Article in Friday morning's NZ Herald....


Yachting: Dickson working the Oracle
Friday November 24, 2006
By Julie Ash

A gun-metal grey Oracle boat is perched on a cradle where Team New Zealand's boats once sat.

The old Team New Zealand base - with its jet-black exterior and white walls, still bearing the marks from the good-luck messages pinned up during the 2000 and 2003 campaigns - is home to Chris Dickson's BMW Oracle Racing for the next three months.

Team New Zealand are just a few metres down the road in the old One World base, and have been hard at work on the Hauraki Gulf for more than a month.

It's not the hive of activity it used to be, but syndicate row has been given a little lease of life.

Dickson's team arrived last weekend. Just 38 members are here but after Christmas that number will double with the arrival of another boat. Despite predictions it will be Oracle's new second boat, the syndicate is saying nothing.

The steely-eyed Dickson, competing in his fifth cup, isn't about to give away any secrets, no matter how insignificant they might seem.

He is looking particularly lean - partly because he's competing in the New Zealand match-racing championships and the weight restriction has led to a few gibes from the crew about the skipper, who does the least work, keeping his weight down.

It is hard to believe that it's 20 years since Dickson made his cup debut in Fremantle, as skipper of New Zealand's first challenge.

At the helm of the Plastic Fantastic, KZ7, he led the team all the way to the challenger series final, winning 37 out of 38 round-robin matches.

"One of the great things about getting older is you get to know more," Dickson says.

"The things that used to come naturally 20 years ago I find a little more difficult now and some of the things that I didn't have the depth to know about 20 years ago I am very comfortable with now. I am very comfortable knowing what is going on with the whole boat package now. Twenty years ago I wasn't.

"As you get older the concentration needed to drive these boats and the complexity has gone up and it is a far more international game."

For the past eight months Dickson, his wife and two young daughters have lived in an apartment in Valencia.

They own a scattering of farm blocks north of Auckland, but the globetrotting means Dickson's job as a "weekend farmer" has gone by the wayside, and the land has been leased out.

There is a strong Kiwi contingent in his team, and Dickson says he is happy to be able to bring them home. But he's aware that the clock is ticking. In just five months' time it will be game on.

Dickson says Oracle - two points behind leaders Team New Zealand in the challenger rankings - are comfortable with where they are at but know they have to keep improving.

"There are some very good teams there and they are all going to have new hardware next year."

Oracle's first new boat, USA87, was launched this year and Dickson says the design team didn't hold back.

"She is a match racer's dream. If you are in a bit of street fight with 87 she will come out on top in her fair share. She tacks very well, gybes well, accelerates very well, comes out of prestarts and is a great boat for short course match racing, which is what it is in Valencia."

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