Yachting: Abracadabra, hey presto, oops

By Suzanne McFadden

HONOLULU - Hawaii's first America's Cup challengers are working double shifts to get their second boat finished to catch a ship to Auckland.

Abracadabra 2000 No 2 is still in a boatshed at Ko Olina, a barren wasteland turned glamour resort on Oahu's west coast, one month behind schedule.

Abracadabra skipper and syndicate head John Kolius blames the hold-up on the new boat's sister ship, USA50, which has been sailing for a month.

"Normally when you buy a boat, you take it away from the shed and sail it. The trouble here is that we only took the first boat 50 yards away," he said. "It keeps going back into the shed for little tweaks, so they stop working on the second boat.

"Everyone wanted to get the first boat perfect, but you just can't do that. So now the sailors aren't allowed to go in the construction shed, and the builders aren't allowed near the first boat."

That separates the Kiwis involved in the Aloha Racing syndicate. Dinghy yachtie Cameron Dunn has qualified as a United States resident to join the sailing crew, while David Blanchfield and Dean Harper are part of the construction team.

The second Hawaiian boat, which was turned over yesterday, should be out of the shed by the first week of August. It is likely to be put straight on a container ship bound for New Zealand.

Plans to test the two boats together off Oahu have been scuppered. But the laid-back Kolius is not rattled by the delay.

"We've been sailing six days a week as we planned. We haven't missed a day yet," he said.

Kolius, a veteran of five America's Cup campaigns, expects to have his team set up in Auckland by September 1.

That will give them six weeks before the Louis Vuitton challenger series begins to test the two boats against each other - not unlike Team New Zealand's lead-up to their victory in 1995 in San Diego.

There are plans to have a unique Polynesian welcome for the Abracadabra 2000 boats when they arrive in the cup village.