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Megayacht-Racing billionaires invading New Zealand in the form of ‘essential workers’
Gilles Martin-Raget / GettyIf you don’t know, a select club of billionaires from around the world – with their super yachts in tow – came down to Auckland’s Waitematā port in New Zealand to resume one of their favorite activities: watching a bunch of guys running in big, fast boats back and forth in an invisible line. It’s a bit like NASCAR for the rich. These billionaire owners were fortunate to receive special “essential service worker exemptions” for traveling to New Zealand, after being considered “essential” by the government to spend their millions on the local economy in exchange for the opportunity to forget about social detachment. , breathe in the coronavirus outdoors and enjoy watching your million dollar yachts compete against each other for a shiny old trophy known as the Auld Mug. While day-to-day workers have to endure drastic changes and suffering and have been denied even the most basic relief during the pandemic, billionaires are still struggling to continue their extremely expensive hobbies. All of this is part of a four-year sporting event known to most New Zealanders and other sailing fanatics like the Copa America; its 36th edition started on March 10, after its weekend opening was postponed due to a blockade of Alert Level 3 coronavirus in Auckland. The defending champion, Emirates Team New Zealand, is supported by lone Italian-Swiss billionaire Matteo de Nora. They will face the opponent, the Italian team Luna Rossa, of the Italian billionaire Patrizio Bertelli, of the Prada Group. The Italians defeated Ineos Team UK, by British billionaire and industrialist Jim Ratcliffe, in the Prada Cup final. That was a week after they swept the American Magic from the New York Yacht Club, a team sponsored and partly owned by billionaire brother-in-law Doug, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, his fellow billionaire Roger Penske and businessman John “Hap” Fauth, with four consecutive victories in the Prada Cup semifinals. And let’s not forget how Team NZ got here in the first place: defeating Oracle Team USA, supported by American billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, in 2017. (The event is held every few years.) If you notice a pattern emerging here about the people behind this competition, you’re totally correct. The America’s Cup (named after the first boat, America, to win the competition), is not only proud of the oldest international sports trophy in the world, 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, more recently, Bill Koch of the Koch brothers. An Emirates Team New Zealand member prepares for the first race against the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team on the first day of the 36th Copa America in Auckland on March 10, 2021. Gilles Martin-Raget / Getty The objective of the game is simple: to obtain beyond the finish line first. But the rules can be complex. Yachts compete one by one on a three kilometer long course, sailing against the wind around the first checkpoint, then downwind, passing the starting line towards a second checkpoint and again towards the first. This process is repeated for several laps defined by the race officials according to the strength of the wind. Sailing outside the defined limits of the course or violating an opponent who has the right of way incurs distance penalties. Each victory is a point for that team. The first team to reach 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 first race and successfully defending all challenges for a century. That is, until it lost to Australia’s Royal Perth Yacht Club in 1983. Almost 30 years after that defeat, the NYYC returned to claim its claim in this year’s race. But Americans’ hopes of claiming the Copa America this year were quickly and unceremoniously. NYYC’s American Magic team was slated to be the favorite to win the Prada Cup and challenge defenders. Commanded by Terry Hutchinson and commanded by New Zealander Dean Barker, a former New Zealand team captain, the Americans hoped to make a comeback and bring the Auld Mug back to its former home. Instead, after two disappointing round robins and a dramatic rollover that left catastrophic – and catastrophically expensive – damage to his Patriot boat, the Americans continued to underperform, losing all races against Luna Rossa. There was an exciting suspense about whether the Patriot would be repaired in time for the semifinal races. It showed how the Copa America has become much more than just a race; it is now an extensive technological boatbuilding journey that requires incredibly wealthy sponsors. American Magic spent up to $ 120 million on its campaign and on the development of its racing yachts – that’s more than the Auckland City Council budgeted to host the entire event. The types of boats in the final race are determined by the champions in title, usually for their advantage and preferred style of racing. This year’s competition, chosen by the New Zealand Team, depends on the AC75 design, which means the boats are built with a 75-foot long monohull, without a keel and two rotating leaves (they look a bit like small legs or wings and provide support for the hull). Each team can have two boats and each can cost $ 8 to $ 10 million to build. It must be ultralight: without sails and crew, the boat cannot weigh more than 6,520 kilograms, whereas a normal 75-foot yacht usually weighs up to 10 times that amount. These are racing boats designed to fly – and sometimes literally over – water at speeds of up to 50 knots. Designing such a boat requires immense 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 put it in Outside magazine, “Yes, it’s a boat race, but calling these things ‘boats’ is like calling Elon Musk’s Hyperloop a choo-choo train.” Interestingly, in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, as other major sporting events like the Olympics were postponed, the Copa America remained relatively unscathed. Part of this is due to the way New Zealand acted early and decisively to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. With a population of just under 5 million, New Zealand had 2,409 COVID-19 cases and 26 deaths in total; remained at Alert Level 1 for most of the pandemic. The three opponents of the Auld Mug, on the other hand, come from the three western countries with the highest number of deaths from coronavirus: the USA, Italy and the United Kingdom were the teams not sponsored by billionaires displaying their wealth by sport, they would not have permission to enter the country. There is something ugly about class divisions that allow the rich to travel easily to a place that is perhaps the closest thing this land has to paradise (I was born in New Zealand – I am biased). Most people cannot escape the plight of the pandemic and spend fortunes on bunkers from the end of the high-tech world or quarantine from inside their mega yachts. This apparently does not matter to some New Zealand government officials, who seem to regard the sporting event (and the money that drives it) as a cultural necessity. “America’s Cup could not happen unless these international teams are allowed to enter New Zealand,” explained New Zealand Minister of Economic Development, Phil Twyford, in June 2020, before granting exemptions to the billionaire teams behind the opponents. Meanwhile, a loophole resulting from this policy allowed superyachts to have access to New Zealand waters, as long as their crews were quarantined on the yacht for a minimum of 14 days and the owners spent a minimal amount – up to $ 7 million NZD in one case – on boat repairs. The companies started lobbying so that their billionaire owners could also enter New Zealand with their super yachts. But so far, none of them seem to have managed to enter. Other billionaire America’s Cup supporters, like Valve owner Gabe Newell, even “temporarily moved” to New Zealand during the pandemic. In Newell’s case, he was stuck there on vacation and decided to stay, probably to escape the restrictive US blockages and seemingly endless virus outbreaks. It is part of a longer trend that has made New Zealand a playground for wealthy people, mostly starting with Silicon Valley businessman and billionaire Peter Thiel, who gained citizenship in 2011 in “exceptional circumstances” after spending just 12 days there over 5 years. American hedge fund billionaire John Griffin is another who fled New York to New Zealand in a private jet just before the blockade, while American hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson received $ 1 million in government grants to pay employee salaries at their luxury resorts. Sure, New Zealand may be closed to the world, but what is preventing other billionaires from obtaining residency or citizenship in “exceptional circumstances”? For many Americans, it is a slap in the face to watch members of the DeVos family have fun in New Zealand, happily masked and “quarantined”. His home state, Michigan, suffered heavily during the pandemic, with anti-maskers refusing to cooperate with state blockades (while attempting to kidnap the governor at one point), and members of the DeVos family refusing to publicly support the mask measures and quarantine that they would have helped to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus. We have seen again and again how billionaires create and break rules, often at our expense. We saw how they eagerly took PPP loans for small businesses or left their pandemic-stricken cities to escape private islands just because they could. New Zealand took the COVID-19 pandemic seriously and was successful – but it is still the billionaires in the world who enjoy this benefit. Because God forbid them not to compete in their boats. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top news in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.