Gavin Brady talks to madforsailing

The young Kiwi weighs up Prada's and the GBR Challenge's chances in the America's Cup

As the wind had failed to materialise on the second day of the Sun Microsystems Australia Cup at Perth, Bob Fisher took the opportunity to corner Gavin Brady, the runner-up at the Steinlager/Line 7 Cup in Auckland, the previous event in the Swedish Match Grand Prix Tour.

Gavin, how have you been getting on in the Prada camp after the first few months? We're just finishing our session in Auckland, we've been there for three months doing a lot of tuning and testing, getting a bit more of a feel for the conditions. The team has grown a lot since the last America's Cup, a lot more in the sailing team and a lot more in the design team - it's a far bigger organisation this time. There are a lot of benefits in a continuing programme that I can see after last time with AmericaOne, when we had a lot of growing pains. Every team has to go through that and there's a lot of strength with Prada because they've already been through one Cup already. From here we go back to Punta Ala for more testing and tuning; back to Auckland again, and like everyone else the new boats are starting to be built early next year, so it will all come up pretty quick.

This is very different to last time as you are freed from all budgetary constraints and things like that.
Yes, although last time we never felt the budgetary constraints, Paul Cayard did a very good job - if we wanted anything, we always had it. Money wasn't our problem with AmericaOne other than it came too late to do anything with it. But maybe money in this next America's Cup isn't going to make that difference. Once you get above the US$60 million mark, it will come down to what do you do with that money. It's maybe a bit more of a level playing field.

What you are really indicating is that time is of the essence?
I think so and it is the Achilles heel for anyone who has yet to start. One of the interesting things will be can the one-boat and late teams catch up as well as Dawn Riley and Dennis Conner did last time, now that there are already four or five teams out there going hard at it. The bar is going to be raised and will the latecomers be competitive this time?

Which brings me to my next question, what do you think of a British challenge coming in?
It's great that they are there and they are doing everything they can to get going and they do realise the importance of being under way early. They have a big mountain to climb; they have to learn how to sail America's Cup boats. When you buy two old boats, like the Nippon boats, you first have to figure out what you have, and that takes a long time. The other thing that they will find is that going to Auckland is good but it is almost impossible to test there, it's very hard to test there because of the shifty conditions. They will learn a lot however and I like their style. They have a bunch of young guys and at the end of the day, just good sailing does count a lot in the America's Cup. America True showed that last time; they got there early, they trained hard, they didn't do that much testing, but they put a lot of time into learning to sail their boat and they did a great job of that and they took a lot of scalps. With the ability of the British sailing team, and I believe you have better sailors, anything is possible.