“High-tech racing boats and low-flying helicopters bring close-quarters drama to sailing’s biggest races. But staying out of the way is harder than it looks.“
The following written content by Serena Solomon
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The main attraction for spectators and television viewers at the America’s Cup will always be the AC75s, the sleek racing yachts that can fly above the water on hydrofoils at speeds as high as 60 miles an hour.
The event’s scene-stealer this week, though, may be the supporting actor that has been racing them: the helicopter filming the races between Emirates Team New Zealand and Italy’s Luna Rossa for international television broadcasts. Its nail-biting maneuvers, almost always at high speed and sometimes only a few feet above the water, have brought the sheen of a big-budget action movie to what can often be a relatively straightforward sprint.
To do its job correctly, the helicopter’s pilot often matches the speed of the AC75s, levitating just above the water as it tracks them for miles up and down the course. The helicopter also flies backward, sideways and on diagonals as needed, diving down and up around the yachts as they all glide just above the water. And it must do it all while avoiding spectator boats, the whitecaps below and, most important, the multimillion-dollar AC75s and their 87-foot masts.
“It is just normal to me,” said Tony Monk, the New Zealander at the helicopter’s controls this year. “I feel safer in the helicopter than I do in the car.”
Monk’s daredevil flying has surprised some spectators unfamiliar with just how the race video is captured. One spectator described Monk’s skills, admiringly, as “insane,” but others said watching the helicopter swirl around the action gave them a sense of foreboding. A few expressed concern that wind from the blades could interfere with the race.
There is precedent for that concern. During the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda, Jimmy Spithill, then guiding an American catamaran and this year the co-helmsman for the Italian team, blamed a defeat on a TV helicopter that “took all the wind away” when it flew above his team.
Monk, a New Zealander with about 40 years of flying experience, played down the risks, and the complaints. “Most people see a helicopter only flying forward,” he said. “They can go in any direction.”
He honed his skills avoiding trees and power lines as a crop duster before moving into film production, where his work has included capturing overhead scenes for the “Lord of the Rings” series. When his helicopter is not chasing sailboat races, it leads a much quieter life: flying charters, shooting aerial video and ferrying clients to lunches, golf courses and heli-fishing trips. Read more from The New York Times.
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