Team New Zealand's design co-ordinator Dan Bernasconi has said the team's successful cycle-grinding system has been virtually ruled out for the 36th America's Cup.
The team's bold shift to cycling from the conventional forms of grinding reported to produce 40 percent more power than their rivals Oracle Team USA, butBernasconi told Radio Sport it's unlikely to make a return as they pursue a more conventional style of sailing.
"We're trying to get back a little bit closer to the type of sailing that is more common outside of the America's Cup, we want to connect a little bit more to club racing, so it's likely that we will go back to traditional grinding," he told Radio Sport.
Bernasconi added it's likely that Team New Zealand will have 12 on-board crew numbers, but more work will be done looking at the power needed to sail the boat whilst keeping it light.
The new high performance fully-foiling monohull AC75 designs were released earlier today featuring the ground-breaking concept of twin canting T-foils.
Bernasconi said it's looking to be potentially quicker than the AC50's performance in Bermuda and has been designed to handle rough conditions.
"We're pretty confident that what we've presented here and what we're going forward with is going to be a great boat in light conditions, but also will be able to handle the top end conditions."
He agreed the partnering with Luna Rosa has been a good collaboration, with the final design to be announced in March 2018 in alignment with the class rules.
