America’s Cup: Team New Zealand the first to train with two AC 40s. VIDEO

The ability to do two-boat testing was the “dove egg” of the new America’s Cup Protocol, which prohibits building two AC 75s but allows teams to have two AC 40 yachts and a 12-meter prototype boat. In fact, the defender Team New Zealand, which by regulation has precedence over the hulls of the AC 40 products, was the first to go on the water with two boats as soon as it had the chance. Here’s how it went.

Emirates Team New Zealad with two AC 40s in the water, the VIDEO

AC 40 two boat test – what you can do with these boats

The AC 40s are the one-design boats that will be used for the Youth and Women America’s Cup, to be held in Barcelona in 2024 in conjunction with the official America’s Cup. For these official regattas they must be in strictly One Design mode, nothing can be changed. However, they can be used, as in the case of the New Zealanders, as training test boats for the main crew. In fact, the Kiwis went out to sea with one hull in the One Design version, and one in the test version. A useful exercise to test on the water the effectiveness of design or system solutions that can then be replicated on future AC 75s.

AC 40, Peter Burling Speaks

Team New Zealand stars are working with the group, and on the sidelines of training with AC 40 Peter Burling, already two America’s Cups raised in his career in addition to Olympic successes, made a comment on the tests:
“It was a great day for the team, on the water two AC40s. One is obviously in our development configuration and the others in the one-design configuration, so it was great because we were relatively close to each other anyway. A great effort for the team over the last three months, getting both boats ready and trying to get the team on the water with two fast, well-prepared boats so we could really test them 100 percent,” recounted the Kiwi super star.

Mauro Giuffrè