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Hutchinson, Hall of US learn to fit in on Kiwi Emirates team

Tactician Terry Hutchinson, right, and Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker sail during a practice session off the coast of Valencia, Spain, on June 11. Emirates will face defender Alinghi in the America's Cup today in Valencia. PHOTO: AP

So how do you take two proud US sailors like Terry Hutchinson and Kevin Hall and turn them each into someone who could pass for a Kiwi?

"First of all, no high-fives," said Ray Davies, a strategist with Emirates Team New Zealand.

The next phase involves mastering the essentials of rugby and cricket for those bonding sessions around the big screen.

"I figured it all out with the rugby, but occasionally I ask questions," Hutchinson said. "Cricket on the other hand ..."

No, all has not been smooth sailing for the only two true outsiders on Team New Zealand's 17-man race crew, but at this advanced stage of the America's Cup, it is safe to pronounce the cultural experiment a success.

After the nightmarish experience of Team New Zealand at the last Cup, in 2003, where its equipment and dignity broke down in the midst of a sweep by Alinghi, new team leaders Grant Dalton and Kevin Shoebridge wanted some fresh talent and fresh ideas in their afterguard to supplement their core group of Kiwis bent on redemption.

The result has been a deeply convincing three-year run through the pre-regattas and the challengers series known as the Louis Vuitton Cup, which has earned the team a rematch with Alinghi in the America's Cup, which is set to begin today.

"It's been great for us to be able to look outside our own borders to strengthen the team, because we needed to," said Shoebridge, New Zealand's director of sailing and operations. "A lot of Kiwis had either gone to Alinghi or Oracle or to other teams, so we needed to bolster up our own numbers with experience that we didn't have in the country at the time."

Hutchinson, a tactician, is a compact, occasionally combustible 39-year-old package of nervous energy from Annapolis, Maryland, who exudes the backslapping self-confidence of a naval aviator.

Hall, a navigator, is a more reflective 38-year-old. The son of doctors from Ventura, California, he chooses his words and conclusions with care, perhaps because he learned early on that sailing success was a bonus after he had testicular cancer in his early 20s.

"That pretty much turned everything upside down for me for a little while," Hall said. "That said, looking back, it changed me a lot for the better, and it's a little bit cliched perhaps, but it very much was a gift and an opportunity in the sense that I really had to stare my priorities in the face and decide what they were. Competing was really important to me, and I probably took it a little too seriously. I defined myself way too much by athletics and not enough by the other parts of my life."

Hutchinson and Hall had already sailed in two America's Cups in New Zealand. They began with Paul Cayard's AmericaOne team in 1999 and then went their separate ways with different US syndicates in 2002. Hutchinson called tactics for Team Dennis Conner, and Hall navigated for Seattle-based OneWorld Challenge.

With US options and influence much more limited during this Cup cycle, each decided that after living in New Zealand, it was time to sail for New Zealand.

Hall joined the team first after being recruited by Shoebridge, a Kiwi who worked with him at OneWorld.

Hutchinson came next, in June 2004, after becoming frustrated with the pace of negotiations with BMW Oracle Racing.
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