Send in the lawyers - Team New Zealand and the Americas Cup

Dean Barker - Possible Ex-Skipper of Team New Zealand
In what’s being likened to a soap opera tv-series, the Team New Zealand Americas Cup skipper is now calling in the lawyers to settle a bitter dispute amongst the ranks.

Finding out any big news via Facebook is pretty harsh. So what about finding out you’re about to be replaced as skipper of the Team New Zealand’s Americas Cup campaign?

Crushing.

Dean Barker was broken the news via a friends post on the social media website, and was understandably pretty annoyed about it. So after some to-and-fro between management, Dean (who apparently hasn’t been on speaking terms with syndicate boss Grant Dalton for months now) has called in the lawyers who are crying ‘please explain’.

The young sailing next in line to the helm is Peter Burling, labeled as a ‘star’ in the sailing world right now. He’s rightly staying out of the mess, which is between Dean Barker and Grant Dalton. According to insiders on the sailing team, if Barker chooses to walk away from the team, he’ll be ‘telling all’ to the worlds media.

What exactly he’ll be telling is uncertain; much like almost every aspect of the Americas Cup Regatta in Bermuda. This week in the news the regatta copped a heap of negative press relating to the obscene amounts of money promised by Bermuda to host the event - $77 million dollars to be exact, which could do a LOT of good in other places around the country.

Last event the NZ government poured $36 million into their cup campaign, but with Bermuda offering little in the way of ‘value for money’ according to current government, it’s going to be a hard struggle to raise funds from sponsors for Team New Zealand in the coming years.

With all this going on, we’re kind of glad Australia pulled out of the Americas Cup Campaign!