Initial responses involved a lot of “what the heck” head scratching over the radical concept and much concern about potential cost. Of course, some were sceptical, but there was also a lot of admiration for the novelty and elegance of the thinking behind it.

Mick Cookson, who has built America’s Cup boats from the IACC era through to the multihull era and many other grand prix racers besides, was blown away: “When we first heard talk of going back to monohulls, we all thought, ‘Oh, that could be dull.’ Then they come up with a solution like this and you just have to shake your head. It is brilliant. When I saw it, I said, ‘Oh man, that is so simple and clever.’ I wish I had thought of it.”

Another admirer is Cup veteran Chris Dickson. “Absolutely incredible,” he enthuses. “I thought the AC50s would be a hard act to follow but what they have come up with is a fantastic boat; incredibly innovative.”

Others, though, have expressed serious misgivings, including one seasoned Cup boatbuilder, who predicted the cost and complexity would be a major obstacle.

When the concept was launched, Bernasconi was in London with ETNZ’s Managing Director Grant Dalton and Skipper Glenn Ashby, first finalising details with Luna Rossa and then doing a presentation to Ben Ainslie Racing, the New York Yacht Club and Artemis. Guillaume Verdier was also part of the presentation team. Subsequently, Luna Rossa made a separate presentation to potential challenger groups from Italy.

“The response has been mostly positive,” Bernasconi says. “It is always exciting to see what the reaction will be when you have been working on something for months behind closed doors.”

Naturally it is rewarding to hear the positive feedback, but what about the doubters? Bernasconi responds with quiet confidence: “We are backing our work. We have done more work on the concept than anybody else, so we are confident we understand it best. Nothing has come up in the public discussion that we have not already identified and debated. Nothing has made us worry that we need to go back to the drawing board.”

That is not to say the design group is now sitting back with their feet up. In a sense, arriving at the concept was the easy part. Now the group has to nut out the details and draw up a rule robust enough to withstand multiple assaults from the best brains in the business.

“The other advantage is that a wing-type topology allows you to more accurately control twist and camber along the length of the spar. Something the AC50s developed was control where the top of the wing was loaded in the opposite direction to the rest of the wing. This meant that when you wanted to depower in higher wind conditions, the top of the wing could work in opposition to the bottom, which provided more drive force for the same roll moment.”

With the foils protruding from the sides of the boats, they have been compared with medieval chariots that have swords spinning from the wheels. Bernasconi acknowledges the safety issue but says it is not much different in reality from a multihull. The solution is likely to be a diamond-shaped electronic virtual boundary protecting the flanks. This will be visible to the helmsman, umpires and TV audiences on a display and penalties will be imposed for any penetration of the virtual zone. Bernasconi says this was already discussed with the AC50s.

“We want to have good, aggressive match racing but we don’t want collisions; no good result ever comes from a collision. With the virtual contact zone, you can still push aggressively and put penalties on your opponent without that resulting in a physical collision. When you are talking about the boat speeds involved, that makes sense.”

As to concerns about cost, ETNZ has long experienced a struggle against big-budget rivals and says it is committed to containing costs where possible with one-design elements, banning tank and wind-tunnel testing, limiting two-boat testing and allowing teams to share designs.

“We are acutely aware of the importance of keeping the costs manageable,” says Bernasconi. “The reality is that the America’s Cup is an expensive game and [the] teams always find ways to spend more. Even if it were a 30-foot displacement monohull, the big teams would still spend a vast amount on R&D.

“Even so, the cost of building the boat in the context of all the other expenses, particularly personnel, is a relatively small proportion of the overall campaign cost.

“It is important not to dumb it down too much. It is the America’s Cup, so you have to strike the right balance between attracting as many challengers as possible while keeping it at the pinnacle of sailing with boats that are technologically impressive and the most exciting boats to sail. We have thought pretty hard about that.”

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