America's Cup: 'Shoeb' looks at the Cup line-up ahead of the start of hostilities

by Magnus Wheatley, America's Cup Media 13 Jul 11:32 NZST

He’s the Chief Operating Officer of Emirates Team New Zealand and competing hard now in his tenth America’s Cup having started as a trimmer onboard the ‘Plastic Fantastic’ KZ7 of New Zealand’s first entry way back in 1987.

Recently inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame, Kevin Shoebridge, ubiquitously known as ‘Shoeb,’ is very much a focal point for everyone in Emirates Team New Zealand with a will to succeed that is renowned in America’s Cup circles.

Ahead of the Preliminary Regatta that starts on the 22nd August, the first time that we will see the new generation of AC75s being raced for real and it will be an early indicator of team's progress. Emirates Team New Zealand, as the holders and defenders of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup are the team that everyone benchmarks against but how confident are the team themselves in their preparations: “It’s the America’s Cup and anything can happen so confidence needs to be focused in the right direction. It’s always a ticking clock and each team works on their own timelines for their own programmes. For Emirates Team New Zealand, obviously the primary focus is on being ready and as prepared as possible for the America’s Cup Match from October 12th until the last race, but in saying that of course you want to perform well in whatever racing you do but we have to remind ourselves of our end goal, however the preliminary regatta provides a really good opportunity to line up with the other teams and get a feel for each other as well as some real-life racing and starting practice and course management.”

With the America’s Cup being a design game of cat and mouse, does Shoeb expect to see the full armoury on display in the Preliminary Regatta? “It’s always the question that never really gets an answer until the end of the event. I don’t expect teams to be sand-bagging, they will all want to get a true gauge on their relative performance with each other. But there will be differences between the performance of boats in the Preliminary regatta and the last race of the America’s Cup for sure... all the teams will have a planned development program all the way through to the end of the event. So we can expect all teams to get faster and more refined around the course, probably the team that can develop the most between now and October will win.”

Many commentators, and indeed the recon programme, noted that teams excelled in certain conditions specific to their design and struggled in others, so how much will the weather conditions in the Preliminary Regatta dictate the outright success? “That remains to be seen. We do know the conditions can vary a lot, right now there is very nice summer sea-breeze conditions, which come October will change. So, we haven’t seen all the boats in a range of conditions yet. This could be one of the telling points of this America’s Cup, to see if there is any change in performance from boat to boat in the varying conditions or mixture of flat water, waves, low end or high-end wind speed.”

Talk to many around the Port Vell and pretty much universally they will say that Emirates Team New Zealand is the team to beat but as Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Shoebridge is wary of everyone in this cycle saying: “From what we have seen so far - all teams look strong. We will be looking at all of the teams closely as they all have some interesting design aspects. It is far too early to make assessments one way or another because all teams will be focused on their own programs.

"So we will wait and see but, obviously, as the intensity and progress of the event increases our specific focus will become a lot more narrowed! We’ll be looking to take as much as possible from across the board in the Preliminary Regatta - racing practice, performance analysis on ourselves and relative to our competitors, and really for all teams I am sure it will be a very clear look at where teams are sitting relative to each other.”

It barely seems like a blink of an eye since Emirates Team New Zealand were blasting around the Hauraki Gulf and Barcelona last summer in their second generation AC75 ‘Te Rehutai’ but now with ‘Taihoro’ safely in Barcelona and gearing up for the Preliminary Regatta and the first two round robins of the Louis Vuitton Cup, there a palpable sense of excitement in the team: “We’re very excited. After 3+ years of working flat out on design, build and development, all of a sudden, we are here. The last four months of the three-year program is upon us. Wow.”