Behind the wheel?

madforsailing caught up with Andy Green, one of GBR Challenge's potential helmsmen come 1 October

In the final straight into the 1 October kick off of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series for the America's Cup, so the teams' plans are firming up, the final pieces being put in place. For several one of the key decisions still to be made is over the exact crew and who will be in the afterguard. And this is the case at present with Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge, where it may yet be some time yet before we know for sure whether it will be Ian Walker, Andy Green or Andy Beadsworth or a combination of these three who will steer Wight Lightning GBR-70 in the challenger series.

madfor sailing caught up with the blonde curly cropped 27 year old, Andy Green to get his take on how the British team is shaping up down under.

13 July was a momentous day for the team. After months of preparation and many thousands of watts of brain power from all involved, GBR-70 touched the water for the first time in Auckland. "It was wonderful," recalled Green. "I've never had a new boat really ever, because I've always done match racing. This is how it must feel if you're the owner of Leopard, when you're Mike Slade and you come down to the launch of your new boat and the crew put the sails up and you look at it and its gleaming and everything is where you wanted it to be and where you asked for it. And it is fantastic. It is so exciting and the mood around the camp on the morning when you go out for the first day is electric. Everyone's buzzing and excited and nervous. And there are people who have put so much into the building of the boat and the sailing team in particular."

Green admits that he had little to do with the development of the boat. His background is in match racing and in this discipline it is about turning up at an event and going sailing and unlike the Olympians or big boat sailors that are part of the team his area of expertise has not been in tweaking boats to the ultimate degree so that they sail quick. "Part of my brief is to go match racing, steer the boat and do the rules, so my brief isn't to build the boat - thank God - because it isn't my expertise," he says. "But I think the team has now matured to an extent that people recognize where people's expertise lies and when you've got people like James Stagg, Mark Sheffield and Jules Salter, who are so good at detailing boats, doing the electronics and the systems and they are the people who really lived for that day."