Source: Team New Zealand
Team NZ Stick Together
02/03/2003 05:55 PM -

Team New Zealand leaders Tom Schnackenberg and Dean Barker want to keep their team together and have a shot at winning back the America's Cup.

On board NZL82 after the fifth loss to Alinghi, Barker said he was incredibly proud of his Team New Zealand camp and wouldn't have wanted to sail for anyone else in this America's Cup.

Both he and Schnackenberg said they would "love" to keep Team New Zealand alive for the 2007 America's Cup event in Europe.

"I would love to be able to keep this team together. The progress this team has made since the pretty tough times in mid-2000 has been just amazing," skipper Barker said.

"Sure, we haven't won, we haven't been successful, but we've got an incredibly good foundation - intellectual property, hardware and talent - to put together a team again."

Schnackenberg said the 2003 defence campaign had been a fantastic team. "We're still all friends at the end of a tough competition, and we can build on something marvellous," he said. "But it will take a lot of effort."

Barker said the team would take a couple of days to think about what could have been done differently in this campaign, and what might be done in the future.

"We'll get together in a couple of day's time to talk about the way it was and what we've done wrong," he said.

"Before we went into this, I truly believed - and the whole team believed - we had a very good chance of winning this event. But there were a few things that could have gone our way that didn't.

"Before we knew it, they were 3-nil up. It was always going to be very hard to peg it back. It was a pretty tough position.

"It's obviously disappointing that we only finished three of our five races. It's not a very good thing to have had two gear breakages."

In today's 45s loss, Alinghi had shown how strong and fast it was, and had simply outsailed Team New Zealand.

"It's very easy to be an expert after the fact. I'm sure we have all learned a lot from this regatta, but that obviously doesn't help us now," Barker said.

"I haven't read a newspaper for the last three or four weeks so I don't know what people are saying. I'm sure there are a lot of critics."

But Barker was adamant that he made the right decision sticking with Team New Zealand amidst the mass defections of May 2000 and he enjoyed being part of the New Zealand defence.

"All I can say is that we tried our very best, and I'm incredibly proud of what we have done these last three years. Alinghi proved to be a better team, but I'm still incredibly proud of our team. I wouldn't have wanted to be part of another team," he said.

Barker said the public support for Team New Zealand throughout the Cup had bee "just phenomenal".

"It was disappointing that we weren't able to win a race for them, but we're incredibly grateful for the support we've had from day one," he said.