America's Cup - Emirates Team NZ concludes sailing program in NZ

by Hamish Hooper on 2 Apr 2017 After 21 days of sailing in the Hauraki Gulf, Emirates Team New Zealand has lowered its bold red wing sail in New Zealand for the final time with the focus immediately shifting to begin disassembling their race boat and get it ready to be packaged up for its Emirates flight to Bermuda.

New Zealand, Aotearoa - the team race boat, was christened six weeks ago on February 16th and since then, Emirates Team New Zealand have been feverishly training on the water to improve the crew work and the boat speed.

A fast boat requires a close collaboration between sailors, designers and shore team as each modification is the result of tests on the water, simulations and constant research of performing solutions and in the past month and a half the team worked tirelessly both on the water and in the shed to fine-tune the control systems which will be the key variable in the next America’s Cup.

The sailing conditions in Auckland have been ideal for testing and putting the race boat throughout the range of conditions it will race in once in Bermuda.

“The conditions have almost been more ‘Bermuda-like’ than in Bermuda.” said Skipper Glenn Ashby

“We have probably been the team that has had the chance to sail more days on their America’s Cup Class catamaran than anyone to date as the weather at this time of year in Auckland is perfect for sailing”.

“But we have needed every moment we could manage out there because while we are in transit the other teams will be making some big gains.”

From helmsman Peter Burling’s perspective, “Every day we have learnt new things and the more the time went by the more we realized how many opportunities we still had for improvement, exploring and testing.”

“The feedback that the sailors give during a training session regarding their feeling onboard is crucial. If this is true for all boats it is even more important in full foiling catamarans where each parameter is taken to the extreme. We are very satisfied with the job we’ve done so far, but the time has come to put a line in the sand in New Zealand and so now the final lap begins!”

The conclusion of the testing period is yet another major milestone for the team who have become used to constant pressure to catch up to the other more resourced teams that have been actively testing and developing for far longer.

“This was a late campaign for Emirates Team New Zealand and if we look back at one year ago I still find it hard to believe how far we have come,” added CEO Grant Dalton.

“We have been watched very closely by the Oracle SoftBank spys every minute we have been on the water and their vigilance makes me think we built a very good racing machine. We could keep improving and developing the boat indefinitely, but we have got to go racing at some stage, and now is that time.”

“It is hard to express the huge effort everyone on the team has put in towards the endless quest for speed and performance gains.” concluded Dalton.

Although it seems like a good time for a short break, the reality is there will be no slowing down until the last race of the campaign. The team is already pulling the boat apart and packing the remainder of the required spares, equipment, and infrastructure to load onto the Emirates cargo plan due to leave in just over one weeks time.

The Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers will begin on May 27th at 8.00 am NZT and Emirates Team New Zealand’s first race will be against Groupama Team France.