Monohulls get thumbs up from sailing icon

The return of monohulls gets another tick, this time from America’s Cup icon Bruno Trouble.

The veteran French sailing figure has backed the view of top yachting analyst Mark Orams, that the excitement generated by the foiling catamarans in Bermuda will be repeated in 2021.

And Trouble is hoping lower costs will mean up to a dozen teams head to Auckland.

Trouble said this week’s revelation that foiling monohulls would replace the cats was “nothing new” because the Team New Zealand decision was a fait accompli once Luna Rossa was confirmed as the challenger of record.

“They will be fast, amazing, impressive — maybe they will sail at 24 knots instead of 40 but on television it won’t make much difference,” he said from Monaco.

“All the boats will be very spectacular. I’m pretty sure if we invest the money which was put in round-the-world race backgrounds, and that Team NZ helmsman Pete Burling and his long-time sailing partner Blair Tuke were competing in the Volvo, which starts next month. A foiling component will be introduced for the 2019 race, which TNZ is posed to enter.

Orams said: “This brings the technology, sailors, designers and support crew into developing and sailing the same type of high performance yacht last year, those boats will be very, very impressive.

“Again, this is not big news, but we don’t know other details. Now we kneed to know more about the event . . . where, when.”

Trouble suggested a change to monohulls would give Italy an advantage: “They are very good in monohulls — I’ve heard two or three teams from Italy getting prepared.”

“It is good for the future of the America’s Cup,” he said.

Sail changes will become part of the game again, which you didn’t see with the AC50s in Bermuda, and it will be come more of a sailors’ kind of yacht again. Professor Mark Orams

in a foiling monohull whether that be for offshore round-the-world or an inshore version for the America’s Cup.”

He predicted a return to traditional arm powered, rather than cycle, grinders.

“We will move away form the situation where we only had two people actively sailing the boats in Bermuda, where we only had two people actively sailing the boats in