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As many as eight sailors from Yachting New Zealand's high-performance programme could feature in next year's Youth and Women's America's Cup.
Emirates Team New Zealand have unveiled a shortlist of 16 triallists for the two events in Barcelona, that will run alongside the 37th battle for the Auld Mug in September and October 2024.
NZ Sailing team members Erica Dawson, Jo Aleh, Alex Maloney and Molly Meech have all made the first cut for the women’s squad while Oscar Gunn, Seb Menzies, Veerle ten Have and Josh Armit are on the 10-strong youth shortlist.
Dawson (along with teammate Micah Wilkinson) made her Olympic debut in 2021, finishing 12th in the Nacra 17 event despite suffering a serious injury only a month out from the Tokyo Games.
Meech and Maloney claimed silver in the 49er FX in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, while Aleh is one of the country’s most decorated Olympic sailors, with gold and silver in the women’s 470 with Polly Powrie (in 2012 and 2016 respectively).
Jo Aleh and Molly Meech have been sailing in the 49er FX together since 2022. Photo / Sailing Energy
Also included on the shortlist for the women’s team are former Olympian Gemma Jones and SailGP and Live Ocean Racing stalwart Olivia Mackay.
Gunn and Logan Dunning-Beck are currently campaigning for a spot at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in the 49er, while Armit and ten Have are the country’s leading men’s and women’s windfoilers.
Menzies is a former youth world champion, who recently debuted for the Live Ocean Racing team in the ETF26 series.
Seb Menzies has been included in the squad for the youth trials.
ETNZ put out a call for applications for the two teams in May, with the Youth America's Cup returning next year and the Women's America's Cup featuring for the first time.
All teams, including from the six entries in the America's Cup, will compete on AC40s - the scaled-down version of the AC75 foiling monohull.
Leading the selection process are Waszp world champion and ETNZ engineer Elise Beavis, and Olympic Finn sailor and two-time America’s Cup winner Josh Junior.
According to Beavis, the number and quality of applications far exceeded expectations.
“We received applications from 121 people in total. We were hugely impressed by the large number of experienced sailors who applied which has made our job very challenging to select the sailors to progress to the next stage,” Beavis said.
“Just going through the application process has been an encouraging insight to the depth and strength of New Zealand’s sailing future across all sailing disciplines.”
The initial selection process anticipated a shortlist of eight youth and eight women’s candidates that would be chosen to have a week’s trial with ETNZ later this year, with candidates assessed in a range of tasks and applications.
However, due to the high calibre of applicants from the vast range of sailing backgrounds and cross-over between youth and women’s eligibility, the youth trial has been expanded and 10 youth sailors have been invited to trial, Beavis added.
“We have decided to shortlist six non-youth women at this stage for the women’s team trial instead of eight, however, following the youth trial where we have four additional women, we will then invite the best-performing youth female sailors to join the women’s trial,” Junior said.
The next phase of the selection process will have an emphasis on teamwork, with simulator sailing a main focus. Four sailors at a time will sail the AC40 in the simulator performing the same roles as they would on the water.
“The shortlist of talent announced today is largely based off the performance of each sailor as an individual, whereas the team trials later in the year aim to discover the best combinations to create the strongest women’s and youth teams possible," Beavis said.
Other activities such as helping shore crew members with their daily tasks and reviewing sailing data will also give the shortlisted sailors more insight into the team and its culture. All members of the selection panel will observe the candidates during the week. The panel includes Beavis, Junior, ETNZ coach Ray Davies, ETNZ COO Kevin Shoebridge, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Vice-Commodore Gillian Williams, acclaimed sports journalist Suzanne McFadden and Powrie.
The shortlisted sailors are:
Women's team: Alex Maloney, Erica Dawson, Gemma Jones, Jo Aleh, Molly Meech, Olivia Mackay.
Youth (males): Jacob Pye, Josh Armit, Leo Takahashi, Oscar Gunn, Sam Street, Seb Menzies.
Youth (females): Annabelle Rennie-Younger, Celia Willison, Serena Woodall, Veerle ten Have.
