Official launch

Team Shosholoza launch first all-new Version 5 boat. Photos by Sally Collison

The South African Team Shosholoza crew yesterday celebrated the christening of its new boat, RSA 83. The Team Shosholoza has therefore become the first of a total of twelve teams competing for the America’s Cup 2007 to present a newly built yacht based on the new competition rules (ACC Rule V5).

The Version 5 Shosholoza boat has a deeper keel, larger sail surface area and less weight, making all the difference to boats that competed in the last America’s Cup, in 2003. The boat’s construction team, headed by chief designer Jason Ker, worked non-stop to complete the yacht so that the crew can put in as much sailing practice as possible before the first of the 2005 America’s Cup acts begin on 16 June in Valencia.

“Jason Ker and his crew did a first-class job,“ announced Managing Director Salvatore Sarno. “The result of an intensive five-month period of design and boat-building work.“ All the Shosholoza crew members, who have already arrived in Valencia, are keen and all geared up to take the yacht into the sea for sea trials.

The new yacht RSA 83 is 26 metres long, 4.5 metres wide and weighs 24 tons, while the mast’s height is 35 metres. Some two weeks before the christening, the boat’s hull arrived in Valencia from South Africa, so the construction team had to work feverishly day and night to finish the boat. Finally, the mast of the new yacht was placed into position a few days before the christening.

Dieter Schweer from T-Systems, the official chief sponsor of Shosholoza was upbeat: “When Shosholoza registered to participate in the America’s Cup 2007, the team was dubbed a ‘nice outsider’ and ‘exotic colour print'. But after today, everybody is aware of the fact that we have to be taken seriously, and this feeling is growing daily.”

Rita Barberá, mayor of Valencia, officially christened the Yacht Shosholoza RSA 83 in the evening on 19 May. The african passion and spirit of the South African team in Spain is generating enthusiasm not only in representatives of other America’s Cup teams, such as Alinghi and Luna Rossa, but also in the various South African personalities who were invited to the event. South African Ambassador Gert Grobler, for example, talked about a rich cultural exchange taking place: “A new era has begun in which South African enjoyment of life joins together with the traditions of the America’s Cup.”