MEETING of MINDS
Exhibit A is one of the country’s best-known designers – Alan Wright – something of a pioneer in our yachting legacy. A major contributor to the developing marine industry in the 60s and 70s, he has more registered yachts to his name than any other Kiwi designer. Like many of his peers, he was self-taught, most of his education coming through observation and trial and error.
Half a century later, Exhibit B is represented by Dan Bernasconi – veteran of multiple America’s Cups and head of the ETNZ design team, currently teasing the finer points from the radical AC75 foiling monohulls in the Viaduct Harbour base. At the pinnacle of Kiwi yacht design, this team comprises multiple engineers with degrees in obscure, difficult-to-pronounce disciplines.
Wright and Bernasconi – same industry, similar concepts – but they may as well be living in different galaxies. One wields a pencil with grace and dexterity – the other a mouse with the finesse of a surgeon.
Wright’s career, he admits, began inauspiciously. “I was a full-time tutor in the NZ Boatbuilding Apprenticeship
