Team NZ hit Hauraki Gulf
The Hauraki Gulf in Auckland was reacquainted with America’s Cup racing yesterday when NZL81 took on German stablemate NZL68 in the first of Team New Zealand’s inhouse races.
The racing gives the crews a chance to brush up on their skills before the first of this year’s pre-regattas in June but its main purpose is to gauge the boats’ performance.
“We’re testing hulls, bulbs, keels, rudders, rigs, big ticket items, before we start to fine down, which won’t really happen till next year,” managing director Grant Dalton said.
“We are still testing the hull shape of the German boat (NZL68) against the hull shape of NZL81. They are similar boats in some ways, which is quite good because now we have checked in there and we can start switching bulb, rudders and so on.”
Team New Zealand’s summer training began in December when they launched the former illbruck boat, now NZL68, which is a similar shape to the Alinghi and Oracle boats.
Since then it has been put through vigorous testing against NZL81, the training boat from the last cup.
“Structurally both boats have been fine,” Dalton said.
“We have given them absolute hell, we have had no breakages.”
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