The Ian Walker interview - Part 1

GBR Challenge's sailing manager tells Andy Rice about his new life in New Zealand

Despite having been there a couple of weeks already, Walker confesses to have seen very little of the city. "I haven't had time to look around Auckland yet. I've been to the compound, or to the gym, or back home changing nappies, and that's about it," says the father of three-month-old Zoe. "But what I have noticed is just how knowledgeable people are about the America's Cup. If you're doing a TV interview you don't have to explain what the America's Cup is. Even if you're buying something in a shop or taking a taxi, everyone knows what it is all about."

Walker says that arriving in New Zealand is the first opportunity he’s had to reflect on his whirlwind year. It was just over a year ago that he stood on the podium collecting his second Olympic silver medal with Star crew Mark Covell. "Sydney seems a lifetime ago. I’ve been so busy over the last year, I haven’t stopped. It’s only since we’ve got to New Zealand that I’ve had time to pause and think about things." But he is also aware that he doesn’t have the luxury of being able to reflect for too long. "It’s only a year to go to the beginning of the Louis Vuitton Cup. I’m always very conscious of time. Everyone tends to think money is the most precious resource but time is the most precious of all. A year sounds like a long time but not when you break it down into what needs to be done. You can never afford to lose sight of time."

These next few two weeks are the last opportunity for the sailors to feedback into the design process before the final design for the new ACC boat is handed on to the build team back in the UK. November 1 is when the designing stops and the building begins.

While the sailors are out in Auckland, the design team is busy with its third week of tank testing, in their fifth and final session at the Qinetic facility in Gosport, working with the Wolfson Unit.

General manager David Barnes knows it will be a difficult decision about the final design concept: "This decision is obviously more difficult for a one-boat programme, and can be a philosophical one. The bigger teams can build a 'safe option' - probably an evolution of previously successful AC boats - and a more revolutionary boat based on new thoughts and ideas. We can only choose one and we must decide down which route we should go."

The new boat will be constructed in the build shed at the GBR Challenge Base in Cowes, which is now ready following the completion of the 100 foot-long oven. Walker says the boat will be launched in the UK some time during April.

Some pundits take the view that GBR 52, Idaten, was one of the fastest during the Louis Vuitton Cup in 1999-2000, but that internal politics in the Nippon Challenge had smothered the boat’s true potential. Certainly GBR Challenge surprised a few people at the America’s Cup Jubilee earlier this summer, when it came so close to beating Prada in the finals.

Walker comments: "Idaten is a good base to work from. We were very competitive upwind at the Jubilee, but then again we won all the starts so you tend to think you're fast if that happens. We were using the first mainsail that we'd designed and built, and we were very pleased with it. But downwind was a warning shot, we were really slow a lot of the time and that was where we tended to lose our races. But we were really encouraged that the first spinnaker we built was a big step forward. Obviously it was encouraging that we could compete."

Read part 2 of the Ian Walker interview tomorrow, where he talks about getting fit, and shares his concerns on how September 11 could affect the America's Cup.