Team NZ stars shine on debut
Team New Zealand have declared the new AC40 yacht to be used for key areas of the next America’s Cup a success after putting the foiling monohull under sail in testing in Auckland.
Following tow testing on Tuesday, the champion Cup syndicate put the 40-foot boat to the ultimate test on Wednesday and came away delighted.
New helmsman Nathan Outteridge and veteran Ray Davies were on the wheels of the scaled down America’s Cup yacht with Nick Burridge and Sam Meech completing the four-man crew.
‘‘We know this is going to be just fine for the youth and women’s America’s Cup. It will be spectacular racing, super quick, super-efficient and all straight out of the box,’’ Davies said.
The AC40 will be sailed in those components of the expanded America’s Cup regatta. It will also be sailed by Cup syndicates in the two warmup regattas ahead of Barcelona 2024. It will be a key component for development and in-house training while the full-scale AC75S to be sailed in the challenger series and the Cup match, are being designed and built.
Team New Zealand put the AC40 through its paces out on the familiar waters of the ‘‘back paddock’’ between Auckland’s Waiheke Island and Beachlands, which was one of the racing zones for the 2021 America’s Cup.
For Australian Outteridge, who didn’t have a sailing gig at the last America’s Cup and was on the commentary microphone, it was a chance to finally familiarise himself with the design, albeit in the half scale version. He was blown away.
‘‘It was obviously a very successful day, it was an impressive boat to sail for my first time sailing this type of boat. A little unnerving when trying to build speed, but once you get a bit of speed and the foil engages it goes from about 10 knots to 20 knots in about five seconds. So both pretty impressive, the acceleration and the reliability,’’ Outteridge said.
The AC40 reached over 34 knots downwind and 27 knots upwind in the steady NW breeze. Outteridge and Davies pulled off foiling tacks and gybes.
‘‘Day one was pretty epic,’’ Davies said. ‘‘An amazing team effort to go out there and pull off the first tack as a foiling tack, the first gybe a foiling gybe.
‘‘The boat is going really well, we have a few tweaks for sure, but awesome to sail with Nath, Sam and Nick. All of the support guys have done an incredible job, out of the box and we were ripping around foiling.’’