What will actually decide winners and losers in America’s Cup design? A technical deep dive with a designer who’s free to say what the teams can’t.
Juan Kouyoumdjian is one of the world’s top authorities on yacht design. He’s spent 30 years designing winning round-the-world boats and working on America’s Cup projects. Right now he isn’t attached to a Cup team, so for once there’s nothing stopping him talking.
Niall Myant-Best asks him:
• Which of the reused AC75 hulls has a head start, and which team faces an uphill battle?
• Why the hull isn’t a hull any more, but a fuselage built to make the sails work harder?
• Where the real gains sit in foil deformation, and the new wording in the rule that more than one team will be trying to exploit?
• How far you can push automated sail trim before the human in the loop becomes the limit?
• The piece of technology he thinks would be decisive in Naples, that nobody appears to have built yet.
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The Louis Vuitton 38th America’s Cup will be defended in Naples in 2027 by five-time America’s Cup winner, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron represented by their team, @EmiratesTeamNZ .
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