America's Cup: Glenn Ashby opens up on Emirates Team New Zealand
by Shirley Robertson 1 Sep 2021 05:51 UTC
1 September 2021
Glenn Ashby has a between races discussion with Emirates Team New Zealand design chief, Dan Bernasconi - two days before ETNZ defended the America's Cup - March 15, 2021 © Richard Gladwell / Sail-World.com / nz
Shirley Robertson talks to one of the modern America's Cup era's most influential sailors as she interviews Australian Glenn Ashby, in this two-part podcast below.
An integral part of Emirates Team New Zealand, Ashby has just won his third America's Cup, and talked to Robertson after celebrating the team's successful defence in March 2021.
Like many of Robertson's guests, in Part 1 Ashby reveals that his early life in sailing saw him working in a sail loft, having left school at the age of sixteen, but by then he had already made a name for himself out on the water. Growing up sailing on a lake in Bendigo, Victoria, the first time Ashby sailed on the sea was at eleven years old, in a regatta that saw him become junior state champion. From there, only a potential career racing motorbikes was going to stop the young Ashby becoming a professional sailor - motor sport lost the battle, for the teenage Ashby, Europe was calling...:
"There was a French guy, I heard a bang bang bang on the window, he was throwing stones from on the street to wake me up...and I got down to the boat park and the whole fleet had left, my boat was the only boat on the beach with the cover on. If I hadn't made that race I'd have lost the regatta!"
That admission from Ashby from his first A-Class Worlds regatta win in 1996. He would go on to claim nine more A-Class world titles, three Formula 18 World titles and three Tornado world titles. His ability to sail fast cats fast soon saw him claim a spot at the Olympics where in 2008 he won a silver medal in the outgoing Tornado Class with fellow Aussie Darren Bundock
Inevitably Robertson and Ashby turn to chat of the America's Cup which was itself beginning to look at multihulls for the 2010 Deed of Gift Match. Once decided, Ashby's inclusion was inevitable. Having joined BMW Oracle for the 2010 edition, Ashby then began a career with Emirates Team New Zealand, as they looked to win the 34th America's Cup in San Francisco. What followed for Ashby has been a three Cup campaign with one of the most successful teams of the modern era, but as Ashby reveals, after the shattering defeat in San Francisco, things could have been very different indeed.
"Sitting in the board room with seven or eight people having to make a decision, with Dalts saying 'it's up to you guys, do we shut the doors, or do we keep them open, what do we do?' The brutal reality of the doors of a team that had been around for twenty odd years, to have to be part of that decision making process to shut the doors after being so close, it just didn't feel right."
And so as Ashby reveals, the comeback began. It's a revealing chat, as Glenn talks through the "clean sheet of paper" that saw Emirates Team New Zealand ultimately win the 35th America's Cup in Bermuda. It's an inspirational tale told by one of the team's pivotal members.
Robertson's interview with Ashby is a fascinating discussion, looking behind the scenes of some of the modern era's most talked about Cup moments, from trying to keep the foils of the AC72 a secret pre San Francisco to redemption in Bermuda and the foiling monohulls of AC36, all told first hand from one of the modern day sailing's genuine pioneers.
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Part 1
Part 2