America's Cup - Southern Spars to build AC50 for Emirates Team NZ

by Sail-World.com NZL on 24 Jul 2016 One of the world's leading composite engineering companies, Southern Spars has been appointed to build Emirates Team New Zealand’s AC50 wingsailed foiling catamaran for the 35th America’s Cup campaign.

The move marks a shift away from Cookson Boats, who have been Team New Zealand's boatbuilder since 2000. No reasons have been given for the decision to change the builder.

The AC50 is the first boatbuilding project for Southern Spars who have provided spars for a range of different teams in every America’s Cup for the past 25 years, including the victorious Black Magic campaign in 1995. They also developed the Millennium Rig, which made a significant contribution to the team's success in the 2000 America's Cup.

The boat, a 50ft foiling wingsailed AC50 one design catamaran, will be launched soon after December 27, 2016, ahead of the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series and America’s Cup to be held in Bermuda from the beginning of May 2017.

Emirates Team New Zealand say the AC50 it will be its most technically-advanced yacht ever.

Last month, Emirates Team New Zealand launched its AC45S (Surrogate) a 45ft long development boat designed to mimic the AC50 to be used in the America's Cup regattas. Southern Spars is building the two wing sails for the AC50. The first of which has been delivered and is currently being used for training and testing on Emirates Team NZ’s AC45S.

Southern Spars also produced the wingsails for the team's AC72 in the 2013 America's Cup along with wingsails for Luna Rossa, the Italian America's Cup Challenger in 2013.

Under America's Cup rules, Southern Spars, who are part of the North Technology group, will be prohibited from applying some of their unique technology routinely used in spars.

The AC50 hulls are a one design in terms of their external shape, with a minimum weight and layup also specified. However, team designers and structural engineers can exceed these strength specifications while attempting to achieve minimum weight and maximum stiffness.

Emirates Team New Zealand’s chief executive, Grant Dalton, said Southern Spars was an obvious choice when it came to finding a manufacturer with the pedigree to deliver a yacht capable of winning the next America’s Cup.

“Our relationship with Southern Spars goes back a long way, and this will be our sixth campaign together. We are delighted Southern Spars will be drawing on their broad and deep international experience to build the entire boat, with the exception of the beams. ”

The cross beams will be constructed by Cookson Boats, who have been Team New Zealand's boat builder since 1999 when they built the successful 2000 America's Cup Defender.

Southern Spars director, Mark Hauser, said the company’s 25 years involvement in the America’s Cup and long relationship with Emirates Team New Zealand provided a wealth of expertise and experience to the campaign.

“We are delighted to have been appointed. We will be bringing all of our people, processes, design and technology to bear in building a winning boat for Emirates Team New Zealand – backed by our comprehensive production facility in Auckland.

“Increasing the scope of our prior Emirates Team New Zealand work from masts and rigging to the overwhelming share of the boat is a great honour for us as we continue to diversity as a business.

“The boat will take at least 13,000 hours for our team to build and so we are delighted but at this stage.'

With a reputation built on over 40 years of experience sparmaking and as one of the pioneers of carbon sparmaking and Southern Spars announced in June 2016 that they had developed composite cycle wheels to be used by the New Zealand Olympic cyclists in Rio 2016, marking a move into wider field of composite design and engineering.

The AC50 is expected to be built in a secure area at Southern Spars specialist facility in Avondale using a team of specialists from Southern Spars and Team New Zealand's own boatbuilders, who recently completed the build of the team's AC45S from a set of AC45 One Design hulls.

Core Builders Composites, based in Warkworth have built hulls, wingsails and components for several 2017 America's Cup teams along with the tooling used by the some of the builders in the southern and northern hemispheres.