America's Cup - New York wants our Cup back

Former Team NZ tactician Terry Hutchinson is bringing the New York Yacht Club back into the America’s Cup fray. He tells Suzanne McFadden what he thinks of the “beast” of a boat he’ll sail on, and why he must make this Cup count.
Terry Hutchinson, skipper of the New York Yacht Club’s challenge for the America’s Cup, knows that this is quite possibly his last shot at capturing sailing’s holy grail.

The 2021 regatta, conceivably to be raced on the Hauraki Gulf, will be his fourth attempt. It would have been five had he remained skipper of the 2013 Artemis challenge - but he was dropped from the team, not long before the fatal capsize of their 72ft catamaran on San Francisco Bay.

The closest Hutchinson has come to uplifting the feted silverware was with Team New Zealand in 2007, when he was tactician to Dean Barker in their unsuccessful Cup faceoff with Alinghi.

And now he has another chance, at the forefront of the Bella Mente Quantum Racing syndicate, which flies the burgee of the New York Yacht Club, the longest guardians of the America’s Cup.

“I can’t imagine I’m going to get many more opportunities after this, at least in a sailing capacity. I need to make this one count,” Hutchinson says.

Recognised around the globe as the sailor hidden behind lashings of white sunscreen and wrap-around sunglasses (he’s prone to skin cancers), Hutchinson turns 50 next May. But he’s buoyed by the fact that other yachtsmen of his generation have won the America’s Cup late in their sailing careers. Fellow American Ed Baird was 49 when he drove Alinghi to victory in 2007.

Although he sat out the multihull era of the Cup, an intensely competitive Hutchinson couldn’t abandon his desire to win the Auld Mug. He recounts the story of returning home the day he was let go from Artemis, and his daughter Katherine, then 11, saying: “Daddy, I’m sorry you can’t keep chasing your dream.”

Now the dream is in front of him once again. But to pursue it, Hutchinson will first have to learn how to tame “the beast” - the new AC75 boat that will be his ride.

The core of Hutchinson’s sailing crew is likely to come from the two monohull class programmes he has run over the last five years: the 72ft maxi Bella Mente and the TP52 class Quantum Racing. The wealthy owners of these very successful boats, financier John “Hap” Fauth and Amway president Doug DeVos respectively, are the team principals of this America’s Cup campaign.

To see the full story from Suzanne MacFadden www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/11/29/64301/new-york-wants-our-americas-cup-back