The Daily Beast
The Megayacht racing millionaires invading New Zealand in the form of ‘essential workers’
Gilles Martin-Raget / Getty If you were not aware, a select club of billionaires from around the world – with their super yachts on tow – descended to Waitematā Harbor in Auckland, New Zealand for one of their to resume favorite activities: a bunch of guys chasing big, fast boats back and forth across an invisible line. It’s a bit like NASCAR for rich people. These billionaire owners were fortunate enough to receive special ‘essential service exemptions’ to travel to New Zealand after being considered ‘necessary’ by the government to spend their millions on the local economy in exchange for the opportunity to forgetting social distance, inhaling the coronavirus-free air and watching their million-dollar yachts chase each other for an old, shiny trophy known as the Auld Mug. Although everyday workers have had to endure drastic changes and hardships and even the most basic relief was denied during the pandemic, billionaires are still fighting to carry their extremely expensive hobbies around the world. It’s all part of a four-year sporting event known to most New Zealanders and other yachting enthusiasts as the America’s Cup; its 36th issue began on March 10 after the weekend’s opening was postponed due to a coronavirus-level warning in Auckland. The defending champion, Emirates Team New Zealand, is backed by Swiss Italian billionaire Matteo de Nora. Italian team Luna Rossa, owned by Italian billionaire Patrizio Bertelli of Prada Group, will face the challengers. The Italians beat Ineos Team UK, owned by British billionaire and industrialist Jim Ratcliffe. It was a week after they swept the American Magic Yacht Club of New York, sponsored and partly owned by former Education Minister Betsy DeVos, brother-in-law of billionaire Doug, his fellow billionaire Roger Penske, and the businessman John “Hap” Fauth. , with four consecutive victories in the semi-finals of the Prada Cup. And let’s not forget how Team NZ came here in the first place: by defeating Oracle Team USA, backed by Oracle American billionaire and co-founder Larry Ellison in 2017. (The event is held every few years.) If you feel a pattern when you come up here about the people behind this competition, you are absolutely correct. The America’s Cup (named after the very first boat, America, which won the competition), not only boasts the world’s oldest international sports trophy, it is notoriously loved by the richest people in the world. Historically, it has attracted several generations of Vanderbilts, JP Morgan, CNN founder Ted Turner and most recently Bill Koch of the Koch brothers. A member of the Emirates team New Zealand prepares for the first race against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team on day one of the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland on March 10, 2021. Gilles Martin-Raget / Getty The goal of the game is simple: get past the finish line first. But the rules can be complicated. Yachts chase one-on-one on a three-kilometer-long track, sailing upwind around the first checkpoint, then downwind past the starting line to a second checkpoint and then back to the first. This process is repeated for a number of laps set by race officials according to the strength of the wind. Sailing outside the set boundaries of the track or infringing on an opponent who has the preferential right brings distance penalty. Every win is one point for that team. The first team to score 7 points wins the Auld Mug. From 1851 to 1980, there was not much “competition” in the America’s Cup, with the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) winning the very first regatta and successfully repelling every challenge. for a century. That is, until they lost in 1983 to the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia. Nearly 30 years after the loss, the NYYC returned to take down its claim in this year’s race, but the Americans’ hopes of reclaiming the America’s Cup this year were shattered quickly and without ceremony. The American Magic team from NYYC would be the favorite to win the Prada Cup and challenge the defenders. The Americans are led by Terry Hutchinson and led by New Zealander Dean Barker, a former captain for Team New Zealand. The Americans were hoping to make a return and bring the Auld Mug back to his former home. Instead, after two disappointing rounds and a dramatic turnaround that left catastrophic – and catastrophic – damage to their boat, the Patriot, the Americans underperformed and lost every race against Luna Rossa. There was a disturbing tension over whether Patriot would be restored. in time for the semifinals. It showed how the America’s Cup became much more than just a regatta; it is now an extensive technological journey of boat building that desperately needs wealthy supporters. American Magic has spent as much as $ 120 million on its campaign and the development of its racing yachts – more than the city council of Auckland budgeted to host the entire event. The types of boats in the final race are determined by the defending champions, usually around their advantage and preferred style of racing. This year’s competition, selected by Team New Zealand, relies on the AC75 design, which means the boats are built with a 75-foot monohull, no keel and two swivel foils (it looks a bit like small legs or wings and provide an elevator) Each team may have two boats and each can cost as much as $ 8 to $ 10 million to build. It should be ultra-lightweight: minus the sails and crew, the boat can weigh no more than 6,520 kilograms, while a typical 75-foot yacht usually weighs up to ten times as much. These are racing boats designed to fly over the water – and sometimes literally over – at a speed of about 50 knots. Designing such a boat requires a lot of resources. The Italians’ AC75 Luna Rossa, for example, took 78,000 hours (almost two years) to build with a team of 90 people, including 37 team designers. As Jeff Foss puts it in Outside magazine, ‘Yes, it’s a boat race, but calling these things’ boats’ is like calling Elper Musk’s Hyperon a choo-choo train. “It’s interesting that in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, as other major sporting events such as the Olympics have been postponed, the America’s Cup went relatively unscathed. This is due to how New Zealand acted early and decisively to With a population of just under 5 million, New Zealand had 2,409 cases of COVID-19 and 26 deaths, which remained at alert level 1 for most of the pandemic. the three challengers of the Auld Mug from the three Western countries with the most coronavirus deaths: the US, Italy and the UK Were the teams not sponsored by billionaires, displaying their wealth for sport, they will not there is something ugly in the sharp class divisions that makes it easy for the rich to travel to a place that is perhaps the closest thing this earth should have to paradise (I’m in New Zealand drills – I am biased). Most people cannot afford to escape their pandemic suffering and spend fortunes on high-tech judgment bunkers or quarantine from their megabots. It does not seem to matter to certain New Zealand government officials, who apparently consider the sporting event (and the money that drives it) a cultural necessity. “The America’s Cup will not be able to continue unless these international syndicate teams gain access to New Zealand,” New Zealand Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford offered in June 2020 for clarification before releasing the billionaire teams behind the challengers. gave. Meanwhile, a policy-driven loophole has given superyachts access to New Zealand waters, as long as their crew has been quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days and owners a minimum amount of up to $ 7 million NZD in one case it spends on boat repairs. . Businesses have started lobbying for their billionaire owners to also go to New Zealand with their superyachts. But so far, none of them seem to have made it. Other billionaire supporters of the America’s Cup, such as Valve owner Gabe Newell, ‘temporarily moved’ to New Zealand even during the pandemic. In Newell’s case, he was trapped there on vacation and decided to stay, presumably to escape U.S. restrictive exclusions and seemingly never-ending virus surges. This is part of a longer trend that has made New Zealand a rich person’s playground, especially with entrepreneur and billionaire Peter Thiel of Silicon Valley, who was granted citizenship under ‘extraordinary circumstances’ in 2011 after being just twelve days spent there over the course of 5 years. US hedge fund billionaire John Griffin is another person who fled to New Zealand on a private jet before closing in New York, while US hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson was found to have taken over NZD $ 1 million in government subsidies to pay the staff’s wages at his luxury resorts. Of course, New Zealand may have been shut down for the world, but what prevents other billionaires from obtaining accommodation or citizenship under ‘extraordinary circumstances’? For many Americans, it’s a slap in the face to see members of the DeVos family frolic in New Zealand. , happily masked and ‘quarantined’. Their home state of Michigan suffered during the pandemic, with anti-masks refusing to cooperate with state exclusions (while at one point actually trying to kidnap the governor), and members of the DeVos family refused to publicly support mask and quarantine measures. helped suppress the spread of the deadly coronavirus. We have seen time and time again how billionaires make and break the rules, often at our expense. We have seen them greedily take out PPP loans intended for small businesses or abandon their pandemic-hit cities for private getaways on the island just because they could. New Zealand has taken the COVID-19 pandemic seriously and succeeded, yet it is still the world’s billionaires who can enjoy the benefit. Because they forbid God not to chase with their boats. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.