[Cristina vs. Örn. Photo: Chris Lewis/Victory Challenge]

(2002-08-10, Auckland) Cristina left the Victory Challenge base on 85 Halsey Street in Auckland at dawn today.
This event marked the retirement of one of the real workhorses in the history of the America's Cup.

It's Team New Zealand, who sailed Cristina as Black Magic NZL 38 when they won the America's Cup in 1995, that describes her as "one of the greatest workhorses of the America's Cup" in their tribute after sailing her final match with Victory Challenge.

Mats Johansson remembers what Peter Gilmour, then Nippon now OneWorld, said during the last America's Cup when Victory Challenge was just starting up and NZL 38 was up for sale:
"With her speed and capacity, this boat would have made it to the semifinal of this year's Louis Vuitton Cup."

Today, Mats Johansson says:
"This has been confirmed in all the matches she's sailed for us against boats that took part in the Louis Vuitton Cup that year, and she's given them all a hard race and won several times."

But there's no room for her any longer in the Swedish America's Cup stable. They must make room on the base for the arrival of the newly built Orm (SWE 73). The first boat, Örn (SWE 63), is already in place here and the base will not take more than two America's Cup yachts.

It's no easy task getting a 24-metre long America's Cup yacht to leave the base by road. All the heavy stuff is removed first, the bulb and the fin - over 20 tons.
A crane is then taken into the neighbouring base, where the French Le Défi Areva will be moving in. With the crane on one side of the fence and Cristina on the other, she is lifted over to a waiting trailer. It's just after seven, at the crack of dawn, as the transporter disappears from view in the America's Cup village.

[August 2002: Cristina lämnar basen i Auckland]

It was two years and two months ago that she arrived at the base in Gothenburg that Victory Challenge had at the time. Then, just before midsummer 2000, she arrived with four members of Team New Zealand, mainsail grinder Jonathan Macbeth, runner grind Nick Heron, shore manager Roy Mason and Dean Phipps.

The latter is now midbow with the Swiss Alinghi. He left Team New Zealand just after the Gothenburg visit. They had accompanied NZL 38 to Sweden to hand her over to Victory Challenge and to teach the crew of the Swedish America's Cup challenge, who weren't many in number at the time, some basic facts about the boat. The handover was part of the purchase agreement.

These four were also on board as she was taken out for a clandestine sail just a couple of days before the official launch. Victory Challenge's initiator, media and telecom entrepreneur Jan Stenbeck was also on board then.

Cristina's first summer and autumn were extremely hard. Mats Johansson, project leader, was often helmsman while working hard with all the initial crew recruitment. In all secrecy, two spectacular helmsmen came to Gothenburg to sail. There were two objectives; to get them interested and because it was necessary. Jesper Bank was helmsman for a time in August 2000, before he went off to the Olympics in Sydney to win his second gold medal. Magnus Holmberg was there in September 2000 while Mats Johansson was in Sydney himself to sail Starboat in the Olympics.

[July 2000: Cristina's first day in Swedsh water - Team New Zealand's Roy Mason is there too]

It would still be several months before it was made official that Jesper Bank and Magnus Holmberg were to become helmsmen in the Swedish America's Cup challenge.

Cristina sailed non-stop around the Vinga lighthouse outside Gothenburg, but she was also transported to Stockholm to sail with sponsors and to Malmö for a trip under the newly-opened Öresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen.

The final weeks in Gothenburg were difficult, weather-wise. They were sailing long into November before the crew was flown to the Canaries for match racing training off Las Palmas.

The base was then transferred to the town of Sète on the French Mediterranean coast. This is where the Victory Challenge crew were given their first chance of sailing Cristina against another syndicate. They met Dean Phipps again, now sailing for Alinghi, who had also chosen Sète for their preparations ahead of the America's Cup that starts with the Louis Vuitton challenger series on October 1 this year.

So Cristina's first opponent was Alinghi's skipper Russel Coutts, who had been helmsman himself on NZL 38 when she won her matches in the Louis Vuitton Cup in 1995. Cristina has been used continuously since then, except during the weeks she was being transported from Sète to Auckland in October last year. This has been achieved without any kind of damage or injury whatsoever.

Now her work for Victory Challenge is done.

At the base, Örn (SWE 63) is standing on the tarmac outside and not inside the boatyard. Of course, the most secret on Örn, fin and bulb, has been draped. It's time for spring cleaning inside the boatyard, even though it's still winter in Auckland. The second new boat Orm is approaching.
Bert Willborg/Victory Challenge

[August 2000: In all secrecy, Jesper Bank as helmsman - it's just one month before the Sydney Olympics.]

[August: Cristina sailing off the Gamla Stans Yacht Club in Stockholm]