12.00pm
Oracle BMW's yacht for the Louis Vuitton Cup finals uses a conventional design without the "false hull" that the team was rumoured to have been testing.
The San Francisco-based challengers dropped the covers from the keel of USA-76 at 11am today, two hours after rivals Team Alinghi had unveiled their boat, SUI-64.
The most obvious difference between the boats was that USA-76 had keel winglets toward the rear of the keel bulb, while SUI-64 had them in the middle.
Neither of the challengers will be using the radical third appendage that Team New Zealand is rumoured to have developed to increase their boats' effective waterline length and potential speed.
Oracle's head of design, New Zealander Bruce Farr, said the team had ended up with a "heavily refined, fairly conventional boat".
USA-76 was narrower than most of the other boats, including Alinghi, that had entered the competition.
"Oracle has a more detailed keel and hull arrangement than Alinghi," Farr said.
He doubted the position of the winglets would be a significant factor in a boat's performance.
Despite the fact that Oracle were outclassed by Alinghi in their semifinals, Farr believed his team could win the challenger finals.
"We have done a lot of work in the past couple of months and feel we've made advances on all fronts," Farr said.
Oracle BMW and Alinghi will begin their best-of-nine finals of the America's Cup challenger series on Saturday.
Team New Zealand will unveil its two boats for next month's defence of the America's Cup, NZL-81 and NZL-82, this afternoon.
Close-up picture: USA-76 keel bulb
Oracle team profile
nzherald.co.nz/americascup
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Oracle unveils 'refined but conventional' design
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