Well, here is chapter 5 of The Team New Zealand story 1995 - 2003 book which is the second defence that I'm doing today on my blog:
Winning & then defending the cup had essentially consumed Sir Peter Blake for close to a decade so he wasn't about to continue for another three years trying to extend the record.
As hundreds partied early into the morning of March 3 at the Nippon compound next door to Team New Zealand's base, Sir Peter & Team New Zealand's executive director Alan Sefton were at once in both celebratory & farewell mode.
The 2000 regatta was always going to be the last for them. Ahead lay some uncharted territory as they eyed what would become Blakeexpiditions, Sir Peter's bid to generate greater global awareness for the environment.
As they reflected on what had been & what lay ahead, there was no indication the end of Team New Zealand era would precipitate other departures as well.
Until then the tried but true line about success had been entirely accurate when associating it with Team New Zealand. This machine boasted such strength in depth that the bar was constantly being raised well out of range of others who wanted to be contenders, but really had been reduced to pretenders by the exceptional black boats. No other conclusion could be drawn after back-to-back blackwashes over first Dennis Conner & now Francesco de Angelis & his Prada crew.
However, it's equally so that success has a tendency to generate other dispositions & afflictions. ANd, in the weeks afterwards, these began to emerge until they manifested themselves in a sensational development on May 19, 2000.
This happened to be a day of uncommonly remarkable news. In Fiji, George Speight was leading an attempted coup but back in New Zealand the nation was being shaken by the revelation that skipper Russell Coutts & long time tactician Brad Butterworth were leaving Team New Zealand to form Ernesto Bertarelli's Team Alinghi.
In essence, lifting the America's Cup & then defending it meant the stakes became much higher. It was never going to be easy retaining the talent base for another campaign as other syndicates began to target the riches of talent that could be found inside the Kiwi camp. In the end, the lure was irresistible not just for Coutts & Butterworth but for many others as well.
While the Team New Zealand brand remained, the immediate challenge wasn't so much planning the 2003 defence but rather the more urgent task of filling the void created by so many defections.
Coutts & Butterworth were the most obvious defectors but a run through the personnel used on & off the water for the 2000 defence shows Simon Daubney, Laurie Davidson, Richard Dodson, Warwick Fleury, Murray Jones, Richard Karn, Matthew Mason, Craig Monk, Robbie Naismith, Dean Phipps, Jeremy Scantlebury & Andrew Taylor were among the others who also turned their efforts from keeping the cup in New Zealand to trying to take away! That obviously represented a sizable dent in Team New Zealand's ranks.
All of this served to emphasise both the importance & significance of Dean Barker taking the helm for the cup-clinching fifth race against Prada on March 2. Without the nation knowing it then, it symbolised the changing of the guard in every sense.
Between that day & May 19 - & the tumultuous weeks that followed - a process had to be put in place to reshape Team New Zealand from the top through to the floor. This is where the team's succession planning paid off. While there had undoubtedly been an A crew that had won & retained the cup, Team New Zealand still boasted rich resources of talent among the supposed back-ups who were ready to make the step up to the next level.
In the wake of the Coutts-Butterworth move Tom Schnackenberg, such as integral figure in New Zealand's triumphant times, was installed as the new syndicate head, Ross Blackman became the chief executive, Tony Thomas the executive director & Barker was named as skipper (& head of the sailing team).
While the infrastructure was still in place, this was a period of enormous upheaval for Team New Zealand & not just so many experienced hands had decided to take their talents offshore.
As well as losing the core of the established sailing team, there were aslo other issues of some magnitude to contend with, not the least of these surrounding allegations over the leaking of some Team New Zealand's design secrets to rival syndicates.
If that was demanding for Team New Zealand's management off the water, quite the most difficult matter to cope with was purely emotional.
This was the appalling death of Sir Peter Blake. His mindless killing in Macapa, Brazil, tore at the heart of the nation as his idealistic goal of working to save the planet cost him his life. Winning the America's Cup had been a major ambition but his work with Blakexpeditions represented his ultimate dream.
His demise devastated the entire yachting world & especially everyone who had ever been associated with Team New Zealand. It was a time of grieving for all as the team's headquarters became a shrine to the man who was such a visionary.
Even then, though, the focus was only briefly taken off the team's primary function - preparing for the next battle on the Hauraki Gulf's trying waters in 2003.
During the period when Team New Zelaand underwent such transformation in May 2000 little time was wasted putting Barker & a reshaped, new-look sailing team back on the water. Since then, right through the period of mourning Sir Peter's death & beyond there haven't been too many days when the Team New Zealand boats haven't been out working.
It's that ethic & culture plus the combination of ramping up the design approach that had served to separate Team New Zealand from the rest as the market leader in this big money contest. Everything is possible is being done to maintain that edge.
So exactly a year out from the 31st defence Team New Zealand took NZL60 out racing again in the America's Cup International Regatta. All challenging syndicates were invited to participate but ultimately only Craig McCaw's OneWorld, the Victory Challenge (Sweden) & Great Britain's GBR accepted for a regatta that mixed both fleet racing & match racing.
Benign weather on the Hauraki Gulf rendered the event little better than a lottery much of the time but along the way NZL60 suffered a rare experience - defeat. After retaining the America's Cup 5-0 over Prada in March 2000, the flying machine stretched its unbeaten run to nine by winning its first four races in the February 2002 event only to then be undone by One World in extremely difficult conditions.
But there was a definite upside to the experience. At least the Team New Zealand crew was exposed to genuine racing in America's Cup boats, a commodity that's usually in rare supply as it's forced to do so much work alone with most ''racing'' being simulated variety against the other trial horse NZL57.
That's not to say the syndicate's sailors lack racing edge. They always have the world match racing circuit to help them retain their sharpness &, in June 2002, skipper Dean Barker celebrated one of the best results of his career when he met & beat Russell Coutts in the Omega Cup final.
Maybe that encounter - & the outcome - will be a forerunner of things to come when the gun goes on the Hauraki Gulf for the first race of America's Cup 2003. No matchmaker could hope for a better scenario.
So that is my 265th blog of the year 2019 (MMXIX) & my 5th of this year.
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