46 Breeze Magazine
America’s Cup venue is a contentious issue at RNZYS AGM The 2021 RNZYS AGM was overshadowed by one critical issue: where the next defence of the America’s Cup would take place. Ivor Wilkins describes the scene … It was a study in contrasts. Up on its first-floor eyrie at the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron, the America’s Cup was a silent sentinel, serene in its bulletproof glass vault. Directly below, the Ballroom, which has played host to two America’s Cup victory parties, seethed with tension and turmoil. This trophy, the oldest in international sport, was demonstrating once again its power to arouse high passion. Sometimes these passions unify disparate forces to achieve rare success. At other times, like this occasion on a hot December evening, they take a darker turn and inspire division, even enmity. How many times, one wondered, over its 170-year history had this fabled trophy born witness to similar outbreaks of deeply personal in-fighting? The strange and sad truth, as the two sides in this argument took up ever more entrenched positions against each other, was that both professed to want the same thing. Egos, strong personalities, deep mutual mistrust, if not loathing, however, ensured they would surely never work together towards that shared goal. In one corner, Grant Dalton, a veteran campaigner with a reputation for persuading boardrooms to back his causes as a round-the-world race winner and two-time America’s Cup winner. In the other corner, entrepreneur Mark Dunphy, self-proclaimed patriot, Fay-Richwhite
acolyte and would-be America’s Cup player with a $NZ40 million war chest. Both say their preference is to stage the 2024 America’s Cup defence in Auckland, but that is about the only thing they agree on. Much of the argument is about arithmetic. Dalton says the money on tap in Auckland falls well short of the $200 million required to fund the team and the event. Dunphy says with his $40 million it can be done. Backed by projected slides of charts and diagrams, Dalton, who has been in this game for 20 years and has wrangled $500 million for five America’s Cup campaigns, not counting multiple round the world races, demonstrates a $50 million shortfall. Dunphy, who was a senior executive at Fay Richwhite when the firm launched New Zealand into the America’s Cup in 1987 and backed two more campaigns in 1988 and 1992, says finding the money is no problem. Dalton reckons at the best of times $50 million is a big problem and Covid has made everything much more difficult. Arithmetic, however, is the least of the problems dividing these parties. From the time Dunphy’s courtship of the America’s Cup became public in August 2021, it quickly became clear that, borrowing from Shakespeare, “the course of true love” was doomed never to “run smooth”. Despite presenting himself as a suitor promising a handsome dowry, Dunphy’s opening gambit was hardly likely to set Emirates Team New Zealand’s heart a-flutter when it came with the demand that Dalton must quit the team he has led since 2004.
