Yachting: Building work begins on first Team NZ boat

By Suzanne McFadden

In a yard in the land-locked Auckland suburb of Glenfield, Team New Zealand designers stare at the embryonic stages of the "extreme" boat they believe will win the America's Cup again.

"It's come out pretty damn good," says Laurie Davidson, the veteran yacht designer who helped draw up the 1995 cup-winning black boats.

"It's going to be different from anything we've seen before. It may be considered an extreme boat by some."

You won't get much more detail out of the defenders than that. But it's a start.

Work began yesterday on Team New Zealand's first boat for the 2000 Cup defence - a white outline painted on the concrete floor of the Cookson Yachts boatyard.

The boat will be launched in September, and Davidson predicts the second boat will join her a month later. The pair will have four months of trials before the defence starts on February 19.

"To most people, it's basically going to be another black boat. But it will look a little different," Davidson said. "But you never know, someone else may have exactly the same thing.

"I would say the whole fleet of challengers will be pretty much the same this time. It's the third time the [International America's Cup Class] IACC rule has been used and everyone has gravitated to the same corner."

The design team, led by Tom Schnackenberg, are still thinking about their next boat, but it won't be vastly different from this one.

"This has been a great campaign," said Davidson. "Particularly when we got to the last little bit of the design testing ... it proved to be so good."

Design work began on April 1, 1996. They started with the plans of NZL 32 and NZL 38, the fastest cup boats in the world. They tested eight models in tanks in England, and in June last year they hit the jackpot.

"We'd been making small progress; little jumps ahead in our testing. Then in June we made a huge step," Davidson said.

"Since then, we've tried a few variations in the tank, but we haven't found anything better."

In the next few days a skeleton will begin to take shape above the white paintlines. A wooden boat will be built to form the mould.

Later, carbon fibre, which looks like strips of licorice, will be shipped in from overseas in refrigerated containers and then baked into the hull.

Three of the Team New Zealand sailing crew - Jeremy Scantlebury, Matt Mason and Barry McKay - will work on the construction.

"The sailors try to stay away," said Scantlebury. "They might get a sanding board stuck in their hand if they hang around."

The crew will wind up their main testing programme on the two Black Magic boats on Friday, but the yachts will stay in commission over the winter.

Team New Zealand waited to begin construction at Cooksons until work on Italy's Admiral's Cup boat Brava was completed there at the weekend.

The boatyard already has a history with America's Cup boats, building 1992 trial yacht 3A for the New Zealand challenge, and Chris Dickson's NZL39 for the last Cup.