Taihoro has hull of a lot to be revealed
Their new AC75 might be on the water but Team New Zealand aren’t showing all their cards just yet.
The America’s Cup defenders ticked off the most significant milestone of their campaign yet with the launch of Taihoro, the vessel on which they will attempt to retain the Auld Mug.
While the veil was lifted on the boat last week, there is still plenty being left to the imagination.
Like most teams’ boats now, the hull shape is out in public view. However, what’s going on below deck remains largely a mystery to the untrained eye. But even from the outside, not everything will be as it appears when racing starts in Barcelona.
Taihoro has been launched with the team’s last-generation foils and Team New Zealand port helmsman Nathan Outteridge told the Herald there were a few surprises yet to be revealed.
“You’ll see features slowly being added to the boat between now and October but you won’t see this boat at its 100 per cent until October — like the America’s Cup is a design race,” he said.
Outteridge likened the process to that employed by Formula One teams, where they plan upgrades to their cars throughout the season in a bid to make them faster and more competitive as the year progresses.
In the America’s Cup, those upgrades will become a feature through testing periods and preliminary racing right up until proper racing gets under way in Barcelona in late August.
Even during the racing period, teams will assess and look for areas of improvement, particularly Team New Zealand, who will race in the round robin of the Challenger Series before meeting the winner in the match for the Auld Mug.
“It’s all about continual improvement. So we’ll have new foils coming when we get up to Barcelona, and then there will be tweaks and modifications to the boat, the sails, the foils all the way to the end,” Outteridge said.
“All of those are scheduled now. You can’t just keep planning to add stuff last minute, you’ve got to plan it months in advance.”
Since rolling Taihoro out of the shed just over a week ago, Team New Zealand have been getting a handle on the vessel on home waters in Auckland.
It’s the first time since last October that they have been sailing on an AC75, following a block of training in Barcelona on their second-generation vessel Te Rehutai.
While they were expecting to be launching their new boat this month, Outteridge said Taihoro arrived ahead of schedule, which has allowed the team a few extra days of sailing.
“It’s my first experience personally of having a boat touch into the water before its delivery date. Every time an America’s Cup team puts a date on a boat to go in the water, it’s generally later, not earlier.
“It’s been a pleasant surprise, and so far, the commissioning has been going really well. We’ve had no issues with the boat at all, it’s running really well, and what that means is we can get into performance; we can start optimising the boat.”
Four teams have now launched their new AC75s, with Ineos Britannia revealing theirs last weekend. Only American Magic and Orient Express Racing Team are yet to have their vessels brought into public view. However, both are expected to launch in the next month.