Yachting: Ghosts of 1992 Cup may rise to stardom

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

America's Cup billionaires take note - two famous Kiwi cup veterans are making a comeback and putting themselves up for hire.

One is NZL20, New Zealand's boat from the 1992 Cup - salvaged from the graveyard to sail for a Cup team again.

The other is her old helmsman, David Barnes, rebuilding the red boat and happy to go with her to a new home.

Barnes reckons NZL20 holds a technological breakthrough that a challenging syndicate would be wise to develop.

The red boat was infamous for its bowsprit, but under the water had a revolutionary tandem keel which Barnes believes could be a key to success in 2003.

Barnes is working with America True sailor John Sweeney, who bought NZL20 and her sister NZL14, from Sir Michael Fay's New Zealand Challenge last year.

While NZL14 was scrubbed up and put in the water, NZL20 was almost left for dead.

"Unfortunately, it hadn't been put away very well, and it was very sadly neglected when we got it," Barnes says.

"It needs a lot of work to get it floating again, but it will be worth it. It's a piece of New Zealand history that shouldn't be cast aside."

Although NZL20 won't be race fit any more, Barnes and Sweeney hope an America's Cup team will charter the yacht to use for research and development for the next Cup.

"I believe there are huge possibilities with this keel. A few people have tried versions of it, but honestly they missed the point completely," Barnes says.

"The only reason it wasn't expanded was that it's been cost prohibitive.

"But if people put in the time and effort with another tandem keel, it would certainly be a force to be reckoned with."

He believes the keel will suit the long, narrow boats built for Auckland's changeable conditions.

Aucklander Barnes, who now also has American residency, is also putting himself in the package with the boat.

"I was the one person who knew the tandem keel concept better than anybody," he says.

Barnes was in San Francisco yesterday, setting up NZL14 for its new life as a floating billboard. But it could also make a Cup comeback.

Sweeney said he had been approached by an anonymous San Francisco syndicate, backed by a Silicon Valley Internet company, wanting to use it as a training boat.