Yamaha's new 18ft skiff launched into the NZ fleet
by Graham Catley on 23 Jul 2012
Yamaha 2 Greg Fenwick
Yamaha's new 18ft skiff has been launched into the NZ fleet now making up 10 high performance boats sailing out of The Auckland Sailing Club.
Yamaha is the third new boat to be launched in the past 12 months in addition to Maersk Line (Graham Catley) and C-Tech (Alex Vallings).
The Yamaha bare hull was constructed in Sydney by Brett Van Munster, out of the official class mould, and then finished by Mackay Boats in Auckland.
This will be the most intense season for the NZ 18's since the 1970's with the Kiwis intent on winning the
JJ Giltanen World Championship in Sydney in February 2013 with the campaign starting in August with 7 boats being shipped to the North American Championships in San Francisco.
Yamaha has new rigs developed by C-Tech and North Sails NZ and will be crewed by David McDiamid, Mark Overington and Andrew Archibald.
'We will have 2-3 weeks preliminary tuning before the boat is shipped, says David McDiamid, which will make us a little underdone for San Francisco but the predominant fresh breezes there this time of year make the opportunity to start tuning the 2 rig for the southern hemisphere 2012/13 season to good to miss.'
The North American Championship starts on 27 August.
[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/100063
