More than two decades after a lowkey start to his Americas Cup career, two-time champion Jimmy Spithill is back in Auckland, New Zealand, hoping to help steer Italy to its first victory in the 170-year-old competition.
Spithill has come a long way since the 1999-2000 regatta, when he was the 19-year-old skipper of Young Australia. The syndicate was so underfunded it sailed an old boat, housed its sailors at a hostel and used a 164-foot crane barge as its base.
It could do everything. It was called the Hikinui, Spithill recalled. Have no idea where it is, but it had a crane on it, had a container, a little bit of a workshop on there. We used to joke it was our hospitality lounge as well, which basically consisted of a couple of those plastic chairs and a cooler and I think some old umbrella someone found. It was quite the base.
Although the Aussies were eliminated early, Spithills precocious talent launched him to a successful career racing some of the fastest boats in Americas Cup…