Boatbuilder raising the bar higher and higher

By JULIE ASH

Auckland boatbuilder Mick Cookson was "pretty excited" when he saw the design plans for Team New Zealand's black boats.

And he had reason to be.

The innovative hull appendages of Team New Zealand's NZL81 and NZL82 became the talk of the sailing world when they were unveiled before the challenger series final.

But while the rest of the yachting fraternity came to grips with the appendage concept, Cookson had long known what was underneath the black skirts.

"They were very progressive.

"It made the boats a lot more complicated and harder to build, but we had to raise the bar," he said.

"We have been working on these sort of things for years, believing in what we have been doing."

Cookson built Team New Zealand's 2000 cup-winning yacht NZL60 and its sister yacht NZL57. He was also involved in the New Zealand Challenge in 1992.

"As the game gets closer, which it has, the refinements become more important.

"The emphasis goes on detail and that becomes a huge job."

Thirty-five boat builders worked on the black boats, each five to six months in construction.

They left the boatyard with hull, deck and structures completed.

"We started talking a long time before we got the drawings about what materials we were going to build with, and we started a materials testing programme," the boatbuilder of 28 years said.

"We got all the materials from the suppliers that we believed the other syndicates would use and then tested them.

"This time we spent a lot of time on the testing process, and I believe we made a good choice."

A key element, Cookson said, was finding light yet strong materials.

"To get to where the game is, it is about bringing the weight out of them - adding more fibre in and getting them lighter.

With more fibre you get more stiffness and more strength."

Asked his thoughts on Alinghi's race boat SUI64, Cookson said: "It is a conventional, normal-looking boat. It doesn't look anything special, but to date it has gone pretty special against the opposition."

However, he does not expect it to have a hull appendage when it is unveiled on Tuesday.

"If they hadn't figured out early on what we had done, and decided early on it was an advantage, then they quite possibly had not tested it to the degree they could have or should have.

"You can't just add it [a hull appendage] to a boat.

"You would basically have to cut the boat in half and build a new back.

Alinghi had had time to do that, he said.

But designing NZL81 and NZL82 with the appendage had to be better than hacking a boat up.

Come next Saturday, race one of the America's Cup, there is only one place Cookson will be.

"I'll be out there on my boat bobbing around on the Hauraki Gulf with thousands of others," says the man who has built more than 100 race boats, including Larry Ellison's maxi Sayonara and numerous round-the-world race yachts.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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