Yachting-Live

Oracle Gets Hooks in More TNZ Crew
The bleeding continues at Team New Zealand. The Kiwi America’s Cup syndicate has lost two key members to Oracle, this time from its shore crew. Sail designer Robert Hook and the boss of Team New Zealand’s sail loft Craig Phillips have defected.

Hook was righthand man to chief sail designer Burn Fallow. Phillips, a member of Australia’s foremost sail-making family, took care of the team’s day-to-day sail operations and maintenance.

Although New Zealand is blessed with hundreds of top notch sail-makers, the pair’s departure is a blow.

The Larry Ellison-owned, Russell Coutts-skippered syndicate will now be privy to many of Team New Zealand’s design ideas.

Oracle hired crew member Jono Macbeth last year and TNZ boss Grant Dalton confirmed about a third of his team are on the market having been laid off while the cup remains in limbo due to court action.

The best, such as Phillips and Hook, are being snapped up by Coutts and are effectively taking knowledge with them.

South African and German syndicates that sailed in the last cup and had entered the 33rd edition, on the provision it went ahead in 2009, went bust during the week. Although court action was pending they could not hold on any longer and there is strong suspicion Britain’s highly-touted team, bankrolled by Sir Keith Mills, will be the next to fold.

Like Dalton, Mills has put key staff, including skipper Ben Ainslie, on retainers. — Greg Ford, his full article at www.stuff.co.nz/4441560a1823.html

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 7:59 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.