Experienced sailor Jo Aleh is the first woman to join Team New Zealand’s main America’s Cup sailing team and she could remain the only one for the foreseeable future.
Changes to the protocol for the next America’s Cup in 2027 in Naples, which require at least one of the five sailors on board to be a woman, have been hotly debated.
Team New Zealand chief executive officer Grant Dalton acknowledges he initially was not a fan of having a mandated female sailor on the AC75, neither was Aleh.
But as Team New Zealand went sailing for the first time this year on Friday in Auckland, both agreed having the three-time Olympian involved was the right move.
Knowing he needed to sign a woman, Dalton knew he wanted it to be Aleh.
Aleh was involved in the inaugural Women’s America’s Cup sailing an AC40 for Team New Zealand in Barcelona last year and said the call-up, alongside three new male sailors, to the team which will defend the America’s Cup was a milestone for the sport.
“I don’t actually think last year any of us thought that there’d be a position on the race boat for a woman as yet so it’s pretty awesome they’ve taken that step and I think it really kind of cements the women’s AC as a pathway to the Cup,” Aleh said.
“None of us like a quota, as a woman who’s been involved with yachting for a long time, I don’t want to be on something because of a quota, but you’ve kind of got to take what you can get sometimes and I think it’s an awesome way to just encourage new people into these roles and see what we’re capable of.”
Aleh said until the new protocol there had been “nothing to aim for” for women involved in this area of sailing.
America’s Cup is not the first sailing event to require women be included in the team, the Volvo Ocean Race was the first in 2017 and still has that quota in place.
Aleh said “there was a lot of grumbling at the time” but she believed it had “changed the game in off-shore sailing”.
“There is a whole lot of women who would not have a career and now they do, so I think it’s a hard step to take and it’s always a little bit hard when one of the reasons you’re picked for something is because there’s a quota but I think it’s about what you do with it.”
The 39-year-old was excited about “getting on the big boat” even though her exact sailing role was yet to be defined.
“Never actually been on the AC75 before, had a look in the shed last time around, but it will all be new for me. It’s a pretty incredible piece of technology and the speeds, a lot to figure out still and a lot for me to learn.”
Team New Zealand would have a Women’s America’s Cup boat in 2027 but whether or not they would have another woman alongside Aleh was unclear.
Dalton was in no rush to add another woman to the crew as potential back up for Aleh saying that he did not know if the team had a plan for if Aleh was injured or for training with another woman in an AC75.
“I was against having a quota, quite verbally against it because I felt exactly what [Aleh] has said that it just feels like you got stuck on there and everybody goes geez you’ve got a woman onboard, and for that reason I was against it,” Dalton said.
Over time Dalton changed his mind, partly on the back of the success of the Women’s America’s Cup concept and partly because the physical requirements of the AC75 at the 38th America’s Cup would be different.
Dalton said women “were never going to make the jump” from the women’s event to battling for the Auld Mug unless it was enforced.
“Rightly or wrongly, instinctively the guys are going to pick the guys and so if you don’t mandate you actually won’t ever actually make it happen.
“Because it is not a power-based role it’s a skill based role they’re infinitely as capable as the guys.”
Felicity Reid, Sports Journalist
felicity.reid@rnz.co.nz
Originally posted on Radio New Zealand
