By Susan Kruller
July/August, 2001

SYC members were treated to a unique opportunity to meet two members of the crew from our OneWorld Challenge America’s Cup team at the June Sailboat Dinner.

Andrew Taylor and Craig Monk are both Grinders for OneWorld Challenge — they turn the winches that bring in the sails each time the boat changes direction.

“These guys design, implement and maintain the winching systems,” said Jonathan McKee as he introduced them to the audience at the sold out event. “They’re probably the strongest grinders today. On the winch simulators, they’re undefeated.”

The program was held in a relaxed format, so members could enjoy a Question and Answer session with the two that made the event more personal for our club.

“I guess I look a bit more like a rugby player than a sailor,” said Monk, who can bench press around 400 pounds. “I started sailing at six years old in the P Class — similar to your Optimist class.” Monk took to the sport well enough to win a bronze medal sailing Finns in the Olympic Games.

Taylor, as well, has made his mark with top teams in offshore racing and is equally impressive in stature. Both men were grinders on the victorious Team New Zealand crew in the last two America’s Cup competitions.

Posed with a question on what it’s like to compete on a crew from the United States, Andrew Taylor said, “It’s been a great experience for me in 1995 and 2000 to sail a boat with a black flag on the side. I guess with the New Zealand sailors going abroad for the next America’s Cup, it’s time to move on and let the youth of New Zealand have a go at it.” He said he feels it’s a positive trend, “It’s opened up the event a bit and opened up the sport.”

To queries about the IACC boats themselves, the two revealed a little about how things operate. Right now they practice and test on two boats used in the last America’s Cup. They will use all they learn to design and build two new boats that will be used in the next America’s Cup competition.

Whenever they are not on the test boats, crew members compete in other sailing events not only to stay on top of their game mentally and physically, but also to look for new ideas on how to help their boat go faster when they return to train. They tend to carry around ten sails on board. Upwind boat speed can be around nine and a half knots on up to just under ten. Downwind in fresh air they run about 15 knots. A spinnaker can be up to 10,000 square foot in area.

The testing phase for design is wrapping up now as they prepare to build the new boats, but the search for ways to increase their speed remains constant.

Craig Monk shared that such diligence paid off for Team New Zealand, “The gains made in the five years from 1995 to 2000, helped us improve over a minute per mile.”

”If we improve one second per mile, that would equate to 20 seconds around the course.” Taylor explained. Taylor and Monk will engineer and design the winching system for the new boats. At times with loads up to eight-thousand pounds to winch in, their contribution in designing the most efficient system possible will greatly influence the boat performance.

Andrew Taylor and Craig Monk could only offer the audience a taste of information and gee-whiz facts without compromising their competitive program, but everyone present came away with a heightened awareness of what’s behind such a campaign. It was enough to leverage great confidence and excitement in how the OneWorld Challenge syndicate will represent

Seattle Yacht Club.