America’s Cup 2021: The great risk of the New Zealand team? Grant Dalton lifts the lid on a bold new boat

Grant Dalton says the New Zealand team has brought a “blank sheet of paper” to their new boat, but admits its new design and shape is a bit risky.

Speaking with Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB, the Team NZ boss revealed the motivation behind America’s Cup holder’s bold new AC75 ‘Te Rehutai’, named after the Maori word for sea spray, which was given to know last night.

The large crowd that lined the observation points around the launch at the Team NZ base in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbor were able to see for the first time the second new-looking ship, which had a distinctly different shape that was more concave rather than its more complete predecessor. Te Aihe ‘.

“We took a blank sheet of paper because the class is very new and has a lot of room for development,” Dalton said. “After launching boat one, we said ‘that has brought us to a level, now we want to go as far as we can.’

“The way we always think about it, last time we talked about throwing a ball as far as you can; this time we say don’t design boat 2021, give us boat 2023 this time. That allows designers to expand their thinking. There are no bad ideas and we are an organization that just encourages great ideas and I think that’s what you saw last night. “

Dalton admitted that the new look of the second boat is a risk “in theory”, but is confident in the work and preparation that has been done.

“Time will tell if we have made the right decisions or not,” ZB told Newstalk. “But now we have very strong simulation tools, the same way Formula One does. So we can pretty much model, as long as the simulator physics is correct, what the boat will do.”

“It seems like a big leap; it’s a big leap. But we trust him simply because simulators and tools tell us he’s okay.

Dalton said the seemingly drastic changes were not an indication of the first boat’s lack of success, but simply a sign of the NZ team’s ambitions to try to take the second boat as far as possible.

“We put pot one where we thought we could go in that time frame. We’ve taken this as far as we can in the time frame we’ve had. We’re happy with pot one. But happiness is never going to win the America’s Cup because of You have to be in the extremes and you have to be prepared to accept risk.

“Sometimes it is a balanced risk and other times it is not so balanced. And that is one of the skills that our boys understand that there is no risk, there is no reward, but don’t put it in a place where it is just a greeting Maria because then you would be in trouble. “

Dalton also said that the new boat rewards precise sailing, giving Team NZ’s world-class sailors the best chance of success.

“Now we go into the navigation phase instead of just a computer building phase. They are difficult ships to navigate and reward precise navigation. So if you are jumping all over the place, up and down, in the air, you don’t go to keep moving forward well enough.

“Particularly between now and Christmas, the guys will be sailing as much as they can and trying to make the most of what we have.

“We will never stop developing. You can’t. They don’t count points for the first race of the America’s Cup and they don’t count the results of the last race. You have to keep developing throughout that period.”

The NZ team was by far the last team to present their second boat, with all three rivals in the water weeks before the Kiwis.