Viaduct Harbour

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Magnet for yachties; home of the "America's Cup" village -built for the two defences of the Cup before it was lost to the Swiss boat "Alinghi" in 2003. From here you can visit the Maritime museum or explore the yacht basin with its surrounding cafés and luxury apartments. The Auckland City Council has installed 30 bronze plaques on a maritime heritage trail. Although the America's Cup has now gone, in season, you may still see a super-yacht. For a little more adventure sail on an America's Cup yacht or take a jet boat spin on Auckland Harbour.

**Viaduct Harbour Revitalised by the Cup **

The Viaduct Basin was once one of Auckland’s neglected industrial areas, used for log shipments and as a harbour for fishing boats and charter vessels.

Then, in San Diego in 1995, Team New Zealand won the Americas Cup. Viaduct Basin was chosen for the Cup Village and the base for the competing syndicates. It became a major venue for visitors and was the best on-shore place to experience the Americas Cup excitement.

The huge syndicate sheds lined one side with their boats poking out, mostly skirted. (These skirts didn’t blow up even on a windy day as they were firmly held down by crew when being lifted out of the water.) The teams’ support vessels were also moored outside their sheds; the most spectacular was Victory Challenge’s Black Knight, the committee boat for the famous 1983 America’s Cup. Larry Ellison’s Katana was moored at the large arm in the centre of the Viaduct, as it was too big for outside the Oracle BMW shed. A number of super yachts came to Auckland for the big event, adding to the spectacle.

Russel Coutts One man above all played a key role in both bringing the Cup to Auckland and taking it away again. His behaviour demonstrated the lure of power and money that has been associated with the cup over its 150-plus-year history. He was at first a hero and then a villain in New Zealand eyes. Russell Coutts was the second non-American skipper ever to win the Americas Cup. In San Diego, he sailed Team New Zealand’s Black Magic to an unprecedented 37-1 record in the trials, and an overwhelming five straight victories over Team Dennis Conner in the 1995 Americas Cup finals. He then skippered Team New Zealand in its first Cup defence beating the Italian challenger, Prada, 5-0 in February-March 2000. But within weeks of the successful defence, Russell Coutts and tactician Brad Butterworth had been made offers they could not, or anyway would not, refuse.

They announced that for the next defence they would sail with the newly formed Alinghi Challenger syndicate, funded by the Swiss billionaire, Ernesto Bertarelli. So, when Team New Zealand came to defend the cup again in early 2003, it was up against its old skipper; the Swiss team having successfully gained the right to challenge in the trials by defeating all the other challengers, including Larry Ellison’s Oracle, a returning Prada syndicate and the veteran campaigner, Denis Conner. This time, Team New Zealand lost 5–0 . . . and Viaduct Harbour lost the excitement of the Cup. The next defence will be in Valencia, Spain, a proxy harbour for the land-locked Swiss. For the first time in its long history, the competition will take place in Europe.

As a footnote, in 2000 the New Zealand Parliament passed a law aimed at stopping “waka jumping” - in other words, changing sides. Waka is a Maori word meaning canoe. The law, however, applied to parliamentarians wanting to change allegiances, not to sailors.

Image Credit: Dan Freeman on Unsplash