10.15am
Dennis Conner's America's Cup yachting team will race the boat that three months ago sank off the California coast, in the quarterfinals of the Louis Vuitton Cup yachting regatta starting on the Hauraki Gulf tomorrow.
Stars and Stripes skipper Ken Read announced the decision to change to USA-77, from USA-66, which struggled against many of the other boats in the two round robins, at a press conference of challenger skippers this morning.
The only other team to change boats for the quarterfinals will be OneWorld, paired up against Oracle, who will bring in USA-65 in place of USA-67.
Stars and Stripes USA-77 went down in about 17m of water near the south entrance of Long Beach Harbour when the rudder broke off during training in July.
It was recovered intact about six hours later, with Team Dennis Conner saying it had made a soft landing. It was then shipped to New Zealand.
Today Read said the syndicate had always considered USA-77 their race boat. It had the speed edge over USA-66 and making the change had been an easy decision.
Boatbuilders and the team's shore crew had worked hard to get USA-77 to where the team were comfortable with it, he said.
Team Dennis Conner had wanted to use USA-77 in the second round robin, but before now had not proved to themselves the boat could be pushed as hard as possible.
OneWorld skipper Peter Gilmour said his team's two boats were slightly different and they had been working on those performance differences.
The Seattle-based syndicate's decision to change boats came after they won all their races in the first round robin, but looked less impressive in the second, during which they lost three races.
One team who might have been seen to change boats -- but did not -- are Prada, whose second boat ITA-80 has undergone extensive modification at an Auckland boatbuilders.
Italian skipper Francesco de Angelis confirmed today his team would be sticking with ITA-74.
That decision followed some interesting days during which Prada had finally been able to get the two boats out on the water together, he said.
- NZPA
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Racing schedule, results and standings
Stars & Stripes, OneWorld change boats for quarter finals
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