Emirates Team New Zealand.

Steinlager has been proud sponsors of the team for 36 years.

Steinlager and Lion have had a long and proud association with New Zealand yachting that goes back over 30 years to the 1985/86 Whitbread Round the World Race. Sponsor of ‘Lion New Zealand’ the boat skippered by Sir Peter Blake and crewed by Grant Dalton and Kevin Shoebridge. Steinlager was then naming sponsor of two of Sir Peter Blake’s offshore sailing campaigns, ‘Big Red’ the high-tech trimaran and most famously the all-conquering Steinlager 2 Whitbread boat, with Shoebridge as Watch Leader that won every single leg of the race in the 1989/90 edition of the race.

New Zealand’s involvement in the America’s Cup began with Steinlager proudly as a sponsor for the 1986 Fremantle America’s Cup with KZ-7, The ‘Big Boat’ challenge with KZ-1 in 1988, the New Zealand Challenge in 1992 and continued all the way through to the ultimately successful campaigns 1995, 2000 and most recently in 2017 that brought the America’s Cup back to New Zealand shores.

In 2021, it will be over two decades since Emirates Team New Zealand successfully defended the America’s Cup on home waters. History now has the chance to repeat itself at one of New Zealand’s most iconic sporting events and Steinlager will be there on the boat again, and as the cold one that crew and fans can celebrate with when the hard work is done.