Kiwis battle loyal

Like a Muezzin in a minaret calling the faithful to prayer, Sky Tower (328 metres) advertises 'The America's Cup, New Zealand, 2003' in letters a hundred feet high. Also overlooking born-again Auckland harbour - and only slightly lower - the ASB tower provides an enormous one-word footnote - 'LOYAL' - against the national symbol of the silver fern. Sport - and especially sailing - is the new religion in New Zealand, breeding not just fanaticism but also, inevitably, infidels and witch-hunts.

The 'Loyal' campaign has arisen out of a sense of national outrage at the alleged treason of some of its own best-loved sailors. Russell Coutts, the captain of the victorious New Zealand crew at the last America's Cup, was long ago bought off by the powerful Swiss Alinghi entry. When American Larry Ellison, the overwhelmingly wealthy Oracle owner, sacked his helmsman after the first round-robin stage, who did he put in his place? None other than Chris Dickson, another Kiwi.

Most of the teams participating in the Louis Vuitton Cup that will produce the challenger to the defending Team New Zealand boat boast their fair share of New Zealanders. Or, rather, unfair, say fuming taxi drivers all over Auckland. Only in Auckland could a taxi driver get patriotically wound up about sailing.

Winning the America's Cup twice in a row has been an enormous boost to the national psyche. And there are major economic spin-offs too. Some $700million are estimated to have flowed into the host country over the past few years on account of the competition. For New Zealanders, losing the Cup and thus seeing it staged elsewhere next time would be as catastrophic as being relegated. Hence the passion the event arouses and the indignation caused by the disloyalty of its top men. 'Forever Loyal' is the official Team New Zealand song.

Red Socks, the talisman of Sir Peter Blake, the previous NZ captain, who was killed by pirates in the Amazon in December last year, have become a potent homegrown fund-raising symbol. But the dark militant side of the 'Loyal' campaign - the sanction, the threat - is the Black Heart. Like a white feather sent to a coward, the Black Heart emblem has been daubed on the houses of so-called traitors. Russell Coutts's wife found Black Hearts stuck all over her car. And Coutts himself had to be surrounded by bodyguards at the opening ceremony.

The America's Cup is the Formula One of yacht-racing. Every boat is a floating billboard bedecked with the emblems of its sponsors. One company, Nautica, has nailed its colours firmly to the mast of two boats - GBR Challenge's Wight Lightning and Dennis Connor's Stars and Stripes, who are currently facing each other in the quarter-finals - just to be on the safe side. Even Viaduct Harbour is now known as 'American Express Viaduct Harbour'.

Sheer assets and commercial backing have assumed paramount importance. Loyal and Black Heart represent a backlash against what is seen as a sell-out to capital over country. Coutts and other turn-coutts have been denounced as mercenaries, virtually pirates, sailing for the highest bidder, flying under any flag if the price is right. 'I'd do just the same,' says Mark Covell, 'if I were being offered silly money. So would the people pointing the finger.'

Covell is grinder on board Wight Lightning, an Olympic silver medallist (with Ian Walker, the British captain) and a regular Sky Tower among men. Coutts is not exactly going around Auckland boasting about the Swiss shilling, but it is rumoured to be telephone numbers. 'In the end,' says Covell, 'we're all professional sailors. We have to make a living.'

The point Covell makes, in defence of Coutts, is that the America's Cup, despite the misleading name, is not a clash of countries but of clubs. The Americans, for example, rather riled at having temporarily mislaid the cup that bears their name, have come in battalions this time, sending in no fewer than three 'syndicates'. It's overkill, but there can only be one challenger by the time the qualifying stages have weeded out the wannabes. New Zealand, on the other hand, only had one team to begin with, and that one severely depleted by guys jumping ship. So Coutts can probably kiss goodbye to the knighthood. Sir Russell, do not arise.

But Covell, for one, appreciates the mood of healthy fanaticism. 'We rejoice in the profile that sailing is enjoying here. It's as if the British bulldog spirit is alive and well - but living in New Zealand.'

He is keen to get away from the Cowes Week fertility ritual and booze-up image and looks back nostalgically to the Sydney Olympics when tabloid newspapers were producing headlines such as: 'Sailing - the New Football?'

Sailing was sexy for a while in England, but it could do with a stiff dose of NZ-style patriotic Viagra. The Americans likewise feel relatively unloved at home. Especially Connor. The owner of Stars and Stripes has become virtually synonymous with the America's Cup, but on his home turf feels outflanked by American football and baseball. 'In San Diego they don't know me and they don't care.'

Whereas he is surrounded by autograph hunters when he lands at Auckland airport, and people call out to him on the streets. He was once the man New Zealanders loved to hate. Over 10 years ago, the abrasive Paul Holmes made his name by baiting Connor on prime-time TV - and provoking him into ripping off his mike and walking out.

'He called me a jerk,' said Connor. 'Wouldn't you walk out?'

Connor is still sensitive about the incident to this day. But he has evolved, in the Kiwi mind, into a gritty battler who never gives up, a plucky underdog - just like New Zealanders. His place as the Fat Cat of sailing has been taken by Larry Ellison, a Bill Gates clone who boasts the most sumptuous personal vessel in the harbour, with a basketball court on deck and a Japanese name, Katana, which roughly translates as 'Enormous Exercise in Conspicuous Affluence'.

Connor has bought a house here, but Ellison is reported to have said: 'I like New Zealand. I may buy it.' The joke at the moment is that despite fabulous resources being poured into it, his Oracle boat didn't seem capable of winning anything - at least until they beat the formerly unbeatable One World in the round robins. Ellison recently stormed off - à la Connor - in his personal jet, when Oracle suffered yet another defeat. Peter Harrison, the GBR chief, seems relaxed, affable, and full of jokes by comparison.

New Zealand is a relentlessly competitive nation, which measures itself by sporting success. It is an island - or a pair of islands - that wants to be a continent. The America's Cup has given it a chance to outgun the Americans. But not everyone in Auckland is automatically anti-Coutts. At my favourite old haunt, the Alleluya café on K Road - the Soho of the city - I bumped into Kiri Lowe, masseuse to Team New Zealand and sympathiser to defectors. 'A lot of those A-boat guys had already been sailing for New Zealand for 10 years,' she said. 'By competing in the Louis Vuitton they get to do more sailing. They want to be out there sailing, not in the gym.'

She was convinced the revised Team New Zealand would win. 'The A-boat guys were getting a little old anyway. It was the right time to dump them and give the younger B-boat guys a chance.' 'What gives them the edge?' I wondered.

'You haven't seen anything yet,' she said. 'They're so big they don't even fit on the table.'