Tag Archives: Team NZ

CLASSIC CHILDHOOD FLASHBACK 

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CLASSIC CHILDHOOD FLASHBACK 

Todays classic woody photo was sent in by John Dawson, and was a flash back for me. My father built me a P-Class but as was typical , built it x4 the weight (1”+ marine ply) of the plans and it took 3 of us to launch it. Sailed like a pig and it was painted yellow. It didn’t get a lot of use and sold as a duck shooter punt. I was told I was a ungrateful child (they were right, I was). Not sure of the date of the photo but the bike, attire, and car would suggest late 1950’s > early 1960’s.

How cool would have this young guy been, owned a bike and a yacht ✔️

I DISCOVERED WHERE AMERICA’s CUP BOATS GO TO DIE

On last weeks travels to Whangarei I called into Port Nikau and there looking very lonely were 3 of New Zealand’s Americas Cup yachts – NZL60, NZL84, NZL92 (lost the cup to Alinghi) – anywhere else in the world  NZL60 would be on permeant display somewhere a little more fitting. She successfully defended the Americas Cup back in 2000. The first boat to defend and retain the Cup outside of the USA.

WE WON

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NZ Herald image
NZ Herald image

WE WON

What a day yesterday – watched New Zealand defend and win the America’s Cup.

I go back a long way, sat in a small meeting room down near Pier21 with the infamous ‘Aussie Malcolm’ as he sold the idea of NZ challenging for the cup to a couple of merchant bankers that thought a 12m yacht was very small boat to be challenging with eg 12m long 🙂

One of the funniest memories was a breakfast meeting at the Quay St offices of the bankers, post a charity auction the evening before ,where full size silver replicas of the actual cup were auctioned off – remember this was the 1980’s, pre the stock market crash – lots of loose boys were too much cash. On average the cups (can’t remember how many, but between 7 and 10) sold for $100,000+ each – problem is no one recorded who the winning bidders were. So in the morning a 111 call to Peter Montgomery who MC’ed the night / auction – and thank god was sober. So on a big white board, the function room / table layout was recreated and from memory PJ takes a best guess at where the bids came from – $1,000,000+ invoices sent out and all paid. Not sure if it was a perfect match up, suspect a few got a free cup and a few made a rather large donation 🙂


Along the way collected / ‘borrowed’ a lot of gear. My favourites were always NZ and the Italians, so today was special – the Prada team went further than ever before and as you would expect were so gracious in the loss. They will be back.The winner on the day was New Zealand – we were blessed with stunning weather on everyday, so brand NZ looked amazing to the worldwide audience. Highlight (I can’t help myself) Cindy never made it to the stage – and if she did & I missed it and so did the rest of NZ / world as it wasn’t on the news footage 🙂

1987>1999>2000