New Zealand Boat Reviewed
The Auckland Sunday Star last weekend published what it called a a sketch of the fourth and final New Zealand boat, leaked out of San Diego through TV commentator Larry Keating.
If the sketch is authentic, the boat would live up to what syndicate insiders promised it would be: “revolutionary” and “ugly.”
The sketch shows a boat with no conventional rudder but a double, hinged keel, supported by separate fins--the aft keel also serving as a rudder. The bow is spade-shaped in profile, as if sawed off diagonally.
The sketch recalls what potential skipper Rod Davis said when he first saw the 12-meter Eagle he would sail for Newport Harbor Yacht Club in the ‘86-87 Cup, with its gaudy bald eagle graphics on both sides.
“It had better be fast,” Davis said.
It wasn’t.
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