Harold Bennett wins YNZ award

Kiwi America’s Cup legends Tom Schnackenberg (left), Sir Russell Coutts and Rick Dodson at the RNZYS fundraiser.

Cup legends rally to support Rick Dodson

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New Zealand Distributor:

When NZL-32 won the America’s Cup for New Zealand in 1995, its crew featured a hard core of yachting talent that had been developing since the late 1970s. Among them was strategist Rick Dodson, a twotimes world champion in the OK Dinghy and winning skipper in the 1987 Admirals Cup and 1988 One Ton Cup.

Later, Dodson’s sailing career was cut short by the symptoms of MS (multiple sclerosis). With the late David Barnes, who was diagnosed with MS around the same time, Dodson launched a campaign in the Sonar class for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio.

Dodson wanted to share his MS and sailing story in a book, so his friend Matt Mason, mastman on NZL-32, brought together a core of New Zealand sailing talent to support Dodson’s cause in a book fundraising evening, 29 October at the RNZYS Dinghy Locker Bar.

Tony Rae (NZL-32) and Ray Davies, representing a later generation of Team New Zealand, entertained with their Salty Dogs Band; Sir Russell Coutts reminisced about his fierce rivalry with Dodson in the 1984 Finn Olympic trials and Joey Allen (NZL-32 bowman) remembered the day the America’s Cup was vandalised.

Dodson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1997, but kept his disease under wraps to protect his sailing career. He enjoyed another 10 years of professional sailing, including two America’s Cup campaigns, until the disease began seriously affecting his mobility, sight and speech. “I’m like a drunken sailor,” he says.

Mason commissioned yachting journalist Rebecca Hayter to write the book, on track for publication in March 2023. • To register your interest in buying the book, please visit www.rebeccahayter.co.nz

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