Above: the 50th anniversary Admiral’s Cup regatta in Sydney drew huge interest from original competitors and ‘more recent’ sailors keen to see what the fuss was about. The highlight of the event was when the ‘lady’ was carried into the awards dinner, having been flown out by the RORC in honour of the occasion. Racing during the series (left), Love & War was designed for Peter Kurts by Sparkman & Stephens at the peak of their IOR dominance in 1973 – by the 1975 Admiral’s Cup young bucks like German Frers and Doug Peterson had taken over the asylum. Always immaculately maintained, Love & War was never sold by the Kurts family who still campaign her. To date… she has won three Hobart races in 1974, 1978 and 2006 (sic) under IRC when a windy upwind race was tailormade for the powerful 47-footer
NEW ZEALAND Here we go As soon as Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa unveiled the concept design for the 36th America’s Cup, popular culture via the Twitter- sphere quickly likened the foiling monohull to the high-stepping Jesus Christ lizard with its uncanny ability to run across water. Inside the design team that developed the concept several codenames were suggested before they finally settled on something less wacky. Dan Bernasconi, Team New Zealand’s technical director, declines
‘Phil [Sharp] and Pablo [Santurde] raced like crazy. They found
a lot of pace. But we knew that if we came out of the Doldrums with them we would then be in good shape as the wind built.’ After leading for the first week Sharp and Santurde on their
four-year-old Mach 40 eventually finished third. Phil declared: ‘It was a great battle with the many different types of weather – it pushed our personal limits in terms of physical and mental fatigue. There was no moment where you could relax… ‘This isn’t the result we dreamed about but we’re happy to have
done the best we could have with our boat. The end of the race was tough, but it’s really a matter of boat design – and it wasn’t possible to keep up with the more recent designs.’ Phil, winner of the 2006 Route du Rhum on a Pogo at the birth
of the Class40, added: ‘After leading the whole of the first week we lost in the Doldrums by entering to the west – but we still got out a little earlier which we knew we needed to do.’ Then it was all about technology, not strategy. In fact, Imerys
was 20nm ahead leaving the Doldrums but it was not enough. Imerys was originally the boat that won the 2013 Transat Jacques
Vabre so, though the new boats are a little faster, this is still a good result for the Class40: that a four-year-old design can be so competitive over 4,500nm. Imerys also easily won the 2018 Class40 championship with a
string of consistent performances. From the inshore racing at Grand Prix Guyader to the ocean marathons of the Les Sables-Horta and Transat Jacques Vabre, we have had some memorable battles for the lead in all five championship events. The Class40 is in nice health! Patrice Carpentier
to reveal all the names that were proposed, but ‘DeLorean’ was the final choice. ‘It obviously references the gullwing doors, but also the Back to the Future connection,’ says Dan. The sci-fi movie franchise features a time machine based on the futuristic DeLorean DMC-12 car, which was described as a device ‘to change the past for the better’. This is certainly appropriate for a team that, in conjunction with Challenger of Record Luna Rossa, has undertaken a kind of back-to-the-future mission to reframe the Protocol to better align with the Deed of Gift and produce a boat and sailing style with which more grassroots sailing fans can identify. Initial responses involved a lot of ‘what the heck’ head scratching
and much concern about potential cost. Of course some were sceptical, but there was also a lot of admiration for the novelty and elegance of the thinking behind it. Mick Cookson, who has built America’s Cup boats from the IACC
era through to the multihull era and many other grand prix racers besides, was blown away. ‘When we first heard talk of going back to monohulls we all thought, “Oh, oh, that could be dull”. Then they come up with a solution like this and you have to just shake your head. It is brilliant. When I saw it I went, “Oh man, that is so simple and clever”. I wish I had thought of it.’ Another admirer was Cup veteran Chris Dickson. ‘Absolutely
incredible,’ he enthused. ‘I thought the AC50 would be a hard act to follow, but what they have come up with is a fantastic boat – incredibly innovative.’ Others, though, have expressed serious misgivings, including another seasoned Cup boatbuilder who predicted the cost and complexity would be a major obstacle. When the concept was launched Bernasconi was in London with
ETNZ managing director Grant Dalton and skipper Glenn Ashby, first finalising details with Luna Rossa and then presenting to Ben Ainslie Racing, the New York YC and Artemis. Guillaume Verdier was also part of the presentation team. Subsequently, Luna Rossa made a separate presentation to potential challenger groups from Italy. ‘The response has been mostly positive,’ Bernasconi says. ‘It’s always exciting to see what the reaction will be when you
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