34 Breeze Magazine
Prada Cup capsize was more serious than first revealed By Ivor Wilkins In the immediate aftermath of American Magic’s spectacular Prada Cup capsize, the first reaction was one of relief that nobody was injured, followed by celebration at the way the America’s Cup community and emergency responders leaped to assist the stricken team back to safety. What did not emerge in the drama of the recovery operation was that skipper Terry Hutchinson had been trapped underwater as the boat rapidly took on water through the large impact hole in the hull. Two of his crewmates dived down to cut him free as he struggled for air. Hutchinson was harnessed into his grinding position on the immersed port side of the yacht. “When I did not manage to release the harness clips on my first attempt, I went for my knife,” he says. “I managed to cut through the strap on the windward side, but I could not get to the leeward strap. I was in a seriously compromised situation.” Once everybody else swam free of the boat, two grinders, Maciel Cicchette and Cooper Dressler realised Hutchinson was in trouble. Cicchette pushed Hutchinson up from underneath, releasing the pressure on the strap to enable Dressler to cut through the lashing. “I don’t know how long I was under the water,” Hutchinson says, “but it felt like an eternity. My mistake was not to go for my air cylinder first (all the Cup sailors are equipped with small personal oxygen cylinders for these emergencies). “I got the sequencing wrong. We had been
trained that if this situation arose, you always go for the air first and the knife second. “The first time you miss an opportunity to get air in your lungs and get water instead, it is unnerving,” says Hutchinson. Even in the retelling weeks after the event, the obvious understatement does nothing to conceal how shocking the experience was. “I am very glad it was me,” he adds. “I felt a big responsibility to the crew and would not have wanted anybody else to go through that.” Hutchinson did not require medical attention and was quickly back at the heart of the recovery operation. “Once I got the water out of my system, I was back swimming around trying to grab buoys or anything that would help prop up the boat. “It was a long night. After nursing the boat back to the base, I went home about 1am and was back at the base very early next morning. The effect of adrenalin and shock is powerful.” Later that morning, Hutchinson addressed a media conference, patiently answering questions and graciously acknowledging the support and assistance the team had received. He did not reveal the seriousness of his personal situation. A couple of days after the capsize, the team had a retraining session at an Auckland swimming pool. The trainers disoriented each sailor and then clipped him to a weight at the bottom of the pool. “I had to get the oxygen to my mouth and find a way out. It was tough to do. Even in that controlled situation, the panic level was about seven on a scale of 1-10,” Hutchinson recalls.
Since the launch of the AC75 class, several of the teams have experienced capsizes with little consequence. The motion is generally quite gentle with the boats quickly back upright and in business. This was a much more violent event, with the Patriot launched high in the air and crashing down on its port side. Although the team mounted a massive 24/7 rebuild, drawing on assistance and expertise from the local marine industry and Emirates Team New Zealand, it was effectively the end of American Magic’s campaign. Despite the heroic rebuild, American Magic’s post-capsize time in the shed left them in no position to counter the Italian crew in the semifinal. “Our optimism about making competitive improvement in that period was unrealistic,” Hurtchinson acknowledges. “The sad thing is that we never did get to answer the question of how competitive we really were. Luna Rossa made big improvements and clearly were a lot faster in the semi-final.” Despite their disappointment, Hutchinson is a fan of the AC75 class. “You can’t help but be impressed that all four teams in this regatta ended up with similar speed in the first iteration of the class. So, it was a real sailing regatta. That is exciting.” He noted that the previous IACC class took much longer to achieve a similar level of performance equality with largely one-sided results all the way from 1992 to 2007. The obvious problem, however, was that the AC75 regatta only featured four teams, of which American Magic was the only new
