America's Cup Race 2 Press Conference

Jochen Schuemann – Alinghi
Dean Barker – Team New Zealand
Tony Rae – Team New Zealand

Q – Jochen, it looks like the team of Alinghi won the race rather than the boat. What do you think?

Jochen – That’s what we claim all the time. The team, the people, always make the difference and we have a strong team. We went through tough competition in the Louis Vuitton already, and all the preparation, with our shore team and sailmakers, all the effort of the past three years is now paying off.

Q – How can you explain that you lost so much on the first run – 46 seconds - and gained so much on the last run – 33 seconds?

Jochen – It’s still a boat race, it’s sailing. We got it completely wrong on the first downwind, choosing the wrong side of the downwind, increasing breeze, went to the right again, we had the wrong sail up, so we did everything wrong that we could do wrong. And that’s the result - you lose a lot. When you do things better obviously you gain.

Q – Did you expect to be leading 2-0 tonight?

Jochen – No, I think it looked for a long time like 1-1. But now 2-0 – it’s major.

Q – What did you think of Team New Zealand’s boat speed, which at some points looked good to us?

Jochen – I think that’s why the race was so exciting – I think the boats are very close upwind and downwind. Although it was only for a short time, when we saw them on the first day in strong breeze, the boats were quite even, so I think we can look forward to more tight and close racing.

Q – Dean, I’ll ask you the same question: how did you gain so much on the first run and lose so much on the last?

Dean – The afterguard did a nice job of playing the shifts down the first run and we took advantage of a bit of a separation, which obviously paid off pretty nicely for us on the first run. On the last run we made a couple of mistakes early on and that caused the race to end up being a lot closer than it needed to be. They went outside us just at the end.

Q – Having missed out on the hard duels that Alinghi experienced in the Louis Vuitton Cup, do you think it has an effect on your performance?

Dean – Not at all. Our in-house racing has been equally as hard, closer at times, with Bertrand and the guys we’ve been sailing against on 81.

Q – What are you going to do tomorrow?

Dean – It’s another day. As per usual, we’ll be in there, have a bit of work to do on the boat, and then we’ll look at the day and see whether we’ll sail or not but we still haven’t made a firm decision yet.

Q – We heard your B boat was damaged yesterday. When will you sail it again?

Dean – We’ll be sailing either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Q – Can you tell us about the damage?

Dean – I probably can’t tell you any specifics of what we’ve done but we did damage the boat yesterday - it’s certainly nothing we can’t fix, so we’ll be back out there either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Q – Dean, was there any mental hurdle to get over today, getting on the boat and driving it hard knowing what had happened the previous day?

Dean – No. We obviously put a lot of time and effort into making sure the boat was as prepared as it could be today. Obviously the conditions were totally different, from 25 to 8-12 today, so there was a lot less load on the boats, and we’d obviously taken a lot of steps to make sure we didn’t have any problems like the first day.

Q – Dean, you said that on the last leg you made some mistakes. What mistakes would they be?

Dean – Technically, we probably needed to have gybed a bit earlier, there was probably a little bit more pressure down that lefthand side, and I think Alinghi was picking it up a little bit before us. They rolled forward enough in the puffs to actually roll us before we got to the layline. That was probably the major mistake we made and after that the race was close, close enough that they could put some pressure on us again.

Q – Jochen, can you guide us through those moments when you passed Team New Zealand in the end? When did you plan this attack and how did it go?

Jochen – We planned for a long time to get closer and hopefully past. I think you always gain a little from mistakes that the other one makes. We got closer and closer and that offered the chances to keep attacking them. We were fortunate to roll and get to a position where we could lead up to the last gybe. There were a lot of little details to get into that position, and that made the win finally.

Q – Tony, there was some comment today that Team New Zealand was slightly reluctant to start sailing in the light winds. At what wind speed threshold would you say the hula starts to kick in?

Tony – We’re hoping it kicks in all the time actually. There isn’t a range we’re looking for. As you know in Auckland, the last couple of days have been the classic example of extreme conditions and then the opposite, when we wait around for it to build and start sailing in pretty light airs. We’re happy to sail in anything.

Q – Dean, thank you for a wonderful race today. Technical problems aside yesterday, considering you got the start from Russell Coutts for the first time in a long time in America’s Cup racing, and the wonderful racing we saw today, does this give you confidence for the rest of the series?

Dean – I’m not sure we thought the race was so wonderful in the end. But it’s good, it’s nice when you can have some close racing in lighter airs. In terms of confidence, as I said yesterday we believe we can beat these guys. We’ve got two boats that seem very similar in performance. All being equal, I think we’ll see a tight and hard-fought contest.

Q – Dean, your gennaker seems to have deeper shoulders than the Swiss boat. The Swiss boat made a big gybe and had a much flatter gennaker. Do you think they had an edge with that and they could pass you because you could not go upwind easily with this big gennaker?

Dean – We’ve done a lot of testing with our sail programme, our downwind programme, and we’re very happy with the progress we’ve made there during this campaign. I certainly don’t believe it had anything to do with the wrong sail selection.

Q – Can you comment on the two hours prior to the start, when Alinghi was sailing back and forth and Team New Zealand was sitting under the staysail watching the world go by. …can you talk a little bit about what went through your mind during that period of time, and what your hopes were?

Jochen – We had two boats out so we wanted to use the time efficiently and tune up a bit. The breeze was up over six knots so we started, and we were ready any time to sail. Unfortunately it took a while as once again the spectator fleet was huge and they were a little in our way on our starboard layline. But everything went well, the race committee did a good job. It’s good to have so many spectator boats, we just have to make sure we keep them outside the laylines and then everything is fine.

Q – Tony, can you tell us why you didn’t hoist the main longer before the start?

Tony – As Jochen said, they had two boats out there to trial against. We were obviously going through our steps at the same time, looking at the weather programme and talking the whole time about hoisting but I think with two boats out there we probably would have hoisted earlier.

Q – Jochen, in the situation where you powered over the top of Team New Zealand, how effective was the staysail?

Jochen – I don’t think it made much difference as the position was just perfect.

Q – Jochen, when you rolled Team New Zealand on the last leg it was similar to when you did the same to Oracle in the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals. What about your design makes it so good reaching in those kinds of conditions?

Jochen – Maybe the question came up before, our gennaker was a little bit better for the tight reaching. So we went back to a smaller and flatter sail after we had the wrong sail up, when we lost a lot.

Q – Tony, can you tell us a little bit about the discussion on board the boat when you were deciding whether to do a bearaway set or a gybe set approaching the last weather mark? Was the starboard tack approaching Alinghi a factor?

Tony – You make a call as to what you want to do and that was what we decided to do at the top mark. They came round and had a little bit more pressure, made a small gain on us and made it harder. What we decided to do was right at the time.

Q – Jochen, talking about the tacking during the fifth leg, it seemed Team New Zealand could tack better than you. Is this what you felt, or was it wind shift?

Jochen – Obviously we had to do something, as we believed the boats were quite even, and a tacking duel is one thing to do. The leading boat is obviously covering the other one so I think they have a slight advantage with that and I think you could see that was paying off.

Q – Dean, can you tell us a bit about the range of emotions you must have felt? Not long before the finish, you probably thought, justifiably, that you were going to win the race and level the series, and then it was taken away from you.

Dean – I don’t think for one minute we counted the race as being over. It was light winds, tricky conditions, anything can happen – it takes one bad gybe, or you miss one shift and the other boat can easily sail around you, a bit like what happened on the first leg. So we were pretty mindful that the race was far from being over. After the first gybe, we knew we had a boat race on our hands again. Obviously it’s very disappointing to have lost that race but we can take a lot of positives out of it still. We know we’re competitive, which is a huge weight off our minds, we know the boat is competitive against theirs – now it’s up to us to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes.

Q – Dean, was there more wind going downwind after the first mark compared to the final leg?

Dean – The second run was pretty light, the first one..I don’t know. It was light.

Q – You seemed to have a pretty good performance with the boat going downwind after the first mark and maybe not so much gas on the last mark. I’m just wondering whether there is an optimum wind strength for the hula to come into effect or not.

Dean – I don’t think it had anything to do with the hula. We sailed well on the first run and made a big gain, these guys sailed well on the last run and they timed their opportunity better than we did. I think it was more about being in the right place on the run.

Q – Dean, before the series started there was some speculation about how your boat would perform in slow speed situations. With two races behind you, can you comment on how you think the boat has done in pre-starts and other slow speed situations?

Dean – We’re very happy with the performance of the boat. It’s proving to be just fine. We’re still learning about our modes compared to Alinghi and I’m sure they’re doing the same. We’re still a long way of knowing the exact crossovers and times when one boat will be better than another, so we’re still learning. We’re happy to know we are competitive, it’s not going to be a one-sided contest, but as I said we just have to make sure we don’t make any mistakes. These guys are sailing very well and that I guess is the result of the tough racing they had in the Louis Vuitton.

Q – In pre-start situations in particular, have you discovered anything about your boat relative to Alinghi?

Dean – Nothing that leaps out at you. Today there wasn’t a lot of activity in the start, it was pretty standard. It doesn’t seem like either boat has a huge advantage over the other.

Q – Tony, how serious a setback is not having your second boat? Given that the boats appear to be identical, how much of a concern is it that any problems you’ve had there might spread to the main boat?

Tony – It’s always nice to have a second boat out there to line up and tune up with before the start. But as far as today is concerned, we’re happy with the sailing we did before the start. Like Dean said before, the boat will be out there again, possibly tomorrow and definitely for Tuesday.

Q – Dean, we always used to say that the challengers had an advantage in the America’s Cup as they had hammer and tongs racing, whereas the defender had more club-type racing. Is that a concern to you, that you’ve had no serious, mixed-up racing, where you have to figure out the other guy’s disadvantages?

Dean – I don’t think we are disadvantaged at all. Our in-house racing has been at as high a level as we could hope for. There’ve been no easy races. The big difference is that we don’t get to race against a boat with difference strengths and weakness. The advantage the challengers have is racing a variety of boats, and they learn how their loading is relative to those boats. We are sailing two very similar boats the whole time and you have to be careful you don’t sail yourself into a bit of a corner. But I don’t believe today was a result of any lack of in-house competition.