Orient Express Racing Team, the charismatic French challenger for the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup, today unveiled the boat that all of France hopes will finally deliver victory to this sailing-mad nation. And what a sight she was, with a classy royal blue livery and a hull-form very similar to her effective sister-ship ‘Taihoro’ of Emirates Team New Zealand.
The shore team have been burning the midnight oil to fit her out, ready for launch later this week and the boat is the result of some 46,000 hours of build time from the famous Multiplast yard that has produced more winning boats than just about any other yard on the planet.
Observing the reveal early this morning was yachting journalist Justin Chisholm from the Recon Team and his observations were on point: Orient Express Racing Team revealed their new AC75 race boat for the first time today for a mast stepping day that began with an 0630 rollout. First sight of the hull as it was eased from the shed revealed the French boat to be very much a sister ship to the Kiwi’s latest generation AC75 ‘Taihoro’.
Liveried in royal blue and with a stylish thin gold stripe weaving its way from the bow to the stern, the new French boat sported white logo-ed foil arms with all black foil stocks and blades. Perhaps because of the single colour finish, it was hard to see if the bow included the slight step near the waterline which is so noticeable on the Kiwi boat – although comments from the team suggested that it does. Our 90-degree starboard side view did not give much indication of the stern profile.
The port foil stock, and wing were confirmed by the team as being legacy components from Emirates Team New Zealand. An elliptical wing with turned-up tips was mounted aft of a long large-form-factor bulb. As well as a narrower foil stock, an all-new elliptical foil on the starboard side (with turned up tips) was mounted aft on a short, small form-factor bulb with very little protrusion forward of the foil stock.
As seen previously on the Kiwi AC75 the French boat has a pronounced full-length bustle that appeared to match its New Zealand sistership. Although impossible to observe from the ground, we were told the deck is painted all white for the purpose of heat reflection from the Mediterranean summer sun.
