What’s the wind doing?
Former dinghy champion Jon Bilger is no different – except he’s turned that obsession into a vocation. Bilger, who won the Tanner-Tauranga Cup P Class double two years running (‘84 and ‘85) and represented New Zealand in the 470 at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, turned weatherman for the 2003 America’s Cup. Despite having a background in engineering and yacht racing rather than meteorology, Bilger spent a decade running the weather team for the Alinghi syndicate.
“Alinghi took a bit of a punt on me initially,” Bilger says. “I think they thought ‘he’s an engineer and a good sailor, he’ll figure it out’. I went from basically not knowing a lot to having to be an expert in it and hiring the expertise to make me look good.”
He found that initial
