- Photo by Chris Cameron, ETNZ
Photo by Chris Cameron, ETNZ
Emirates Team New Zealand have named some of their 30 strong team have assembled for the 34th America’s Cup.
The group was named yesterday, and has been on the project for over six months. It is now obvious that the initial funding to which the team had access ahead of securing major sponsor backing, has been used to pull together a very strong multi-national design team.
Sources close to the team, told Sail-World yesterday that it would not have been possible in the time now available to pull together such a strong team and do the required design work ahead of the launch of the first AC72 next year. It is clear that the ground work has been done to put together a very formidable America’s Cup Challenge.
An impressive feature of the team is the mix of domain specialists, together with those who understand how the whole catamaran platform, foils and wingsail work together – combined with some very impressive top level multihull sailing experience at Olympic and World Championship level.
The team named yesterday includes the top US multihull design partners Pete Melvin and Gino Morelli, instrumental in the design the trimaran used by BMW Oracle Racing to win the 33rd America’s Cup. Both also extend back in the the 1988 Stars and Stripes campaign put together by Dennis Conner to defend against the Big Boat Challenge led by Michael Fay.
Melvin has an impressive design and engineering background, with formal qualifications in Aerospace Engineering, backed up by six years as an aircraft design engineer at Boeing.
Gino Morellli is a self taught designer, with a similar design career to Melvin, given they are partners in the same design firm. He was also involved in Steve Fossett’s Playstation – the 125ft round the world speed record holder, and worked on two 41ft Alinghi designs, plus C class catamaran wingsail design.
Other Morrelli & Melvin designers that have contributed to the Emirates Team New Zealand AC72 design are David McCollough, Erik Berzins, Julia Lillis, Bobby Kleinschmit, and Nat Shaver.
Read the entire article at http://www.sail-world.com/USA/Americas-Cup:-Emirates-Team-NZ-score-top-international-design-talent/82719.
