Yachting: Team NZ vessel set for launch

Camper skipper Chris Nicholson, seen during the yacht's construction. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Team New Zealand's around-the-world race yacht is due to be launched this week ahead of sea trials that will take it down the country's east coast.

The yacht, named Camper after the Spanish footwear company with which Team NZ is mounting the Volvo Ocean Race campaign, left the yard at builder Cooksons Boats in Auckland this morning.

It was trucked across town to the syndicate's base.

Team NZ said the 70-foot (23.3m) Volvo Open 70-class yacht would be sailing on the Waitemata Harbour by the end of the week.

It would leave Auckland on April 25 for Tauranga and would also call in at the ports of Gisborne, Wellington, Dunedin and Lyttelton.

The race begins off Alicante, Spain, in late October, 2011, and finishes off Galway in Ireland in July, 2012.

Among the stops is Auckland, where the fleet will spent three weeks over March and April.

Team NZ and Camper announced last April that they would enter the event and the building of the yacht began last August.

Team NZ managing director Grant Dalton said the boat had been delivered on time in just nine months.

"To be able to stand back and see the amazing job that the guys have done and now see her in her full livery is quite humbling," he said.

"I am very excited about going out sailing towards the end of this week."

- NZPA