Auckland– Emirates Team New Zealand ha varato oggi ad Auckland la sua nuova barca test. Battezzata come Te Kāhu, che il lingua maori significa “Il Falco”, lo scafo rientra nel regolamento del Protocollo per la 36th America’s Cup che prevede barche test non superiori ai 12 metri. Te Kāhu sarà utilizzata ad Auckland per continuare lo sviluppo del progetto kiwi in vista della costruzione del secondo AC75 con cui sarà difesa l’America’s Cup nel marzo 2021.
Il primo AC75 di ETNZ sarà infatti spedito a Cagliari nelle prossime settimane, con un viaggio via cerco di un mese, per le prime AC World Series (23-26 aprile). L’utilizzo della barca test consentirà di non fermare l’attività sperimentale.
Queste le dichiarazioni originali di Grant Dalton, CEO di ETNZ:
“We are really excited about launching Te Kāhu today. There has been a lot of work gone into the design and build of this boat internally, which is amazing really as it has all taken place between the design and build of our first AC75 and the ongoing work on our next AC75 race boat.”
“It might seem like the launch of our test boat is a bit overdue, but early in any campaign decisions have to be made that ultimately will only be judged at the end.
As a team, we decided that a test boat was indeed a really key necessity but believed it needed to have as much design input as our first AC75 to give it meaningful ongoing development possibilities.”
“There is no doubt looking back that the Challengers all learnt some valuable lessons and got a bit of a jump on us with their developments. But it was a conscious decision of ours to suck that up and play the long game knowing that points don’t start to count until the first race of the America’s Cup, which obviously is in March 2021.” continued Dalton.
“We know from experience that the development and gains that take place in the year before the America’s Cup are vitally important,” explained Head of Design, Dan Bernasconi. “We couldn’t afford to only be sailing on the water for the handful of weeks we will get on Te Aihe around the ACWS events between now and its return to New Zealand.”
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