Team New Zealand update

Crew announced for Marseilles, plus Pinta arrives in Auckland

Emirates Team New Zealand have announced their crew for the First Act of the America's Cup in Marseille.

Straight from Marseille, where he is racing in the Finn against fellow teammates Ben Ainslie and Kevin Hall, Dean Barker will be on the helm and will be joined on board by Hall, Adam Beashel, Don Cowie, Rod Davis, Kelvin Harrap, Andy Hemmings, Jared Henderson, Jeremy Lomas, Grant Loretz, Matthew Mason, Richard Meacham, Jonathan Macbeth, Tony Rae, Rob Waddell and Chris Ward.

Meanwhile late last month the German Pinta ACC yacht arrived in Auckland. This was purchased by Emirates Team New Zealand fleet to give the design and sailing teams a valuable opportunity to evaluate a completely different design package and test at full size a number of design features that we would normally only explore through model testing or on the computer.

GER68 has a highly regarded design pedigree. The boat is a product of the Illbruck design group which won the 2001-02 round-the-world race. Design co-ordinator was Michael Richelsen who has joined the Alinghi team while principal designer, Fietje Judel, has a business partner in Alinghi's principle designer Rolf Vroljik.

GER68 has a number of differences from the Emirates Team New Zealand family of yachts that provides a stimulus to our on-going design process and will require a different style of sailing which will generate valuable insights for the sailing team. These attributes include:

- A narrower hull than NZL 81 and 82, which will allow teh team to learn the techniques of sailing this type of boat.
- A very different internal structural layout.
- GER 68's appendages show a different line of thinking. Parameters such as
planform area and section shape on the keel and rudder are quite different as are the
length and cross-sectional shape of the bulb.
- The 'balance' of the yacht, which is derived from the fore and aft location of the rig with
respect to the keel and rudder is different and this is one factor that leads to a different style of sailing (sail trim and sail shape) for this yacht against those we are currently sailing.
- GER68 doesn't have a hula but it does sport the knuckle shaped bow pioneered on NZL57 and 60. It occupies a slightly different part of the 'rule space'. The ACC rule forces the designers to trade length off against sail area (at a given weight) so thh team have the opportunity to analyse this at 'full scale' where for cost reasons we would normally approach this using scale tank and wind tunnel models.
- The hull form in terms of the distribution of volume along the length of the hull and hull
sectional shape are closer to an Alinghi style of yacht.
- Deck layout and sailing systems are different and allow comparison with those systems on the black boats.

GER68 is now being finished and will be ready for launching in late November to take part in the summer sailing programme starting on the Hauraki Gulf in December.