Why Australia needs to win the America's Cup

From The Helm

As I sat having a quiet beer at one of the dozens of bars in Auckland’s viaduct complex recently, I couldn’t help but reflect on the benefits that accrue from hosting an America’s Cup challenge.

When I left Perth to wander the world in 1976, Fremantle was a grotty port city that you didn’t venture into after dark. In fact, I had survived a severe bashing there one Sunday night only because I could run faster than my five attackers.

When I returned for the America’s Cup defence in 1986, I was staggered at the change. All the old pubs and other colonial buildings had been given a total make-over. There were new pedestrian malls with dozens of cafes and restaurants, and of course the new Challenger Boat Harbour had been built, where all the teams had their bases.

Perth 2011, the major qualifier for next year’s Olympics, would never have been allocated to Fremantle had Australia not hosted the Cup. The benefits are lasting, with all the Cup infrastructure still in place, along with the purpose-built marine business area of Henderson, just down the road, which continues to build large commercial vessels as well as servicing the oil and gas industry and the booming recreational boating market in WA.

It was the same in Auckland when Black Magic won the Auld Mug in 1995. What had been a broken-down waterfront area filled with disused cargo sheds and tired passenger terminals was now a booming tourist precinct that even on a Monday night was packed with people of all ages and nationalities.

But the real bonus was to be seen on the other side of the dock, where a huge superyacht facility earns valuable foreign exchange, where Emirates Team New Zealand and the NZ Volvo Ocean Race people have their offices, and where companies such as Southern Spars have state-of-the-art facilities originally established to service the AC boats.

I haven’t been to Valencia, but all reports indicate that exactly the same thing happened there. A previously run-down marine precinct was transformed by the massive dollars that the America’s Cup generates. It is still the world’s third biggest sporting event, after the soccer world cup and the Olympics, and the burghers of San Francisco are already rubbing their hands together with glee.

“We worked very hard to win the right to host the America’s Cup in San Francisco and bring more than $1 billion in economic activity and thousands of new jobs to California,” said Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom recently.

It is little wonder, then, that at the official media launch of the AC 45 catamaran (see page 16) in Auckland, New Zealand’s Associate Minister for Tourism, Jonathon Coleman, told the assembled journalists, “We’re hoping Team New Zealand will be involved (in AC 34) and if they are there is money ring-fenced from the Government to make sure they bring the Cup back here.”

The NZ Government knows the value of the event, not just in tourist dollars but in the creation (or in their case maintenance) of world-class marine facilities that generate jobs on an on-going basis and revitalise tired infrastructure at no cost to the taxpayers.

At time of writing, Australia had two tentative challengers for AC 34. The Team Australia syndicate had put up $25,000 to be an “official entrant” and some potential team members had travelled to Auckland for a test sail in the AC45. But they had yet to raise the capital needed to employ a team, buy an AC 45 and start designing an AC 72. A second syndicate, headed by Simon Grosser, had also announced they were challenging and had provisionally secured some top-class sailors including Nathan Outteridge and Tom Slingsby, but also had not raised any significant capital.

We certainly have the sailors to win the Cup, despite losing at least two of our finest in defending helmsman Jimmy Spithill and arguably the world’s best multihull sailor, Glenn Ashby, to foreign teams. We have some fine designers with multihull experience and the remains of a once great boatbuilding industry that could still do the job.

In my opinion, Australia can afford only one team. It needs to be fully professional and it needs to be fully funded. We don’t need in-fighting and we do need government support.
When you think of the benefits a successful challenge could bring to Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne or even downtown Sydney, for example, you can surely see why we should at least try.

NB: This editorial has been posted on the mysailing.com.au website. If you agree, disagree or have a comment to make, please go to the website and let me know what you think.