Source: Team New Zealand
Great Keel Of Fire!
11/02/2003 12:33 PM -

With flames blazing across its keel, NZL82 has revealed its battledress to the yachting world.

The black boat Team New Zealand has chosen to sail in the best-of-nine America's Cup match is now race ready, with, among its features, a long keel bulb, a mast with double rigging and the revolutionary hula.

Team New Zealand and challenger Alinghi dropped their skirts today and showed their appendages to the public in the final keel reveal before the America's Cup match starts on Saturday.

A crowd queued outside the Team New Zealand base in the American Express Viaduct Harbour an hour before the gates opened, to get the best vantage point when the skirts were lowered.

And it seemed they were happy with what they came to see.

The most striking feature of the boat in the latest "reveal" was the stretched-out keel bulb, decorated with blazing orange flames.

The fireball painted on the keel bulb has become a tradition at Team New Zealand - NZL32 sported the flames in San Diego in 1995, while NZL60 had them in the last successful defence in Auckland.

Team New Zealand chose a long keel bulb that moves the center of gravity down and makes the boat faster upwind.

The other modifications on NZL82 were not so noticeable. Said Team New Zealand principal designer Clay Oliver: "Every little thing has been modified, every big thing has been modified - but all of them in a very small way.

"We hope this boat will be particularly strong upwind and competitive downwind."

Fellow principal designer Mike Drummond said both Team New Zealand and Alinghi's boats have been configured with the same goal - to be fast upwind.
"We're all trying to get a boat that's fast upwind, to get in front first," he said.

"These are two boats that are quite different in every respect except for the rig. We've both come up with different solutions to the same problem.

"You would expect one would be faster and one would be slower, but we just don't know. It may not be true in all conditions. No one will have any idea who's got it right until race day one."

Drummond said he would prefer moderate wind conditions for NZL82 - anything between 10 and 20 knots "would be fine".

Behind a line of colourful can-can girls, Alinghi revealed a new look SUI64 for the Cup match. The Swiss syndicate has stuck on a new bow to give itself a tad more mainsail area. It has also changed the mast on SUI64, introducing the double rigging system which Team New Zealand has been trialing this summer.