America's Cup challenger Emirates Team New Zealand is on its way to Bermuda for the country's eighth tilt at one of sport's oldest trophies.
The AC50 class 'Aotearoa' is perhaps the most high-tech sailing boat ever built. Photo: Supplied / ETNZ
Thirty years on from New Zealand's inaugural challenge in Fremantle, Australia, the team is confident it is in with a chance, in a catamaran that has more in common with an aircraft, than with the 1986 monohull.
Just six weeks after its christening, the 50-foot catamaran Aotearoa will be loaded into a cargo plane in the next days, heading to Bermuda where four other challengers and the defender Oracle are already sailing.
"We feel like we're in good shape and we're certainly looking forward to getting over there now and show the piece of equipment we've been working so hard on over the last couple of years," skipper Glenn Ashby said.
Aotearoa is touted as being the most high-tech sailing boat ever built, with its most obvious innovation being the pedal-powered hydraulic system in place of the traditional hand-driven pumps.
The team's grinders will operate the catamaran's hydraulics system using pedals instead of traditional hand-power. Photo: Supplied / ETNZ
New Zealand has won the America's Cup twice in its eight attempts - first in San Diego in 1995, then successfully defending it in Auckland in 2000.
Since then Team New Zealand has lost in the cup final three times.
The team came within one win of clinching the cup in San Francisco nearly four years ago.
There its boat development was completed when the racing began, but the defender Oracle continued to make its boat go faster, clawing back from a seemingly impossible 8-1 deficit.
Team New Zealand technical director Dan Bernasconi said this time, the team had a long list of continual improvements to make.
"I'm sure that even by the time we get well into the regatta, we'll be making tweaks, and by the time we race our last race, we'll still not have got to everything on the bottom of the job list, " he said.
Most of the technological advances are hidden from view.
The giant wing, hulls and structure are a common design shared by all teams.
The differences will be the high-tech electronic and hydraulic control systems, and the foils, on which the boat flies through the water.
"I think the team that has done the best job on their foil package and their control systems, as well as their aerodynamic package with their wing control systems, that'll be the team that will ultimately be successful in Bermuda," Ashby said.
Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Glenn Ashby Photo: RNZ / Todd Niall
For the first time in an America's Cup, the defender Oracle has set the rules so it can sail against the challengers in the early rounds.
Oracle has also shared its design and technology with the Dean Barker-led Softbank team from Japan.
Team New Zealand helmsman, Olympic gold-medallist Peter Burling, said those races against Softbank would be important pointers.
"For us, Softbank is going to have incredibly similar equipment to Oracle, and it's gonna be a great opportunity to line up and try and start learning about how we're gonna beat Oracle," he said.
The first race of the challenger series begins on May 26.
