Gosh, Schnack is the design co-ordinator, do we think that's a good idea?

Tom Schnackenberg (NZL) was design coordinator for Team New Zealand for America's Cup 2003. He built the boats.

Here's how ABC News Australia described the incident above, in AC 2003, during the event:

COMMENTATOR: Team New Zealand have broken their mast. Just collapsed, snapped in half. Oh my goodness! Just disaster for Team New Zealand.

ROSS SOLLY: The crack of the mast on board NZL 82 was matched only by the crack of New Zealand jaws hitting the ground, as their multi-million-dollar yacht lurched in the waters off Auckland.

COMMENTATOR: Trying to cope with all this damage. I mean, it is just horrendous out here, and this is, well, it's just calamitous, isn't it?

ROSS SOLLY: Alinghi was ahead when the disaster struck, and only had to make its way around the final three legs to take a four-nil lead. Race five is set down for tomorrow, and Team New Zealand will burn the midnight oil tonight replacing their mast.

Tom Schnackenberg is design coordinator for the New Zealand defence, and spoke to local television shortly after the drama.

TOM SCHNACKENBERG: Oh, yes, it's a sight that no sailor likes to experience. We all do from time to time, but it was dreadful, especially in this situation.

INTERVIEWER: They can repair the rig, but what about repairing morale now? What are you going to do?

TOM SCHNACKENBERG: Oh, well, the guys just have to put this behind them. As you can imagine, they were very, very annoyed and disappointed. They'll be taking positives out of it and saying okay, let's just forget this and go out and race tomorrow.

ROSS SOLLY: Team New Zealand had to withdraw from race one of the finals series after suffering gear problems. John Bertrand, who experienced the highs of America's Cup tracing when he helped Australia create history in 1983, but has also felt the lows, says New Zealand's poor performance has been surprising.

Is there anything that the sailors on board could've done to stop it happening?

TOM SCHNACKENBERG: Not whilst continuing the race. Probably in hindsight, they didn't know it at the time. But the bottom line is if you race these boats in extreme conditions above what they had today, then any of these race boats would break up.

The bottom line, however, is obviously the safety factors that team New Zealand have developed are a little bit below what is required to complete an America's Cup race, and that's what we saw. And that's what we saw in the first race where they broke the boom and did some other stuff as well.