Grant Dalton on Barcelona AC37 venue choice

Dalton spoke to sailing media minutes after the announcement was made

Grant Dalton generally doesn’t give much away with his facial expressions. Nevertheless I thought I could detect just a hint of satisfaction as he fielded questions in a Zoom call with the sailing media minutes after announcing Barcelona as the venue of the next edition of the America’s Cup.

“Fire away. The worst kept secret in the world, right?” he greeted us.

Certainly the Spanish media had been let in on the venue announcement by eager local dignitaries days earlier - well before us sailing journos got a sniff of it.

Barcelona, it turns out was the mysterious ‘bolter’ Dalton had intriguingly referred to last year when the America’s Cup holders extended the deadline for the venue selection process.

Unsurprisingly, Dalton waxed lyrical about the suitability of the Catalonian city to host the next Cup.

He cited the warmth and enthusiasm of the reception he and his team had received when they arrived there, the appeal of making Barcelona the first Olympic venue to also host the AC, the success of that Olympic regatta back in 1992, as well as the appeal of being able to stage the racing close to the Barcelona shoreline.

He even said that the team had been influenced by Barcelona’s romantic reputation - stemming from what he said had been an iconic and memorable 1992 Olympic Games.

“I remember Freddie Mercury and that flaming arrow being fired and lighting the Olympic cauldron,” he said.

But far from Barcelona being a shoo-in, according to Dalton the other bids - from Cork, Jeddah, and Malaga - had all been equally as strong.

Asked if the unsuccessful venues would be awarded a consolation prize of hosting an America’s Cup World Series event, Dalton said they would - however no plans had been formulated yet.

What did come as a surprise was that he seemed particularly keen on running an ACWS event in Jeddah.

Pointing out that water sports were one of Saudi Arabia’s six key pillars of their strategy to promote sport internally, and that the majority of the country’s population are aged under 35, Dalton went on to say:

“Jeddah is the future, there’s no doubt.”

Critics of Emirates Team New Zealand opting out of defending the America’s Cup at home will no doubt be devastated by today’s announcement. Particularly so the Kiwi Home Defence movement, led by New Zealand millionaire businessman Mark Dunphy.

There is clearly no love lost between the pair and Dalton was dismissive of Dunphy’s opinion on the matter - “I don’t really care what he thinks” - but sought to reassure Kiwi supporters that AC37 going to Barcelona does not mean it would never return to New Zealand.

“That’s just not the case,” he told us. “If the next Cup had been in New Zealand that would mean it would never go back there - because it would mean the end of Team New Zealand.”

Dalton has a reputation as a master negotiator, so had he got the deal he wanted and is the event and the Kiwi team now fully funded?

“It [the venue choice] was never about the team,” he said. “It was always about getting the right funding for the event.

“So, [as a team] we are not fully funded - we still need to go out and find money - but the 50 million [NZL Dollar] gap that we had is now significantly reduced.

The venue announcement is a major milestone in the Kiwi’s attempt to win the America’s Cup for the third consecutive time. It is one that the other teams are likely to be happy about.

Over the weekend at the SailGP event in San Francisco Ineos Britannia skipper and CEO Ben Ainslie told me that Barcelona would be “an awesome venue”. On the media call Dalton enthused about the ongoing support he had received from Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe - including a live text congratulating him on signing the Barcelona deal.

Meanwhile, Terry Hutchinson and the American Magic syndicate will also be breathing a sigh of relief having been rumoured to have been unwilling to attend a full AC in Saudi Arabia. How an ACWS in Jeddah w would play with them remains to be seen.

Swiss team Alinghi also are unlikely to be disappointed with AC37 taking place in the Mediterranean.

Dalton gives little credence to talk of his team giving up home advantage by taking the America’s Cup offshore.

“In fact I don’t think there is such a thing as home team advantage,” he said.

“For a start, the other teams are top flight professionals and they possibly know the Hauraki Gulf better than we do.

“Then, secondly, I think when you are at home, inevitably Grandma’s eightieth birthday party starts to become more important than what’s going on at work.”

Whether all that means that ETNZ will decamp early to Spain was not revealed, but Dalton said he believed the team was more comfortable being on the attack rather than thinking about how to defend

Dalton also said he hoped that the choice of a European venue might trigger an additional challenger team for the 37th America’s Cup. Presumably this is the much rumoured young French outfit K Challenge - but Dalton refused to confirm that.

“It’s not much of a secret but I will let them choose when to make their move,” was as far as he would go.

Aside from putting an end to the mind numbing and essentially pointless speculation over where the next Cup might be held, today’s announcement means the teams design groups will now be able to start having meaningful discussions about the characteristics of their individual AC75s based on Barcelona’s prevailing 10 - 12 knot conditions.

Ten to 12 knots may not sound much but - as my esteemed media colleague Matt Sheahan pointed out on the call - given that the souped up next generation AC75 foiling monohulls will be so powerful that they won’t need more than that to be ripping around the course - the timing of the AC returning to the Med looks to be just about perfect.

While Dalton will no doubt have received other supportive messages from the competing teams to the choice of Barcelona, he is surely going to cop a torrent of abuse from disappointed home team fans.

Personally I’m delighted it is Barcelona. Full disclosure, I live and work less than an hour’s flight away and I am salivating at the prospect of the Cup being so close.

Irrespective of that, the latest edition of yachting’s oldest and most prestigious competition is now moving into a new and exciting phase - and that should be very good news for America’s Cup fans everywhere.

Justin Chisholm