Emirates Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup-winning skipper Glenn Ashby eventually put his head back up above the parapet after an overdue period of family hibernation following the team’s riotous return from Bermuda. Blue Robinson talked to him about the hard yards developing their winning boat and sailing team in almost complete isolation while their rivals were already practicing hard together at the Cup venue.

Seahorse Magazine: When you started looking at the new AC50 what options were you playing with initially on the set-up of what became the ‘cyclor’ system?

Glenn Ashby: As soon as the AC50 class rules were released we created a very accurate timber mock-up of what the raceboat would look like from the daggerboard case aft to the back beam, so straight away we knew what the cockpit sizes and relative deck heights were going to be. We were talking about using pedal power from very early on in the design process, so we looked at CAD drawings and the mock-up to assess both standard pedestals and a cycling option; we carefully reviewed the set-up of both systems, not least to establish if it was actually possible to fit cycling into the cockpit with all the buttons and levers required. As we then became more sure of committing to the cycling programme we started adding more detail into the mock-up – this step really proved key to the ergonomics of how we finally set everything up.

SH:How quickly did you settle on the configuration we eventually saw?
GA: A lot of the testing behind closed doors involved positioning the bikes in the mockup to ensure that they really fitted. When we moved the bikes 20 or 30mm forward or aft, that made a huge difference to how the guys were located – but it was a pretty tight fit, just millimetres to get them all in and comfortable. [Comfortable? Ahem… Blue] This really was crucial because obviously on the test yacht we were sailing we were still using standard grinding pedestals. Our cycling system was ready to go, but we decided not to put it on the test boat so that we could keep the system under wraps until we launched the actual race yacht just prior to shipping it to Bermuda. We were obviously trying to leave the other teams without enough time to properly develop a cycling element; you’ll appreciate this was a pretty sensitive area for us after showing our foiling hand too early five years ago…

SH:How different is the engineering for the linkages and drive systems for the cycles compared to standard pedestals?
GA: It was a hugely complex issue, and I think that is why a lot of the other teams had dismissed cycling as neither feasible nor viable for their AC50 raceboat. Every team would have thought of and talked about this – it was even discussed back on the AC72s. When you cycle on land at the top and bottom of the pedal stroke you have a minor dead spot, which you get through with momentum, and in that period you are generating maybe 70-80 per cent of your available power. When you are pushing the hydraulics with handles it’s like riding through sand, there is no momentum at the top and bottom of the handle stroke to help you swing through, nor is there a dead spot; so to get the absolute maximum power with the cycling approach our engineers had to come up with pretty smart solutions to offset that dead spot. We did a huge amount of testing with gearing, sprocket shapes and offset cranks, but in the end the sailors worked it out by setting their cranks in a certain way in the overall drive train. The guy behind would help you push through the dead spot and so the guys could work together to always produce the maximum power needed. Depending on the manoeuvre, we would have different crew variations of all the guys pedalling, 1&3 or 2&4 pairings helping get through the tacks and gybes, always pushing the oil with plenty of power. It was a complex issue, engineering, hydraulically and electronically, moving into pretty new territory. Tim Meldrum, who is a good cyclist himself, and Dave French, our fitter and lead machinist, did an amazing job building and testing these components. From the beginning to the final product was a pretty mind-blowing leap of both efficiency and simplicity. I can tell you what all the guys created ended up really being an engineering masterpiece.

SH:Were the mechanics involved lighter or heavier than standard pedestals?
GA: Good question… In the end I think we probably came out either the same or even fractionally lighter.

SH:What conditions were you training in when you were still in Auckland?
GA:We would sail in up to 18-20kt of true wind speed back home. We didn’t do a lot of sailing over 20kt as at that stage we only had one boat, one wing, one set of foils and one set of rudders! We were really behind in our manufacturing as we started so late; we knew that if we broke anything we would be seriously behind – something in the region of six to eight weeks – so we had to be extremely careful. We also did not want to put unnecessary demands on our boatbuilding and shore teams. Having said that, you only need 12-14kt of breeze and you are doing 42-43kt down the harbour… so you didn’t need a lot of breeze to get some seriously high speeds. And after 40kt you start to hit that wall of ventilation, plus you don’t go a great deal faster in that extra 5-10kt more breeze anyway. Testing in 20-25kt of breeze you really are in survival mode a lot of the time. We targeted testing in the 7-14kt range, which we thought would be the conditions in Bermuda. 

SH:Was the boat’s engineering pretty much settled when you arrived in Bermuda or did you still have a lot to work on?
GA: Like all the teams, we had a lot going on! That said, we really did our homework in Auckland, so a lot of our early time in Bermuda we were still waiting for new components to arrive. By then we had finished our design work on foils and tips, rudders and wing-control systems, our electronics and hydraulics were all signed off early, so it was about waiting for the latest pieces to arrive from New Zealand and Europe. The biggest gains we made in Bermuda were as a team sailing the boat – in loading the boat and tacking and gybing. These gains were equal to or greater than the gains made from the new components; then when the new parts did arrive and were fitted we obviously had to relearn sailing the boat around a racetrack to get the best out of it. Because we only had one test boat, unlike the other teams, we didn’t sail against another boat until we got to Bermuda.

SH: During the races you sounded so settled but what sort of conversations were you, Pete [Burling] and Blair [Tuke] having later in the post-race debriefs…
GA: We spent a lot of time sailing as a group in New Zealand – we also did a lot of mock races around a course using our chase boat with some of the designers onboard as the opposition. These guys would put us in situations and then listen to our feedback. So we spent enough time working on how we communicated, plus we also spent a lot of time working on how we could keep the helmsman’s head out of the boat more than any other team. This was driven largely by Ray Davies, Richard Meacham and myself, as very early on we knew that to get the best out of these boats the decision making will be so fast there will be occasions that no communication is possible – it has to be a split-second call by Pete. From day one we set up the boat for the helmsman to be able to do that, and for us as a team to be able to pull the manoeuvre off when it happened. Onboard we wanted the conversations to be very quiet and under control, to focus on flying the boat, and for me with the jib and the main to keep our mode and numbers fully under control.

SH: How much were the ‘cyclors’ involved in that communication?
GA: Andy Maloney and Josh Junior were involved with course management, feeding information to us on the course in terms of true wind angles and wind shifts. Between Pete and myself it was more about what speeds we wanted to sail, so we talked particularly about angles downwind. It was really difficult to sail the boat accurately downwind as the feeling is really strange. You are sailing so deep and going so fast, you are recharging the rig, then going deep and recharging the rig again through the puffs and lulls. In spite of the ‘techno-hype’, it was a feel thing – no numbers can give you enough information to sail the boat accurately, so Pete and I would be talking a fair bit. In that situation there is the potential to increase the boat’s performance by 5-10 per cent; so between Pete, Blair and myself, we worked our hardest to get the best out of the boat in downwind mode, the gains were so great. If you sailed a bit high the boat would slide a bit, which meant you needed to retrim the wing and jib, steer differently, and if you went too low you would have to ease back and change the rig. Pete had the rudder control, the pitch if you like, with the elevators, and between the three of us we were in control of the overall performance. But four or five of the six guys onboard were contributing information, and that didn’t come across in the commentary on the races – there was a lot more communication onboard than the TV picked up.

SH: How late could you make a foil call – and did you make a wrong foil call?
GA: We would make a foil decision at around 6.45am. We discussed the previous evening what we would probably be using and, depending on whether we needed to do a foil tip change or elevator change on the rudders, we could push that back to around 08.30… 09.00 was our cut-off time, when we had to declare for measurement. So we would chat to Roger ‘Clouds’ Badham, go back and forth to him, then Murray Jones and Ray Davies and the team would discuss and lock in the configuration. We were all aware the weather could change; there was probably only one day we were caught out, against Artemis with our light-air foils – the breeze kicked in and we basically just managed to get the boat around without breaking anything. 

SH: The big crash?
GA: The capsize was not ideal really… We were set up with our upper-wind wing as we wanted to protect our light-air wing. So we went out with the heavy wing and then we had a structural failure of the front D spar at the lower flap. We raced the boat back to the dock, did the wing change, with I think a minute 40 seconds to spare – it was a huge effort from the shore team. If you want an indication of how good ETNZ was across the board, that really was a marker right there. Then the race was delayed by eight minutes or so due to the breeze exceeding the wind limit. We then started and took off against BAR and won that race… with none of the settings in the wing properly set up for those conditions. That meant everything was a bit of a handful really, but we made it round OK. Then before the second race the breeze kicked in a bit more, a little gusty in the pre-start, so we had some puffs that came through, and we were trying to look after the boat and, funnily enough, keep it in one piece… But we couldn’t bear away in one big puff and so we decided to shut the boat down; but before we could do that the wind got underneath us and while we accelerated again another puff came through and as we were really getting moving the rudder elevator came out of the water… and without that sucking the stern down over we went. Fortunately no one was injured. That was another pretty huge test of the team to get the boat back together, then off we went to win the America’s Cup!

SH: How did you prepare mentally for an ‘in your face’ Jimmy Spithill?
GA: We had seen a fair bit of Oracle and Jimmy over the previous years and in the World Series. We knew we were never going to outspend or out-resource them, but we also knew that if we stuck to our programme there was nothing they could say or do that was going to upset our plan. We stuck with what we needed to do, and by doing that, by none of us biting back, it may have actually let a bit of air out of their tyres. When it turned around on them, when they went from the hunter to the hunted, I think there was quite a shift in attitude; particularly when people remembered that we could have quite easily been the laughing stock of the America’s Cup, arriving late with our pedal power and sailing the boat very differently from all the others with how we flew and managed the boat. I think after the first few races we were still learning to sail the boat against opposition and learning how to use our new equipment. We absolutely pushed it right to the limit there – I can tell you, Blue, that it was only 27 hours before the start of the first actual America’s Cup race that we had all our final components in place…

SH:Was there a moment in the regatta when mentally you knew you had the upper hand?
GA: Very good question – I can’t think of one moment when I felt that. Having endured San Francisco, where psychologically we were in good shape until the tide turned against us, in Bermuda I looked at every day as one race, where we had to give the performance that we needed to give and move onto the next one. Maybe for some other guys in the team there were times when they saw a bit of a buffer zone, but being the only guy onboard who raced in San Francisco it was not until we crossed the line in the final race in Bermuda that I could breathe again. These boats are so finicky – a single wrong button-press and you can be dead in the water or breaking something. So I didn’t want to jinx us. 

SH: Did you ever see Pete rattled?
GA: Not really. Pete is a pretty cool and calm character. We all had our moments and we are all very competitive, wanting the absolute best from ourselves and the team. Together, behind the scenes, we had some good robust discussions about how we could sail the boat better and what we could do better as a group and as individuals always looking to improve. As the sailing director and skipper, it was hugely satisfying to hear this group of guys, with Ray Davies, Richard Meacham and Murray Jones, looking again and again to take the group up to another level. It was superb to have a team that backed each other and just stayed unflappable.

SH: How was Grant [Dalton] as you set out for the last race? GA: Ha! Mate, he was just like the rest of us… hoping today was the day! Grant is an extremely focused, dedicated and very competitive person. He did a fantastic job of keeping a lid on things and ensuring the support we had from the guys, particularly on the chase boat who pushed us off to go out racing, was always so full on. It was seriously high-pressure stuff and all the guys kept it calm. There was no individual more pleased than Grant when we crossed the finish line – he had been through a hell of a lot and so it was more relief than anything else, plus satisfaction on doing the job and doing it so well.

SH: The final question must be about the New Zealand public and the welcome home…
GA: In my lifetime I don’t believe I will experience anything like that ever again. It was the most incredible homecoming and welcome for a team you could imagine. We honestly didn’t realise how big it was until we got back to New Zealand. It wasn’t just Auckland, it was the whole country that was absolutely riding the wave of euphoria. It was incredible – quite surreal. In Bermuda we were in our own little bubble after the win, packing the containers. Then we travelled back to attend functions in Dubai with Emirates, then landed in Auckland… we knew it would be time for a party when we got back but we had no idea it would be that huge!

SH:What happens now for Glenn Ashby?
GA: Another good question! A lot of things on the drawing board, but I am loving time with my wife and two daughters. Particularly the young girls, who have lived the America’s Cup life, seeing Dad go off to work and then often they are asleep when I get back. So family time, windsurfing and motorbikes for the short term. As for the America’s Cup, I think I still have quite a bit to offer…

CAPTIONS Left: Glenn Ashby is first across… Because the AC50 manoeuvres were so violent a lot of concern was rightly expressed about the dangers of going overboard and falling in front of a foil – the consequences of which don’t bear thinking about. In the racing Artemis helm Nathan Outteridge was actually the only person to take a swim, falling off the back when he missed his cockpit in a tack. It’s not easy to push to the absolute max training alone but ‘one-boat’ testing in Auckland Team New Zealand (above) show all the signs…

Public engagement… not everyone sailing the 2017 Coastal Classic was impressed to have the Cup winners slice through Auckland’s biggest offshore event – but to complain publicly might not have been too smart. The Kiwi AC50 maxed out at 47kt that day so the hare really didn’t trouble the tortoises for very long; but it’s easy to see why this team generates such passionate support back home

Left: this 2012 image is the biggest reason for Team NZ’s determination to keep their cyclor system away from prying eyes until the last possible moment. When their AC72 was caught on camera foiling up the Hauraki Gulf a year before the 2013 Cup it triggered a chain of events that ultimately led to Oracle’s successful defence.

Spend your money wisely (left/above): the tents and containers that made up the Team NZ bases in Auckland and Bermuda were a lot faster to pack up than the ‘citadels’ that were erected by some of their rivals