America’s Cup

Monohulls will be dramatic and fast, writes Chris Rattue

Monohulls will provide spectacular America’s Cup racing to match what the catamarans provided in Bermuda, according to the sailing Professor Mark Orams.

The former Team New Zealand member said the foiling monohulls were better suited to Auckland’s conditions, and monohulls would see a welcome return to more traditional sailing techniques involving more crew members. It would almost certainly see an end of cycle-grinding.

Orams said the announcement that the 2021 regatta would involve foiling monohulls has left one particularly interesting question — will TNZ skipper and catamaran specialist Glenn Ashby remain on board.

Otherwise, it was a big thumbs up from Orams, the head of sport and recreation at AUT, and a leading yachting analyst.

Orams said TNZ boss Grant Dalton had already talked about bringing sailing together, particularly in unifying the America’s Cup with the Volvo round-the-world race.

When asked by NewstalkZB’s Rachel Smalley if monohulls would be as spectacular as the catamarans, Orams said: “They certainly can.

“The Vendee Globe, which is the single person round-the-world race . . . the front competitors used foiling monohulls last year and captivated the yachting world.

“They are dramatic, extremely fast, very, very powerful.

“The helpful thing from an Auckland point of view is they are much more versatile in terms of the range of conditions they can be sailed in.

“The catamarans they used in Bermuda have a reasonably narrow wind range, they really struggle in high wind strength.

“And as most Kiwis will recognise given the last few days, when it has been blowing dogs off chains, we’ve got to have a boat which is versatile or we will end up with big delays. This will see a wider range of conditions that they can compete in.

“It’s likely that a foiling monohull will be able to sail through a range of conditions Auckland can throw up.

“Even in January and February we can get really strong conditions, and probably more significantly the quite big wave conditions we get when the wind is strong form the north-east for a few days.

“The foiling cats do struggle a bit in big waves although it’s not impossible, as we saw in San Francisco. But the monohulls are more versatile and more suited to Auckland.”

Orams said it was significant Dalton and TNZ chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge had strong