New hull has America’s Cup in a stir

AMERICA’S Cup holders Team New Zealand stole the limelight from challengers Alinghi and Oracle BMW Racing, when they revealed a radical new hull design at an unveiling ceremony yesterday.

Switzerland's Alinghi and US software billionaire Larry Ellison's Oracle will contest the Louis Vuitton Cup challengers final from Saturday, with the winners of that best-of-nine race series to meet Team New Zealand in the America's Cup next month.

At yesterday's unveiling, biotechnology billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi and Ellison's Oracle displayed relatively similar designs of elegant, narrow boats with minor differences in keel configurations.

Team New Zealand have until February 10 to settle on which of two boats they will use and were required to display both boats they have built for their second Cup defence.

Local and international media have speculated for months that the New Zealanders had a radical new "clip-on" appendage attached under the stern designed to increase their boats' overall waterline length and volume and therefore increase their speed.

The clip-on, dubbed by the New Zealanders as a "hula" shorthand for hull appendage appeared to be a large flat section attached millimetres from the conventional hull and running back from near the keel to behind the rudder.

Team New Zealand syndicate head Tom Schnackenberg said the new design had been passed by official measurers and was within strict Cup rules which stipulate that appendages must not touch the hull outside permitted attachment areas.

"We had to undergo a very rigorous process with the measurers," Schnackenberg said.

"Their demands were quite stringent. We have made sure the 'hula' does not touch the hull at any time," he told reporters.

Their two boats NZL-81 and NZL-82 have been shrouded in secrecy for months as they trained while the nine challengers contested the Louis Vuitton Cup in the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland.