America's Cup: Kevin Shoebridge reflects on the journey so far as the Kiwis head for Barcelona
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 29 Apr 22:20 PDT
30 April 2024
Kevin Shoebridge was part of the Steinlager 2 crew which won the 1989/90 Whitbread - winning all six legs. He is now COO in Emirates Team New Zealand - April 26, 2024 - Auckland © Sam Thom / America's Cup
Emirates Team New Zealand's Kevin Shoebridge is one of several current members of Emirates Team NZ team members who sailed as part of the first New Zealand Challenge for the America's Cup off Fremantle.
Shoebridge was a sail trimmer aboard KZ-7, the 12 Metre, and had his first taste of the America's Cup on October 5, 1986, against the Buddy Melge skippered Heart of America on Gage Roads off Fremantle.
Earlier this month, 37 years after that first race, Shoebridge was announced as one of four Inductees into the America's Cup Hall of Fame.
The then 23-year-old had joined the America's Cup crew directly from being part of the sailing crew on Peter Blake's Lion New Zealand, after the the 1985/86 Whitbread Round the World Race.
Gage Roads and KZ-7 are a long way, in many aspects, from where the New Zealand America's Cup team is now located in the team base on Auckland's Jellicoe Harbour.
Quietly spoken, Shoebridge has won four America's Cups and is a veteran of ten America's Cup campaigns, as well as six Whitbread/VOR round-the-world races.
Once a sailmaker and jib trimmer in New Zealand's first America's Cup challenge, he is now the Chief Operating Officer of Emirates Team New Zealand. He has co-managed the team with CEO Grant Dalton since 2003.
Shoebridge's immediate responsibility is to get the newly launched America's Cup Defender 'Taihoro' through her Auckland sea trials and then onto a ship bound for the 2024 America's Cup venue of Barcelona.
"The plan from here is that we've sailed five of the last six days and plan to sail as much as possible over the next couple of weeks", he told Sail-World at the launch of the AC75. "We don't have much time to commission and sea-trial the boat. We stop sailing in early May, load onto a ship, and head for Barcelona in mid-May. Then, we sail again on July 1. We're keen to do as much as possible over the next couple of weeks."
Splash 'n Sail
Taihoro has already made Cup history in her short life, being the first Challenger in the modern era to splash for the first time and sail the same day. They didn't have a pre-dawn start either, with the Kiwi AC75 emerging through the base doors in the early afternoon with just six hours of daylight left. Shoebridge explains how that day unfolded.
"We had pre-determined what we could achieve up to a maximum level and what we were happy with at a minimum level, and things just went smoothly through the day. We'd done all our load testing and structural checking when the raceboat was in the shed a month ago. So we knew all that was good. So we stepped the rig, and everything went smoothly. After that, we went step by step - and did a quick tow test. And we thought, 'We've got a bit of time. We'll pull the mainsail up'. Then we ended up going for a sail [and fitting in three dry foiling tacks]. It was nice to tick all that off in one day."
"We've done that basic commissioning process a few times now, so we can quickly get through it," he added.
The work-up for the 2024 America's Cup has gone very smoothly despite the high-risk decision to go straight into heavy air sailing—well above Cup wind limits—with limited options for repair before the AC75 is shipped.
"There's been surprisingly few issues," Shoebridge says. "The time we spent in Barcelona last year with our big boat, in which we won the previous Cup, was well spent. We sailed that for four months in Spain, putting us in a pretty good spot. We've managed to do a lot of testing of development ideas there - which have transferred onto this boat. So when you see this boat sailing around pretty quickly and effortlessly, a lot of it's driven from that time in Barcelona."
Gone so soon
In the past, Emirates Team New Zealand worked up for much longer in New Zealand, leaving for the Cup venue just a few weeks before the start of racing. They were the last team to start sailing in Bermuda, for instance. What was the reason for making the work-up so short?
"There is always pressure to want to design longer, spend more time, and try to get that nth degree of performance. Our basic approach is to work backwards from when we had to be up in Barcelona and how much time we needed to sail before the Cup, and then push to make the construction times as tight as possible to give ourselves more time designing. And that's how we've ended up in this spot."
At the time of Taihoro's launch, a week after the AC75 was first revealed, splashed and sailed, other Challengers were still unveiling their AC75 race boats. So far, the design teams seem to be headed in a similar direction. Shoebridge says he is pleasantly surprised by what has been seen so far.
"They've done a very nice job, and the two we've seen so far - Alinghi and Luna Rossa - look great."
"We always knew they would be - and that's what you typically see in the America's Cup when you're on the second or third generation of boats. Everyone slowly converges together, and there are a lot of similarities in the different parts of the boats already. It will be a very high-quality fleet, and there's no doubt about that. Alinghi's foils look great. They're the only ones with new foils so far - they're nice."
One of the common characteristics of the new AC75s is the focus on reducing aero drag across many facets of the hull design. Why has this shift taken place?
"These boats foil pretty much 100% of the time now in a race, "Shoebridge responds. "So once you get them out of the water, it is all about aero drag. But there are a lot of other things that you don't see that will play into next time. How well your control systems are working, and your sail program will be super important. The foils are going to be a big part of it."
In the leadup to the boat reveals for the 2021 America's Cup, much was made of using the hull shape of the AC75s to promote foiling. The initial idea was that a low-drag catamaran-like underwater shape would be created by heeling the boat onto its leeward chine and with the centre of the hull riding on its centreline bustle or skeg.
Have the designers given that concept away this time?
"Everything's a compromise. You can design a boat with foils and a hull that potentially takes off earlier but may not convert into a faster boat in certain conditions. So, everything's a trade-off. You can't have the highest top speed as well as a boat that's going to do well at the lower end.
"So everything's about how you go around a race course - nothing in singularity. It's about how the thing goes around the racecourse - and what that time is."
Moding for October?
Barcelona is quite a different venue from Auckland, which was ideal for foilers because it is near landlocked and provides flat water. Given that the Kiwis only have to be fast in the conditions that will prevail in mid-October 2024, have they targeted a particular wind band in Barcelona just for the period of the Match itself?
"To a certain extent," Shoebridge responds. But from the time we spent the last year, we learned you can look at the weather, take averages, and do all the rest of it—but that doesn't guarantee that's what you're going to get on a specific week."
"You can have days where you get no wind, and then you can have days where it's that fresh, and you can't sail. So, the average thing goes out the door a little bit. You've got to have a boat capable of sailing in all conditions," he adds.
Challenging the Challengers
For just the second time in America's Cup history, the Defender will start in the Louis Vuitton Cup, or the Challenger Selection Series (CSS), sailing in the first two rounds.
Before the 2017 America's Cup, it was traditional that the Defender and Challenger didn't meet until the first race of the Match, and it was only five minutes after the start of the first race that the teams and fans got an inkling of the outcome of the current Match.
What's the objective of sailing in the first two rounds of the CSS Round Robin phase of the Louis Vuitton Cup, as Oracle did in Bermuda in 2017, so controversially?
"We'll do the first two rounds," explains Shoebridge. "We think it's better for the Event—and, of course, it's better for us. We didn't do it last time, and we just sat out the CSS. I don't know. It's gone both ways in recent years."
"Traditionally, in the Cup years and years ago, that's the way it was."
And then, in the catamaran era, Oracle sailed in the Challenger Trials in Bermuda for the Round Robin phase [taking points into the Match].
"So we're trying it both ways [but with no points carrying forward into the Match]. It's good for us to be racing. We do the two Round Robins, and then we're out."
The French Connection
In that same Bermuda regatta, Emirates Team New Zealand were very critical of the relationship between the Defender Oracle Racing and the Challenger, Softbank Team Japan, who ultimately were the US team's work-up partner before the start of each day's racing in the Cup.
Fast-forward seven years, and the Kiwis again have a close relationship with a challenger—to get another team in the Regatta.
They have sold a design package to the French Orient Racing Team this America's Cup cycle, as they did in the 2013 Cup cycle, selling an AC72 design package to the Luna Rossa team. In that instance, Oracle took the Kiwis and Italians to the Arbitration Panel after the two started racing each other in Auckland before heading to Bermuda. On that occasion, the US team was able to put some handcuffs on the two friendly challengers.
Against the backdrop of the past decade's antics, how will the relationship with the French operate once the AC75s start sailing?
"The Protocol restricts that," responds Shoebridge. "It's very clear that once a boat touches the water, and we have already, there's absolutely no sharing of technical information or anything like that. So we go our own ways."
Whether it was offered or smart recruiting by the French, part of the French design solution includes the involvement of Glenn Ashby, who was a key part of Emirates Team New Zealand for the 2017 and 2021 America's Cup wins. A top high-performance sailmaker and designer in his own right, Ashby came to ETNZ from being a coach in the 2010 America's Cup winner and their radical 120ft wingsailed trimaran.
This campaign, he has been the pilot of Emirates Team New Zealand's successful land yacht speed record and been part of the French program as a coach, with an interlude on the commentary team for the two AC40 Preliminary Events sailed in Vilanova and Jeddah.
So, is Glenn Ashby staying with the French or returning to the Kiwis?
"No, no. Glenn is working for them on a consultancy basis and will stay with them," Shoebridge explains.
Since its first splash on April 12, Emirates Team New Zealand have sailed on 11 of the available 15 days. Their Auckland-based on-the-water program stops this week, and the packout for Barcelona is underway. When they arrive, one of the points of interest will be whether they continue at the current pace of both design development and sailing – and whether the other teams can operate at the same rate or better.
But already, the Kiwis look to have set a high bar.