Aleh has been with Team NZ since October, confirmed as one of four new local recruits to the main sailing team with Seb Menzies, Josh Armit and Jake Pye. They joined the core group of Nathan Outteridge, Blair Tuke, Andy Maloney, Sam Meech and British sailor Chris Draper, with Australian Iain Jensen a late addition to the team.
Over the past few months, the team have been sailing their two AC40 scaled-down vessels while also working to bring the prospective women’s team for Naples up to speed.
“The team’s made a real change in how they’re wanting to do the youth and the women’s and having everyone a lot more sort of embedded in the main team,” Aleh said.
“Hopefully that’ll really pay off in results, obviously, but just the fact that everyone can learn from the best and everyone’s been sailing with Nathan, with Andy, with Draper, it’s been a really cool crossover of experience and definitely lucky to have such great people.”
While the AC40 was not an unfamiliar vessel to Aleh, the veteran was set to step into the unknown over the coming weeks with Team NZ relaunching their AC75 Taihoro on the Hauraki Gulf.
After having to reuse and refit their existing hull rather than build a new one as per the protocol, Team NZ unveiled their updated model on Monday with the goal of getting it back on the water as soon as conditions allowed. That moment came on Friday.
Aleh expected the speed and overall feeling on the boat would be a step up from the AC40, but admitted she didn’t know what it would be like until she got out there.
Jo Aleh will sail for Emirates Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup in Naples. Photo / Dean Purcell
“I’ve been here since October now and done a bunch of sailing in the AC40s. So that was pretty cool, but when you look at this boat, those things are toys. It’s going to be a big step up and [I’m] definitely looking forward to just getting out there and seeing what it’s like,” Aleh said.
“From everyone who’s sailed it, you know, it’s a big bus. Like, a really fast bus. But compared to the 40s, which I know pretty well, they’re flighty little things, and this thing, once we get trucking, we are trucking.”
The team will be recommissioning Taihoro over the coming weeks while their AC40s are shipped to Italy in preparation for the first preliminary regatta in Cagliari in late May.
Team NZ confirmed they would be entering both boats into the regatta, with one crewed by main America’s Cup sailors and the other by sailors from the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup teams.
While not all Cup teams will be in a position to enter a second crew for the first preliminary regatta, Team NZ chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge said it was an exciting opportunity for the team.
“There’s always this constant struggle between putting your resource in the right place,” Shoebridge said.
“Obviously, when the Cup gets nearer, the resource gets heavily drawn towards that. So we’ve been pretty good this time, I think, to make sure that they’ve all had the time and the opportunity that they’re going to need to be competitive next year. And we’ll continue to do that not only with the regattas in Cagliari but time in Naples [after the Cagliari regatta] and more time later this year when we come back.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.