By Suzanne McFadden
The French have joined Dennis Conner in brazenly exposing the nether regions of their America's Cup boat to the world.
Sixieme Sens - which translates as sixth sense - will not wear skirts to hide her underwater appendages while she is on her Auckland base in the cup village.
Like
Team Dennis Conner, the Le Defi campaign have chosen to do away with covers.
Navigator Marcel van Triest said it was a waste of time to raise and lower the skirts every day.
"We figured that to do everything properly with skirts takes about an hour-and-a-half and 16 people," he said. "We thought we could spend that time more usefully.
"It's too late for the other syndicates to copy anything.
The challengers are divided on the issue of covering up their boats here.
While Sixieme Sens arrived in Auckland on Tuesday without a stitch on, her shipmate was modest to the other extreme.
Young America's second boat, which shared the long sea journey to New Zealand with the French, was totally covered and disfigured.
Both Young America and AmericaOne, which arrived on Monday, had "the mumps" - odd pieces of plastic were put underneath the boats' wrapping to disguise the shape of the hulls.
Both the French and Young America yachts escaped damage when the ship was buffeted by 70-knot hurricane winds during the journey.
Sixieme Sens should be sailing on the busy Hauraki Gulf by the end of the weekend, joining the seven boats that have been out daily.
Only two of the 11 challenger syndicates have yet to arrive in town - Young Australia and Japan's Nippon are due in the next two days.
