Well, here is chapter 3 of The Team New Zealand story 1995 - 2003 book which is winning the cup:
When John Bertrand & his crew on Australia II were making life miserable for Dennis Conner & the New York Yacht Club in September 1983, Peter Blake had some sort of standing on the world yachting scene but Russell Coutts had none.
Blake was days short of his 35th birthday when the Aussies collected the cup. By then he'd earned a reputation through his exploits in three Whitbread campaigns but he was still some way from truly establishing himself.
His debut as a Whitbread skipper in the 1981-82 race was an experience that had been deflating & exhilarating. In Ceramco New Zealand he had fair reason for confidence when he went to the start line, only to have those expectations demolished after his boat was dismasted on the very first leg of the race. It said much for him & his crew that they recovered to take second in each of the last three legs.
That left him unfulfilled in a race that had become his life, a feeling he wouldn't completely shake off until 1990 onboard Steinlager 2.
As for the America's Cup, the Australian success registered with Blake as it did with any self-respecting person who had even a passing interest in sport. But involvement in the event wasn't even a possibility for New Zealand then, let alone Blake as well.
Ditto a 21-year-old university student by the name of Russell Coutts. His world revolved around small boats then, not the playthings of a rich.
In 1983, he was driven to firm up his claims for a place in New Zealand's team for the 1984 Olympic Games. He was campaigning a Finn, a class that would bring him international recognition with Olympic gold in Los Angeles but the Finn was a boat that would never rank as his favourite.
It wouldn't have been possible then to imagine Blake & Coutts would become the next big things in the America's Cup, that between them they would emulate Australia's achievement of taking the cup off the Americans again - & then go one better as well by defending it.
Their luck, though, was to be exposed to the America's Cup for the first time in 1992 in another of Sir Michael Fay's campaigns.
Sir Michael ignited New Zealand's modern-day passion for the America's Cup, providing invaluable building blocks for future campaigns. He may not have spearheaded the fourth campaign but the foundations were in place.
Neither Blake nor Coutts emerged with glowing reports after their San Diego initiation. Blake had some testing moments establishing himself in his role as syndicate manager while Coutts wasn't comfortable with his ultimate job.
He'd begun the assignment as a contender to steer NZL20 (along with Rod Davis & David Barnes), Coutts missed out, though, & was instead offered the job as tactitian for skipper Davis. That didn't sit well with the ambitious & driven Coutts so he turned it down & opted instead to be skipper on the back-up boat.
But when the New Zealand Challenge's performance began to lose shape in the Louis Vuitton challenger final against Il Moro De Venezia Sir Michael & Blake reacted decisively. They decided to rearrange the afterguard, removing Davis & Barnes & bringing in Coutts & Brad Butterworth to replace them. They couldn't deliver an improbable - if not impossible - comeback win & so Coutts' debut ended unsatisfactorily.
Blake had been involved in the decision-making that left Coutts down the food chain in the 1992 programme but once he started together his 1995 plans, Blake made it obvious he wanted Coutts as his skipper.
Both men had benefited hugely from their first America's Cup experiences.
During the 1995 bid, Coutts said: ''In 1992 we didn't have any working knowledge whatsoever of what's involved in the America's Cup but we were able to go into this one (1995) immediately knowing where out strengths & weaknesses were before we lined up''
And Blake said: ''I'm not in the America's Cup because I have this huge overriding passion which others have in the past. I just see having had a bit of involvement last time that it's winnable & I believe that it's something New Zealand should be able to win.''
Well, Blake & his team didn't just win the cup. They blew everyone else out of the water, exposing other campaigns as woefully inadequate alongside New Zealand's complete operation.
Team New Zealand's inner sanctum covered all contingencies. There was so much to like about the way they trampled the would-be challengers & then annihilated the dastardly Dennis Conner himself (whose effort was made to look decidedly third rate).
The Kiwis were, of course, potent in the area of personnel. What other syndicate wouldn't die to have on the water brains like skipper Coutts, Butterworth & Tom Schnackenberg making the big calls? And across the first-choice crew there was a quality in depth that no other outfit could match.
The clincher, though, was in the design area. When Bruce Farr had figured large in Sir Michael Fay's three campaigns, there was a belief in Team New Zealand that a one-designer mentality was too inflexible. So a design team concept was brought into play instead, tapping into the wide-ranging talents of people such as Doug Peterson - the designer behind Bill Koch's 1992 victory - plus New Zealanders Laurie Davidson, Schnackenberg & others.
With so much energy & creativity coursing through the design team, the upshot was a boat programme that was in another league. Most significantly, though, boats were designed for the sailing team's needs. This wasn't an exercise that was aimed to give a super designer the chance to indulge himself.
So the 1995 contest unearthed the weapons that would carry the name of Black Magic. As it turned out, it was the first design - NZL32 - that proved to be the most dangerous. Lethal even.
Design & sailing ability added up to a winning edge. Throw in tactics & mind games, & the New Zealanders soon had everyone else wondering what was going on.
When the Louis Vuitton series started, Team New Zealand used NZL38, the second boat from its Black Magic stable, & demoralised opponents.
For oneAustralia one race day experience was more than demoralising. It was utterly humiliating & could easily have had tragic consequences.
Racing against the Kiwis in demanding conditions, the Australian boat effectively disintergrated when it buckled in the middle & bent like a banana, forcing the crew to abandon ship. All 17 - including Kiwis Rod Davis, David Barnes & Alan Smith - were safely accounted for but the $4.5 million boat quickly vanished to the ocean floor.
What the rest of the world didn't know in that first phase was that NZL38 was, in fact, not as quick as its predecessor.
So, in the Louis Vuitton semifinals the Kiwis stunned the other contenders by bringing out the rocket ship NZL32 &, from that moment on, there was no question about where the cup was heading (unless there was some catastrophic setback), Coutts & his crew even bailed out of the latter stages of the semi-final round once their place in the final was assured. It was deemed more beneficial to put in meaningful effort on the training track against NZL38 than continue with meaningless races against inferior boats.
The priority at that stage was winning the Louis Vuitton Cup. That wasn't much of a contest as New Zealand beat oneAustralia 5-1 - losing a race on the water for the first & only time in the regatta - to line up its shot at the cup.
Conner had won the right to be the defender but he & everyone knew his Stars & Stripes boat was infinitely slower than NZL32 (And NZL38 for that matter). The New Zealanders had the air of invincibility about them, no matter what Conner tried to do.
As only he can, though, Conner found a way of twisting the America's Cup rules. He succeeded in being allowed to use another syndicate's boat - Young America - instead of his own, believing it was a quicker vessel that just might give Team New Zealand something to think about. It was no more gamesmanship on Conner's part.
The man that New Zealand wanted to beat on the water more than anyone else didn't exactly concede defeat but he might as well have because he never had a sniff. Black Magic overwhelmed what was meant to be America's best to take the series 5-0, winning the races with consummate ease. The margins were 2m 45s, 4m 14s, 1m 51s, 3m 37s & 1m 50s to round out a blackwash.
There were lessons galore in San Diego.
Opponents witnessed in the New Zealand effort a campaign that was so superior to anything else seen before in America's Cup history. The bar had been lifted so far the rest realised they'd have to undertake a crash course in adjusting to the game the Kiwis were now playing. But the New Zealanders, too, would unquestionably improve to protect the gap they'd created.
Peter Blake & Russell Coutts had come a long way very quickly since their first cup foray in 1992. On the afternoon of May 13, 1995 - Mother's Day back in New Zealand - they'd earned a place in sporting history & there would be more to come.
For Dennis it was bye, bye to the America's Cup again. For the Auld Mug, it was hello Auckland for the first time - & it wasn't going to leave in a hurry either.
So that is my 263rd blog of the year 2019 (MMXIX) & my 3rd of this year.
P.S. The Black Caps have beaten Sri Lanka in the 1st 2 One Day Internationals (Including that century to the brave Sri Lankan all rounder Thisara Perera in the 2nd ODI at Bay Oval in Tauranga but they didn't manage to pull it off with the win) to clinch the 3 match ODI series 2 - 0 with 1 game to spare (And both Ross Taylor & Henry Nicholls both got a ton in the 3rd & final ODI against Sri Lanka today compared to Martin Guptill getting a ton in the 1st ODI before the Black Caps have just won the series 3 - 0 against Sri Lanka yesterday at Saxton Oval in Nelson).
And finally I saw the Spiderman movie last night on Prime & I really enjoyed that movie experience (I have 1st seen that movie in 2004 & it felt great about it).
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