When the dust from the court cases settled the San Diego Protocol was issued in September 1988. It defined a ‘challenge period’ and called for the challengers to elect the Challenger of Record. This process was used for the 1992 and 1995 Cup cycles, but it did not remove the risk of a surprise challenge under the Deed of Gift. When it was clear that Team New Zealand were on the way to winning in 1995, RNZYS removed that risk. Bob James, vice-commodore of the NYYC, was on the Team New Zealand tender and presented a challenge the moment the Kiwis crossed the line in race 5. RNZYS was against ‘paper yacht clubs’. In 1995 the Southern


Cross Yacht Club were headquartered at Red Rock Point (population: 1) and the Australian Yacht Club consisted of little more than a shingle on Syd Fischer’s boatshed. As in 2000, the Protocol for 2021 requires a challenging yacht club to have existed for five years, to have at least 200 members and to be financially supported by a majority of their members on a pro rata basis. The Protocol for the 2000 Cup referred to ‘the defender selection


series, if there is one’. RNZYS decided not to accept any other defender syndicates, not wanting to dilute the financial and human resources available to Team New Zealand. They had learnt from the Australians. After lifting the Cup in 1983 the Royal Perth YC probably sowed the seeds of their 1987 loss by allowing multiple defence syndicates and by pitching sponsorship of the event to the same companies the teams were approaching. The problem was compounded by the explosion of team budgets. On the US side Dennis Conner’s 1983 defence had cost $3.5 million but his 1987 budget was five times that. The NYYC’s 1987 America II campaign reportedly spent $20 million. The Challenger of Record, Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, was backed by the Aga Khan; their Azzurra II appeared to have no financial worries. In choosing to have only one defence syndicate RNZYS was taking


to heart Bill Koch’s words in 1992, ‘The America’s Cup is a race of management, technology, money, teamwork, focus and, only incidentally, sailing.’ In 2000 Peter Blake talked about the Kiwi strategy of wringing all possible speed out of their design through two-boat testing: ‘Most of our learning, from our point of view, has been done not in the racing, but between the races with our two black yachts. And it’s Russell and the crew out there, working day after day, learning about our boats and what makes them go faster or slower. That’s what helped us through. The racing has been part of the process but we haven’t learnt what’s making our boats go fast or slow in the racing. It’s been of little consequence.’ In 1987 the four Australian defence candidates spent so much


effort trying to beat each other that they failed to develop enough speed to defend the Cup. Even the Americans learned that lesson. After losing to the Kiwis in 1995 Dennis Conner remarked that the San Diego YC would have been better off with one syndicate instead of three. We have not seen multiple defender syndicates since. If the Kiwis dispensed with the San Diego Protocol’s method for


selecting a Challenger of Record, they took to heart that document’s intention to tighten nationality rules. For the 2000 Cup the residency requirement was extended from two years to three for domicile or principal place of residence, and applied to both designers and sailors. Blake said they would have preferred to make the require- ment even tighter, based on citizenship. That would have prevented the Team New Zealand exodus to One World and Alinghi after the successful 2000 defence. With Kiwi talent onboard, Alinghi won in 2003 and Société


Nautique de Genève became the trustee. With their hip pocket challenger Golden Gate Yacht Club and Oracle Racing they completely eliminated the nationality requirements for sailors. Oracle and GGYC made a gesture towards sailor nationality for the 2013 and 2017 America’s Cup events. With the Cup back in their hands, the Kiwis are re-tightening the rules, requiring 100 per cent of the crew to meet nationality tests with at least three crew being citizens of the country they represent. All others onboard must have their permanent-not-temporary residence in the country. Additionally, they must spend 380 days in the country in the two-year period before decamping to Auckland for the racing. Syndicates representing the Royal Yacht Squadron and the New


York YC have announced their intention of challenging and will add gravitas. The current Cup cycle will continue to develop and evolve.


Well, that has got them thinking; you can’t help visualising that long bow wandering around a bit when you put the nose down for a 40-knot duck. Maximum points for imagination combined with some proper homework. We can’t wait to see the first one


HOORAY! – Ray Davies The sailing world is still reeling from the first sightings of the AC75 – the twin canting keel/foiling monohull the Defender and Challenger of Record have agreed will be the boat for the 36th America’s Cup. Fortunately while taking time off from Emirates Team New Zealand


to resume tactician’s duties on Nico Poons’ RC44, Ray Davies was able to explain more about the groundbreaking new craft. Having previously been integral to the Kiwi afterguard, Davies today holds a pivotal role in the all-important interface between sailing and design teams. In the build-up to the AC75 unveiling he worked closely with the team’s French naval architect Guillaume Verdier, to whom he attributes much of the new boat’s pioneering features. Firstly, Davies confirms that Challenger of Record Luna Rossa


pushed for the new boat to be a monohull, rather than a multihull. ‘We wanted to take the innovation from the America’s Cup multihulls over the past few years and inject that into the monohull world,’ he explains. Other philosophical drivers included making it more of a ‘sailors’ boat’, more challenging to sail and so on. This resulted in the Protocol mandating 12 crew. After conjuring up several concepts they eventually whittled these


down to ‘extreme’ and ‘less extreme’ options and, in case you’re wondering, they chose the former – as they were keen to avoid taking a technological step backwards from the insanely efficient AC50s. According to Davies the aim was to create the fastest monohull that would get around the course in the widest variety of conditions. ‘We threw the ball out there. We looked at a lot of concepts. A lot had very big flaws, whereas we feel this will go across the wind range nicely. Some of the boats that had canting keels were potentially faster if you could get the canting keel out of the water, but were very difficult to manoeuvre and potentially slow in light airs. The AC75 should foil fairly early and has a Code Zero for sub-10kt conditions.’ The boat’s most striking aspect is the void beneath it where a


conventional keel would be. Instead, the boat has twin canting T-foils, that in fact are part T-foils, part ballasted canting keels. ‘We’ve been calling it “DeLorean” because it is a bit Back to the


Future,’ says Davies. These permit a lower ride height of around 800-900mm above the water. ‘On some of the other ideas with a canting keel you had to foil at about 1.8m which was a bit scary...’ Each T-foil will carry around 1.5 tonnes of lead – heavy compared


with AC50/Imoca 60 foils, but ultra-light compared with, say, the six-tonne bulb a conventional 75ft race boat might carry. ‘We haven’t locked down if they are steel foils or have a bit of lead in them or even a small bulb. That will come out in the rule,’ says Davies. The canting mechanism will be similar to that of a regular canting


keel with the bearing on the hull allowing a cant angle of 70-75°. The minimal ballast, which could lead to a displacement of as little at 7-tonnes, will allow the rams required to cant the keels to be smaller, although the foils and especially their bearings will have to withstand the weight of the boat, plus the huge dynamic


SEAHORSE 13


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