Grant Dalton received a call the day after New Zealand’s America’s Cup ‘disaster’ in 2003. It set him - and his country - on a truly remarka
1978. New Zealand had become a stopover for competing yachts.
I was staying at my grandparents’ home in Auckland, which overlooked the harbour. A Kiwi sailor, Peter Blake, was a crewman aboard the yacht, Heath’s Condor. I had taken a keen interest in the race since their departure from Cape Town.
I remember watching as the big, wooden, mahogany Condor sailed into Auckland Harbour carrying a massive yellow spinnaker. Condor won the leg to Auckland.
My life changed at that moment. I knew what I wanted to do.
I decided I had to do the offshore thing. I didn’t have a lot of experience. I hadn’t been offshore. I was a skiff sailor and an accountant.
I left my job and started offshore racing on keel boats doing the Admiral’s Cup, the Fiji Race, Noumea and the Hobart. I also took up sail-making and applied to Peter Blake with a view to joining his new build, a boat called Ceramco in the 1981/82 round-the-world.
I wasn’t accepted.