Well, here is chapter 7 of The Team New Zealand story 1995 - 2003 book which is design of the times that I'm doing today on my blog:
Yacht racing's always a delicate & often fickle business of trying to strike a measured balance between sailing talent & design quality.
The modern era is punctuated with instances of the equation being at odds.
If a rocket ship is put in the hands of a poor or even modest crew can turn a dog into anything better.
That's why Team New Zealand was such a standout performer in winning the America's Cup in 1995 & retaining it five years later. In both campaigns it achieved an unmatched synergy between outstanding design & exceptional sailing skills; the animate & inanimate elements of the formula were in total harmony. But with each campaign the process must be rigorously reviewed & renewed.
On its official website Team New Zealand calls it ''the designer's constant quest'' & refers to America's Cup boat design as ''the eternal paradox.'' Who could disagree?
In this grandest of all yachting events, the design world is full of mystery & secrecy, for very obvious reasons. No syndicate wants rivals to know what it's up to. Yet no matter how sharp the design minds, how much grunt they have in their computers & how much advice they take on, there is no ultimate solution. It's an endless mission trying to design the desired racing boat.
That adds to the magic of the America's Cup. Winning the prize is a battle of wits, of sailing power & boat speed matched by reliability.
Always there's a design conundrum of weight versus speed. And trying to put it on an even keel, so to speak, is an enormous challenge when designing a boat for racing on Auckland's demanding Hauraki Gulf.
Again from the Team New Zealand website comes this: ''The design & construction of an America's Cup yacht is a highly complex undertaking which involves a multi-disciplinary team of specialists in an endless battle against an irresistible paradox.
''Throughout the enterprise, everybody is engaged in a struggle to achieve strength & reliability for the least possible weight. It is a dance with the devil that engages massive computing power, the latest in space-age materials, enormous experience & expertise, science & no small amount of intuition & artistry.''
In layman's language, if the design's too light & fast it's more likely to break in the punishing conditions in the Hauraki Gulf. Go too fat the other way & the boat might be sturdier but that'll be achieved by making it heavier, & therefore slower. How to get it right has teased so many minds for so many years.
Team New Zealand's spar designer Chris Mitchell says: ''Ultimately it is about compromises. You have to chase around & around inside this endless loop, adding strength & reducing weight until you arrive at some kind of acceptable equilibrium.''
In its brief America's Cup history, New Zealand has done a lot of chasing already & has uncorked various design concepts - as well as introducing technological aids - they have left the rest of the world asking: How do they come up with these things? Why can't we do the same?
That's the edge coming in again. Team New Zealand has developed & maintained a discernible advantage in both the pure design & sailing areas.
When it all started in 1986-87 there were the fibreglass boats, or plastic fantastics. In 1992 there was the bowsprit trick, a tandem keel & no rudder, then in 1995 Team New Zealand abandoned the accepted form of using a superstar designer in favour of a radical design unit which aimed to meet the needs of the sailing team. Three years ago were aerodynamic sailing strips, the millenium mast with fewer spreaders, a changed bow, deeper sails & wings placed further forward on the bulb of the keel. That's not forgetting the earpieces for the crew which helped communication on board & therefore contributed to enhanced performance.
So what's in store with NZL81 (launched on August 26, 2002) & NZL82 for the 2003 defence? Don't even ask. That will always be classified information but it's safe to assume the design brains have some more advances to unleash on the ultimate opponent when the cup goes on the line.
Team New Zealand's 2003 design team shows some changes, most obviously with the departures of Laurie Davidson & Richard Karn but many skillful operators remain - design team co-ordinator Tom Scnhackenberg, principal designers Mike Drummond & Clay Oliver, research co-ordinator Andy Claughton, sail designer Burns Fallow, rig design co-ordinator Chris Mitchell & many others.
They've been at the forefront in giving Team New Zealand's sailing team the best possible weapon to work with in the past & no one would expect any different this time. Then it'll be over to the skipper & his crew to maximise the potential of their newest black boat.
So that is my 267th blog of the year 2019 (MMXIX) & my 7th of this year.
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