Maiden voyage for Camper VO70

Team New Zealand's Volvo Ocean Racer fully reveals herself

The Emirates Team New Zealand’s VO70 Camper went for her first tentative maiden voyage on Auckland Harbour today in a calm sea and light breeze, ideal for the sailing team and various technicians, designers and builders to check the newly launched boat. She is the first of the new generation boats for the round the world race to be launched.

After 3.5 hours on the water, skipper Chris Nicholson declared himself satisfied with the yacht. “We did what we wanted to do today and that is always a plus.”

The yacht will undergo further testing off Auckland over the next 10 days, before embarking on sea trials that will include a New Zealand tour visiting five east coast ports of Tauranga (26 April), Gisborne (29 April), Wellington (2 May), Dunedin (5 May) and Lyttelton (7-8 May).

On 9 May Camper will leave Lyttelton on her 2,000 mile voyage qualifier for the Volvo Ocean Race.

Today was also the first opportunity to see the yacht’s full graphic design from leading British studio Farrow. The graphic design of a 70ft ocean going yacht is a massive departure for a studio best known for contemporary music packaging. Mark Farrow says: “This is an amazing project and one of those that, as a team of graphic designers, you dream of being involved in. To be given a canvas of a hundred foot tall masts and a seventy-foot carbon- fibre boat is very, very special! In Camper we have found a creative kindred spirit who has been totally receptive to our ideas and who has pushed us creatively more than most clients, which is refreshing to say the least.”

Part of the inspiration for the design is taken from “‘dazzle painting”, a paint scheme extensively used on battle ships during World War One. Drawing inspiration from abstract artists, a dazzle ships’ paint work was composed of a complex pattern of geometric shapes, interrupting and intersecting each other.

“Everything that you need is within the Camper logo. When you start working with it you instantly start to get a feel of sails… so we started developing patterns for each individual sail using only the Camper bridge.

“With each sail combination, a different pattern emerges. Hopefully as the boat is sailing around the world you’ll see all these different versions. It will be forever changing and shifting. It is a complicated process to arrive at something that works. I really cannot wait to see it on the water,” said Farrow.