Search efforts to locate the classic Yacht Niña, missing on a trans Tasman voyage from New Zealand to Australia are drawing heavy criticism from the family and friends of those on boars. Check: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/8972169/Search-for-missing-yacht-botched

The controversial rule change on rudder design led to a first yesterday - Team NZ raced itself while the Italian team Luna Rossa sat the race out in protest. 

Luna Rossa and Team New Zealand are protesting a late change in boat design rules based around new rudder dimensions they claim are illegal, and favour defenders Oracle.  They also claim that this rule changed affects them immediately but gives Oracle until September to deal with the issue - an unfair advantage.
 
Both sides wanted the issue to be decided before they raced, but Cup Organisers said the jury "sets its own schedule". So,

• Luna Rossa sat yesterday's race out in protest
  
• The Kiwis decided to race by themselves to gain a point they value 

Team NZ now see regaining the Auld Mug as a personal crusade.  Grant Dalton vows, "this will not happen on our watch".

The Kiwis are desperate to take the cup back to New Zealand and restore its credibility by imposing smaller budgets, more sensible boats, and a regatta free of the latest legal wrangles that are sinking the 34th edition before it even starts.  In their view, the Americas Cup has lost much-needed credibility.

The "Fiasco in 'Frisco" has worn thin with the Kiwis. "I can tell you that this will not happen on our watch," Dalton said.

He admitted huge frustration and felt the regatta was "off the rails".

"Does it annoy me? It seriously pisses me off. But we can only control what we can control.

"It's completely ridiculous, totally ridiculous. But what do we do? Do we shut up shop and go because it's ridiculous? Or do we go, ‘we are only here for one reason, the America's Cup, and focus on the job'?"

Dalton was disappointed in Luna Rossa's approach, bit added.  "Luna Rossa have told me they aren't pulling out (of the regatta). They are making a statement at the moment. They have a great team. They are good guys, they are straight, and you have to look quite hard to find straight people in this game at the moment," Dalton said.

Dalton wanted to bank the necessary three points against Luna Rossa quickly - even the "cheap points" like tomorrow offers - so his team can then refocus on the development of the boat, put on ice as they worked through the adjustments required under the extensive new safety regulations over the past month.

"I'm just frustrated, because we have done everything by the book. We may get penalised for getting ahead of the game . . . good old Kiwi ingenuity has come to the fore here.

"Really, in the end, we just want to go racing and we want to ultimately race against Oracle . . . who are probably sitting down their in their compound laughing like drains at this because this doesn't affect anything they do until September, and we have to deal with this now in July."

You can find the solo race on this link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/8890444/Team-NZ-race-themselves-in-Americas-Cup
 

The Swedish catamaran Artemis nose dived and broke into pieces during a tricky maneuvre, say America Cup officials.  Two crew were trapped under the hull.  Only one survived.

Olympic Gold medal winner, Andrew 'Bart' Simpson was trapped under water for 10 minutes and efforts to revived him failed.  He was the Swedish team's strategist. The death has cast a pall over the America's Cup and questions are being asked whether the design of the boats has gone too far.

"It's a shocking experience to go through ... and we have a lot to deal with in the next few days in terms of assuring everybody's well-being," said Paul Cayard, the chief executive of Swedish syndicate Artemis.

"The boat itself is under control but it's certainly not the first of our concerns. We are focussed on the people."

Team New Zealand, Artemis and Italy's Luna Rossa are due to start the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series in San Francisco on July 4. The winner of that meets Oracle for the America's Cup in a first to nine-wins series, starting on September 7.

Crew members hang from the mesh netting after the Oracle Team USA AC72 boat capsized on San Francisco Bay on Oct. 16. The America's Cup champion syndicate is assessing the damage to its 72-foot catamaran, after it capsized and was swept by a strong current more than four miles past the Golden Gate Bridge before rescue boats could control it.  

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/17/14515829-catamaran-worth-millions-capsizes-crew-swept-out-to-sea-under-golden-gate-bridge?lite=obinsite

Team New Zealand America's Cup new 72-foot  catamaran has been launched in Auckland and christened 'New Zealand by skipper Dean Barker's wife Mandy, before a large crowd of supporters and dignitaries - including Prime Minister John Key - in Auckland's Viaduct Basin.

Simultaneously, fireworks lit the sky as 18 months of work by the design and build teams was unveiled.

Team New Zealand's campaign to regain the America's Cup in San Francisco has been made possible by Government funding of $34 million, together with corporate sponsorship.  TNZ managing director Grant Dalton said the support of the government and sponsors who backed the team with such enthusiasm had made the launching possible.

"New Zealanders should be proud that their team attracts the support of these major international companies," Dalton said.

"The same can be said for the international designers, engineers and analysts who augmented our design team.

"We are proud of what we have achieved so far, working in a tin shed in Auckland.

TNZ will begin testing the catamaran in Auckland this week. They are only allowed 30 days on the water before January 31 under cup rules.

Chris Bouzaid, the original owner and skipper of the Sparkman & Stephens 36-footer, RainbowII, has bought her back and will return the yacht to New Zealand to be restored.   

Restoration work will be led by the man who built her in 1967, Max Carter, at the Percy Vos Boatyard in the Wynyard Quarter. She will receive new flooring and mast step, using New Zealand kauri donated to the Classic Yacht Charitable Trust by Origin Quarries' Gerard van Tilborg.  Bouzaid plans to donate Rainbow II to the newly established Maritime Museum Foundation in Auckland

Rainbow II notched up a string of major international victories in the 1960s.  After her historic win in the 1969 One Ton Cup off the German archipelago of Heligoland, Rainbow II was sold to an owner in Bermuda. Now, 43 years later, she is going home.

On the back of Jimmy Davern's 1966 Sydney-Hobart line-honours win  on Fidelis, this little yacht - along with her dedicated crews - was originally responsible for putting New Zealand on the international sailing map."  - winning 121 races over two years.  

Among the victories were the Whangarei- Noumea and the Sydney-Hobart races in 1967, Kiel Week  in Germany and the One Ton Cup in 1969. A month later, she won her divisions in both the Channel Race and the Fastnet Classic.

Seawind Catamarans' Founder  Richard Ward unveiled his comány's new 950 model - a long overdue multihull option for the "bottom end of the market" - on the opening day of the 24th Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show.
The 32-foot cruising cat Seawind 950 is a bolt together kitset  cat that can be shipped around the world in two 40ft containers at a fraction of the cost of piggy-backing a fully assembled catamaran on a yacht transporter. 

 The concept is expected to open up new markets in Europe and on the Great Lakes in Canada, as well as appealing to charter companies and young families, who have previously been priced out of the multihull market. 
"The Seawind 950 is a boat normal people can afford. It has a big boat feel, a great family boat capable of coastal cruising , but comes in a box, two boxes in fact."
The Seawind 950 has: 

• a three cabin layout as standard with a spacious bathroom to port aft and a full galley down to starboard. Like its bigger sister the Seawind 1000, the saloon table in the 950 also drops down to offer another double berth. A two cabin, two-bathroom option will also be made available for the charter market.
• The cat is powered by a fully-battened mainsail and overlapping jib
• twin Yamaha 9.9hp high thrust outboards for auxiliary propulsion.

"We think it will charter very well, at the base charter level, for two couples. There is absolutely nothing like this anywhere in the world as far as we know so it's very exciting," Ward said.

The Seawind 950 can be shipped from Seawind's Vietnam factory to any major port from a starting price of A$225,000. Two qualified boat builders could assemble the boat in 1.5 days. Seawind offers to assemble the boat for an additional $10,000 although with just six bolts, Ward believes many owners will choose to put the kitset cat together themselves."Shipping a 30-footer to Europe costs roughly $70,000 which is just ridiculous. We think it will open up a lot of markets now there is no barrier to shipping."

The Seawind 950 will be available from November 2012. 

 Team New Zealand's round the world yacht Camper has pulled off a stunning comeback to snatch the lead on leg seven to Portugal.  Two days ago, Chris Nicholson's Camper was almost 100 miles behind the leaders and facing disaster on a leg crucial to the outcome of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Nicholson and navigator Will Oxley split from the fleet and headed north to reap the benefits of better winds and  marched to the lead.  Now, Camper has a 12-mile lead over the improved Abu Dhabi and overall leader Telefonica has slipped to third. The fleet is spread over 75 miles and Camper is at the right end.

Now, they await a new weather system for a downwind to Portugal with the leg expected to finish on Friday.

"Will's and Nico's long-laboured and meticulously conjured up plan to head north and split from the fleet paid big dividends," Camper crew member Hamish Hooper said.

"It's a nice feeling going from one wrong extreme to the right one, but by no means anything to get too carried away with other than a quiet grin and momentary warm sense of satisfaction for the guys who have all been toiling away quietly and focused, sailing the boat to its optimum from a point two days ago where a lot of other teams might have just given up."

Nicholson was just as keen to put things into perspective in this incredibly competitive fleet: "There's a lot of variable weather going on in this leg and not all of it is panning out for some people. It all makes for a very unstable leaderboard."

The fleet, having to change tactics to chase Camper's bold and successful move, was still pushing north-east trying to skirt a high pressure system.

"Somehow we need to hang in for the next 24 hours when conditions will once again open up and the fast downwind sail towards Lisbon will begin," Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker said.

Camper's main rivals on the points table were all looking at ways to get back into this leg which is nearing the halfway stage.

"Basically, we couldn't do anything to avoid these guys overtaking us," Telefónica skipper Iker Martínez said of Camper. "They just rolled us with a completely different wind.

"Now we are just in the moment that should stop this loss because a new wind is coming again and something different is going to happen.

We just hope that we're going to stop losing and start racing again to make gains."

Groupama skipper Franck Cammas was equally optimistic about their chances of a fight back.

Twelve days before the official start of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, Tropical Storm Alberto swirled off the coast of Georgia as a compact storm with a tight center of circulation.   http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=40928

It has impacted the luck of the Volvo Qcean Race Contenders-  At the last position report, Camper had made the biggest gain - picking up 15 miles on Telefonica in three hours.