Two major awards for distinguished service to RNZYS

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.

Despite that unpromising start and after Dunphy grudgingly withdrew the Dalton condition, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and other parties urged the entrepreneur to meet with ETNZ. The team itself repeatedly invited Dunphy to sit down and parlay.

However, apart from a single phone call with Dalton, he resisted any formal talks and declined to present any detailed or documented proposal. Instead, he trailed his coat in the public domain, launching a Kiwi Home Defence website and commissioning the services of a Wellingtonbased lobbyist, Saunders Unsworth, which describes itself as “New Zealand’s leading government relations and public policy firm”.

A number of full page advertisements promoting Dunphy’s cause subsequently appeared in major newspapers and Dunphy gave several interviews to news outlets and national TV.

He also found a strong advocate in Dr Jim Farmer QC, who is a highly successful barrister specialising in corporate and commercial law. He has acted professionally on behalf of Dunphy’s oil business. Farmer is also an honorary member of the RNZYS and has campaigned a string of yachts called Georgia in local and international events, including the Admiral’s Cup, the Kenwood Cup and the Southern Cross Cup. He served as a director of Team New Zealand from 2004 to 2013.

Farmer writes occasional blogs on his website and in that forum and in interviews has argued strongly that ETNZ and the RNZYS owe a moral obligation to the New Zealand taxpayers to conduct the 2024 America’s Cup defence in Auckland.

Much less public than his single phone conversation with Dalton – and even less likely to cement relations — was another phone call, this one between Dunphy and a member of the New York Yacht Club. The substance of the call was allegedly about filing action in the New York Supreme Court to unseat the Royal Yacht Squadron as Challenger of Record and install the NYYC in its place. (Presumably, the idea was that this would break the mutual consent arrangement allowing ETNZ to explore offshore options and force a home-waters defence.)

This followed on the heels of an email along similar lines sent by Auckland lawyer and America’s Cup specialist Hamish Ross to the NYYC Commodore with the express intent to “disrupt the venue selection”. In the email, Ross said he was “assisting a group of prominent New Zealanders seeking to keep the next America’s Cup event in Auckland”. Dunphy later denied Ross was acting on his behalf.

Wanting no part of this, one of the NYYC members on the Dunphy phone call alerted ETNZ about the approaches. Furious, Dalton decried Dunphy’s “underhanded and deceitful attempts to undermine the RNZYS, ETNZ and Royal Yacht Squadron with his despicable actions”.

By the time the Covid-delayed RNZYS AGM took place in December, much of this had already played out in the media. Positions were so entrenched that chances of a rapprochement appeared unlikely. Nevertheless, Farmer, Dalton and Dunphy were invited to outline their positions.

Opening proceedings, RNZYS Commodore Aaron Young restated the club’s position that its 25-year partnership with Team New Zealand was predicated on a mutual arrangement whereby the team was left to lead, fund and deliver an America’s Cup campaign with the club indemnified against any liability, financial or otherwise. “We are a yacht club and now, more than ever, the America’s Cup is a commercial and professional undertaking well beyond a yacht club’s everyday activities.”

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Auckland. But to avoid compromising its viability, ETNZ had to be allowed to consider other venues alongside Auckland.

Farmer called for a mediator to work with Dalton and Dunphy, whom he described as “two giants”, to negotiate common ground. “It could happen in a couple of hours and the mediator could go home,” he reckoned.

Dalton repeated his position that, lined up against powerful challenger teams with Formula One connections, an underfunded ETNZ had no chance of retaining the America’s Cup and would likely not survive. “We will be stripped. They want to kill us.”

Dunphy remained adamant nothing he had heard altered his belief that Auckland funding could be found. He said many motivations had been attributed to his bid to keep the Cup in Auckland: that he wanted to take over ETNZ or to steal their intellectual property; that he was acting for foreign teams, or just wanting to disrupt. “All those comments are completely untrue,” he insisted. “My motivation is purely patriotic.”

In the question and answer session that followed, much that had gone before was relitigated. Having called attention to Samuel Johnson’s quote about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel, Dalton challenged Dunphy on the New York Yacht Club plot and brandished an affidavit, which, he said, contained details of the incriminating phone call.

Dunphy confirmed he had two conversations with NYYC, but insisted what had been said about those calls was incorrect.

“It is inappropriate for you to choose a forum like this to put questions to me, if you are not prepared to talk to me in private,” Dunphy added. This was a baffling contradiction of a narrative that has persisted since August and which Commodore Young had repeated less than a minute earlier, namely that it was Dunphy who for months had refused every effort to broker a meeting with ETNZ.

Either way, with several members pleading for the parties to stop “talking past each other” and sit down together, it turned out that option was no longer on the table. Following the complete breakdown of trust over the New York affair, Dalton revealed the ETNZ board had taken a formal resolution to “permanently reject” any attempts by Kiwi Home Defence to become involved with the team and specifically would not engage in any dialogue with Jim Farmer, Mark Dunphy, Kiwi Home Defence or any of its various agents.

In an apparent stalemate, the AGM broke up in an atmosphere of frustration and regret over lost opportunities.

As the crowd dispersed into the night, up in its sanctuary overlooking the scene of recent dispute, the America’s Cup maintained its impassive vigil. There it will remain until its next chapter is written when the 2024 defence takes place at a venue to be announced by March 31.

Christmas and New Year celebrations followed in due course. Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour sparkled in record summer temperatures. It seemed much longer than a year since these same waters played host to New Zealand’s second successful defence of the America’s Cup amid scenes of national rejoicing and celebration.

Meanwhile, ETNZ envoys departed to inspect four potential overseas venues and continue discussions that will determine where the next America’s Cup will be sailed. In mid-February, American Magic began to dismantle their Auckland base.

Two Major Awards for Distinguished Service to the RNZYS

During the 2021 RNZYS Annual General Meeting, the Commodore, Aaron Young, announced two major awards for members who had given distinguished service to the club over many years. The citations in support of the awards are as follows:

Colin Carran – Life Membership Colin’s membership with the Squadron started in 1987 when he developed an interest in the Young 88 Class, purchasing a hull and decks and setting it up in the driveway. Family cruising with his wife Patricia and their three boys then took precedence. Over the following years, First Class was campaigned continuously with the Young 88 fleet and Colin was heavily involved with the association. He had significant involvement in repurchasing the moulds and keeping them in New Zealand. His tireless efforts for the class saw him inducted as a Life Member of the Young 88 Association. Colin enjoyed the racing and camaraderie at the Squadron and, as he believes in giving back to the community, he offered himself for the General Committee, where he served from 2002 to 2014. Colin has chaired the House Committee, handling the major refurbishment of the Club rooms. He was also chair of the project rebuilding the main wharves and the first major refurbishment of Lidgard House at Kawau Island.

Colin was also chair of the Major Projects Committee, overseeing Colin Carran receives his award from Commodore Aaron Young.