Seb Menzies is emerging as a standout of the new golden generation coming through the America's Cup pathway, yet he carries himself without a trace of arrival.
Asked whether he might be nearing his peak, Menzies pushed back gently.
"I'm still young and working through it. I think the 49er's taken quite a big step forward in the last year, but still there are so many boats that are super-good. We went to LA and struggled, which is where the Olympics will be, so there's still a long way for me and George (George Lee Rush, Seb's 49er crew) to go in that sense. But yeah, we did have a good year. And then obviously the America's Cup is another big project that I'm very new to, and sort of taking it all one step at a time and trying to learn as much as I can before next year. I think I wouldn't say it's 'peak Seb,' hopefully. There's still a long way for me to go, and I certainly feel like that. But, yeah, it has been a good year so far."
Rewind to Barcelona, where the ETNZ Youth Team left a bit on the table, failing to qualify out of the group stage despite being in with a shout right up to the final race. It's fired Menzies to do better.
"It was a cool experience at Barcelona. Obviously, we didn't do anywhere near what we wanted to or wanted from ourselves in that event. So that was definitely a tough pill to swallow, and I think probably fuelled a lot of what was to come after that for me personally. But you look around at the likes of, obviously, Marco (Gradoni), who won with Gigi (Ugolini), and the Italians have a super strong youth team, and then the Americans and the Brits and the French and all those guys are still involved, which will be cool to race them in the future. And yeah, it's the sort of thing where you know you'll be racing these guys for a long time. But that's cool. I've done a bit of racing against Enzo and Harry in the Moths. And yeah, it's always cool to test yourself against the top guys from different countries."
Racing pedigree is what Grant Dalton, Kevin Shoebridge, Ray Davies and Sam Meech spotted in Menzies early, and his promotion to the senior ETNZ team was swift. To the outside it looked like a gamble, but to the insiders it was a good bet.
"It was a huge step for us. I think they did it super well in bringing all three of us in together, the likes of me, Josh (Armit), and Jake (Pye). It was quite cool for us to go through that process of, I guess, getting immersed in the bigger team. And they support you so much with Ray coaching and Sam and all the guys in the sailing team, they have a good balance of leaving you to your own accord but also guiding you in the right way so that you build the confidence, and yeah, it gets to a point where you really enjoy being around everyone in the team, and you look forward to going back each day."
The legendary flat organisational structure at ETNZ is something Menzies has really bought into.
"From Harry, who's the chef, to all the bosses with Shoeb and Dalts, it's a very horizontal structure, and you can talk to anyone. Everyone's super nice and inclusive, and it's a team where no matter what you're doing, you all feel as though you're working towards the same goal and helping each other through it... I still sort of have to pinch myself. Where you get to put the shirt on or put the helmet on to go out sailing. It's a big privilege to be going out and representing all those people that are working for the team."
Looking forward to Naples and the Preliminary Regatta, there's arguably a weight on the shirts of the ETNZ sailors having finished second in Sardinia. Menzies sees it slightly differently.
"There's always a strive to win from everyone. We all want to win everything we show up to. But there's also, I guess, a sense of calm that the America's Cup is next year, and now we get the privilege of racing at the venue with eight boats. So putting the emotion aside that you want to win, there's a lot you need to take out of this event, and you don't often get to race against other boats on the racecourse we'll be racing next year. Going through the process and testing out the process that we'll use during the America's Cup is more of where the focus will be. And that's also a good way to keep everyone level and go about what we need to do to get a good result."
The Kiwis trained in Naples earlier in the summer, then returned to Auckland for a winter block of AC75 training. As a helm, Menzies has clearly been studying the venue closely.
"It's a unique course, you always have a similar direction and a similar wind bend...so it's different I guess from other places you go to, such as Barcelona, which had a lot of varying conditions, which obviously you can get here, but there's very much a dominant direction, and that goes into a lot of things, whether it's your foil design or sail design or for the AC75, and then also your racing strategies. There's points on the first upwind which will be extremely crucial and points that won't be as crucial, which are super-important to know and then there's also little fine parts of each day. Obviously, no day's the same so how each team can decipher what's coming and what will be next will be quite cool. But yeah, it's such a cool race-track, everyone's said it, and I probably sound like a broken record, but it's going to be super cool for everyone watching with the hill along the side of the right boundary..."
Menzies is grounded in reality. He doesn't do crystal-ball gazing, but when asked what it would feel like to win next year and defend, he allowed himself some reflection.
"Oh, it'll be a feeling I probably can't explain, I think. Especially when you grow up in New Zealand, that's what you watch, the America's Cup. I remember leaving school to watch in 2013, when it was in San Fran, and obviously, that was a tough one for the team. But then watching the dominance of 2017, 2021 and then being there in Barcelona. It's something that no matter what point I've been in my sailing, whether it was Optis to 29er, 49er that's what you watch, the America's Cup. And you always sit there and be like, 'It would be so cool if I could race in the America's Cup one day.' So, to be in a position where I'm potentially able to do that and try and defend it is something that is extremely hard to describe, and would, especially if we win, it would be a dream come true, that's the only way I could put it into words."
Remember the name. Seb Menzies sits at the apex of this golden generation, and on this evidence, he could well be contesting America's Cups for decades to come.
