Tom Schnackenberg

Jon Roberson interviews the Team New Zealand head

NB: This photograph was taken prior to Tom Schackenberg having his world famous moustache shaved off for charity.
A large proportion of the Team New Zealand sailing team are currently in the northern hemisphere, competing in a number of events around Europe, including the Tour de France a la Voile, the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand, the Gotland Runt and the Trofeo Trombini in Italy.

However the head of Team New Zealand, Tom Schnackenberg, and a number of members of the design team have been here for a while, at the towing tank in Gosport, working on their ideas for the next generation of Cup boats for the defence in 2003.

It is only just over a year since the guts were ripped out of Team New Zealand, with the departure, not only of Russell Coutts and his group to Switzerland, but also mass defections to other challengers such as One World and Oracle. Since then "Schnacks" has managed to rebuild Team New Zealand and is pleased with the progress they are making.

Commenting on the current state of the team, he said, "well I'm really rapt in the way the team's working, and because of that I'm optimistic that we're going to make good decisions, and we've got a good chance of building a defence that New Zealand can be proud of. Whether we win or not, time will tell."

There are three others from the design team working at the towing tank with him, and he explained their various roles. "Andrew Clausen, who's the test manager, and I guess you'd call him our research co-ordinator, he's a ship scientist, and he's been working as a test engineer for the team ever since we first challenged in '85. Now he's actually joined out design team for a couple of years for this event. Along with him, we've got Clay Oliver, one of our principle designers, and Nick Holroyd, who's based in London at the moment, who's our computational fluid dynamics chief and main operator."

The Kiwi's relationship with this facility goes back to their first challenge for the America's Cup, and Schnackenberg says they are happy with the ongoing situation. "It's a place we know, we know the people, we know the equipment, so it gives us consistancy from campaign to campaign. We can compare our results this time with results in '93 and '94, and we know how much progress we've made."

He also explained the set up of the organisation and how it works. "It's Wolfson who manage the arrangement. The Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA) owns the facility. So basically what they are doing is renting us a swimming pool, or towing tank, with a towing carriage. The Wolfson guys provide the dynamometry, the mount - the thing that actually tows the boat along, and all the electronics that go with that, and the computer software to analyse the data, and of course a couple of operators to operate it. We pay Wolfson, and they sub-contract DERA to provide
this long tank. Different people come to DERA with their own equipment, depending whether you're towing ships or tankers, or submarines, or whatever. Wolfson come with their towing equipment and tow our models, so it's a combination.

"When you go down to the tank, there are three people there, apart from the Team New Zealand guys, when Andy was the test engineer, there'd be Andy, and another Wolfson guy and the actual carriage driver, who's from DERA
Then of course there's us, but we don't actually do very much, except help put the models in and out of the water.

"This is the tank we use for big models, but Wolfson also own their own smaller tank in Southampton, and we use that a little bit for smaller scale testing as well, but whenever we test quarter-scale models, we use the big tank at DERA."

Of course for the defence campaign in 2000, Tom Schnackenberg headed the design team, but now he finds himself head of the whole team while still co-ordinating the design side of the operation. However, in his typically understated way, he plays down the extra responsibilities.

"We have a self managing team, I don't do much running of anything really. I still get involved with the design team in the same way, and I'm sailing on the yachts, so in terms of what I do every day, I almost do the same as before. The only difference is that I spend more time talking, speaking, and a little bit more time speaking to sponsors and audiences, than I did in the past, and of course more time on television I suppose.

"Ross Blackman, our C.E.O., he runs the business side of it, with Tony and Murray, they are like a fund-raising team, and the sailing team, Dean and the boys, organise themselves, so I wouldn't say that I've added very much to my role, except occasionally fronting the team, but then the others do that as well. We're a very, very flat structure at the top, you might even argue that I do less than I used to, but I enjoy the designing, and enjoy watching the designers, and working with them, and I enjoy sailing on the yacht when we're testing and racing, so I do both of those things, which fills my time very happily."