May 26 2024 62 mins
Tales from The America's Cup with Six Time Winner Murray Jones
This month's podcast sees Shirley Robertson talking to New Zealand's Murray Jones about a remarkable career spanning over two decades chasing the oldest trophy in international sport.
Talking during a break in racing at the St Barth's Bucket earlier this year, Robertson starts the conversation with a chat about Jones' early life growing up in New Zealand, and how he soon starting making a name for himself in the 470 Class. A reserve in the Olympic team as a teenager, Jones' early career saw him part of a spectacularly talented generation of New Zealand sailors. For the national Olympic Team, medals soon followed, but two Olympic appearances in the Flying Dutchman class saw Jones disappointed with two top five finishes, but no medal.
Pretty soon though, the Cup came calling, and Jones became a pivotal member of the 1995 Team New Zealand challenger under Sir Peter Blake. Sailing as strategist in the 1995 San Diego America's Cup, Jones talks of hours spent up the mast of Black Magic, as the team went on to the defeat Dennis Connor's team 0-5, his recollections at times almost understated as he looks back on what was New Zealand's fist ever Cup victory...:
"We'd just test the whole time, we didn't do any racing, we took the attitiude that the Louis Vuitton Cup would be our practice racing and we were just fast and we basically sailed away from all the boats in the Louis Vuitton Cup and Dennis in the Cup. The fastest boat always wins the America's Cup! '"
With the win in San Diego and New Zealand's successful defence of the Cup in Auckland in 2000, by the age of just thirty three, Murray Jones had twice won the most coveted trophy in sailing. But for the world of New Zealand sailing, unexpected events were on the horizzon...:
"Out of the blue, Russel (Coutts) rang me and said 'I want to talk to you about something, I've got an offer to sail for this Swiss guy for the America's Cup and...I'll do it with a couple of you guys, would you be in..?' It blew me away, I had no idea, I said 'Wow!' I hadn't even thought about sailing for any other country other than New Zealand. Anyway, I rang him up the next day and said 'Yeah, I'm in, let's see what happens!' "
Jones and Robertson then discuss how the New Zealander moved over to the newly formed Swiss Alinghi sailing team, the team that then went on to successfully Challenge for the 2003 Cup, winning the Cup from their old team mates at Team New Zealand.
It's a revealing insight into what was a fascinating time in international sailing, as Alinghi Murray discusses the implications implications of the then controversial decision, joining a team that would ultimately see him go on to win two more Cups, in 2003 and 2007.
Part Two of the Podcast gets underway as Robertson and Jones pick things up as Alinghi prepare to defend the Cup in Valencia, without key team member Russell Coutts.
This edition of the podcast is in two parts and is available to listen to via the podcast page of Shirley’s own website - www.shirleyrobertson.com/podcast or via most popular podcast outlets, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and aCast. The podcast is produced and written by Tim Butt - for further enquires, please contact [email protected].