Dalton open to keeping America's Cup in Spain or returning home if New Zealand can win 3rd in a row

BARCELONA, Spain — The 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona has only just started, but Grant Dalton is already thinking about where the next edition could be held. If, that is, his New Zealand sailing team can keep hold of the Auld Mug.

After being heavily criticized back home for taking the event abroad, the boss of Emirates Team New Zealand and chief executive of this edition of the cup says he could take sailing’s premier event back to Auckland.

But he could also keep it right here in Spain.

It is all about what is best for the team he has turned into competitive sailing’s top outfit thanks to its mastery of the sci-fi-like foiling yachts.

“We yachtsmen, we are slightly superstitious,” Dalton told The Associated Press. “But every single challenger is thinking about what they would do if they won, because they have to. So we have to think about where.

“Obviously New Zealand wants it back, but it has to be financially viable for that to happen. (So) the doors are absolutely open to it staying here.”

Dalton spoke to the AP hours before his team's Taihoro racing yacht was damaged Thursday after its opening race when a crane mishap caused it to drop some six meters (20 feet) onto the support cradle. Dalton was in his office at his team's base when it happened and he said it sounded “like a bomb went off.” But a quick repair job, which included cutting out and replacing a piece of the hull, had the most feared boat at the America's Cup back on the waves two days later.

A world-class yachtsman himself, Dalton is respected as a hard-driving, straight-talking leader. He demands the most from his team to stave off complacency, and he is not shy about taking on critics.

His decision to take the America’s Cup out of Auckland was slammed back home, where sailing is a national sport — Dalton says that any taxi driver can banter about his team. While Dalton acknowledges that his detractors hated the move, he insists it was necessary after the 2021 cup was held during the pandemic lockdown. If he had kept the race in New Zealand, he says it was impossible to ensure that this team would have the financial resources to successfully defend its crown and mount a top-notch event.

He now says that Barcelona has already met expectations as far as providing the perfect backdrop to attract sponsors. Luxury goods and fashion maker Louis Vuitton is back as its main sponsor, for starters.

But he knows that perhaps the only thing that can appease those angry fans is to prove he was right by having New Zealand successfully defend the title.

“New Zealand is rugby, cricket, America’s Cup. … So, are we forgiven for taking it away? I think there’s probably a slightly deeper understanding now,” Dalton said. “But there’ll always be haters. And yes, I think the answer is (that) to close the loop we have to win.”

If it seems like hubris for Dalton to be thinking so far ahead, he has good reason since the America's Cup favors the defending champion like few other competitions in sports. In this truly winner-take-all event, the victor gets to pick the venue and set the rules for the following cup, and it gets a guaranteed spot in the finals where it will take on the sole rival that gets through the grueling knockout phases.

Dalton has no problem in pointing out which rivals he thinks have the best chance of reaching the final, where they will face his team’s Taihoro.

He predicts that it will come down to Italy’s Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, which lost 7-3 to the Kiwis in 2021, or NYYC American Magic, the only team to beat New Zealand in last week’s preliminary regatta. That means that INEOS Britannia, the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing, and France’s Orient Express Racing Team are outside rivals, according to Dalton.

The final best-of-13 series between New Zealand and the best of the rest will start in October.

Dalton, 67, is synonymous with the America’s Cup, having rebounded from a historically painful loss to triumph twice.

He took charge of the team in 2003 after New Zealand lost the America’s Cup. Ten years later it was back in the finals, only to suffer a historic 9-8 loss after having led 8-1 to Oracle Team USA. But Dalton kept his team on course and got revenge over Oracle in 2017 in Bermuda. His New Zealand then successfully defended the cup in 2021 back home.

The Pacific island nation is now going for cup No. 5 overall and third on the trot.

The New York Yacht Club, back this year represented by American Magic, successfully defended the cup 24 times after the schooner America beat the British in the inaugural race around the Isle of Wight back in 1851. But even during that great 132-year-run, the NYYC was never represented by the same boat syndicate more than twice in a row.

What would it mean to him and Team New Zealand to become the first outfit to win it three consecutive times?

“Everything,” Dalton said. “No single team that’s been together has won it three times in a row. And if we were lucky enough to achieve that, it’s a feat that hasn’t happened ever. So it will mean everything for us.”