Wouldn’t it be fun to live in New Zealand this week. With the 2011 Toyota Optimist Nationals kicking off this week, several America’s Cup team members took the time to develop and test a wingsail that works with an Opti.
From Sail-World:
Oracle Racing in conjunction with Oracle NZ are sponsoring a day at the Nationals, which will consist of a sailpast plus prizes for the sailors, in addition a bottle of wine signed by Russell Coutts and James Spithill will be auctioned as a fundraiser.
On Friday afternoon the 300 sailors will visit the America’s Cup Race Management base to watch an AC45 craned into the Viaduct harbour and to met with the sailors and teams from Artemis Racing, Emirates Team NZ and Oracle Racing. They should also have the chance to check out Emirates Team NZ’s new Volvo 70 being campaigned for CAMPER.
Overseeing the trials of the wingsail was Oracle Racing’s Technical Director Mike Drummond, who checked the basic setup on the beach before the Optimist was launched this afternoon. According to all reports it sailed very well indeed, and provided an interesting contrast to one of the teams wingsailed AC45 catamarans, returning from a training session on Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf.
This is a great way to build interest in the wingsail design – when is it coming to the U.S.?
Indeed the wing sail that is on the Optimist was built in the US. It is the top section of the A Cat wing (now owned by Oracle) that we built in 2007.
Great to see both trickle up and now trickle down from this A Cat project.
Great info. Thanks for sharing.