was analysed for performance and speed gains. Some configuration changes took most of the night to complete and the boat builders worked long arduous hours and things got a bit testy. Sir Peter learnt of this early on and he quickly resolved it by meeting with both team leaders. His mantra being: ‘We’ve come here to win the cup – let’s keep our focus on that together’.
Like Bermuda we were the last syndicate to arrive in San Diego. When we arrived there was a deliberate strategy to spread a rumour that our boats were “dogs” in terms of speed. Funny thing was most other syndicates heard this rumour and believed it. This kept us under the radar, including that of the media.
One major point of difference for TNZ was the support we received from home. It was often said that we were a team of four million. The Red Socks campaign was another clever idea from our leader. As the campaign progressed our mail bag bulged to the extend we ran out of wall space to display the messages of support. This really buoyed the team along and focused our minds on being the cup home.
PJ Montgomery’s call “The America’s Cup is now New Zealand’s Cup” on the 10th of May 1995 will forever remained engraved in the memories of Kiwi sports fans. Like Bermuda, this was another chapter in our rich history of punching above our weight in world sports. Long may that continue!