Emirates Team New Zealand LEQ12 Day 6 Summary

The awesome efficiency of Emirates Team New Zealand was thrust into the global spotlight today with the emergence of the fully repaired, and completely re-branded LEQ12 that suffered such significant bow damage back on the 21st November that had many commentators predicting that we wouldn’t see the team back on the water until the New Year.
Speaking about the rebuilding of the bow on the LEQ12, Spencer, the Onshore Boat Captain for the ETNZ AC40’s gave an insight into the massive team effort required: “We had a pretty busy couple of weeks with the damage and identifying what went wrong and obviously looking at what we had to fix. The designers were pretty busy to start with and then everyone got real busy once we get into the nitty gritty of actually putting a new bow on from the guys up in Omega Street building the new part. Then once the new part was built, bringing it down here, we had a team prepping for that to go on, and then once we got the part on, then that opened up lot of jobs - we had riggers involved with sanding, electricians and we've had sailmakers sanding and everyone sort of getting on a sanding board when we could and a few guys coming down helping out laminating and stuff so we really sort of all got into it - a full team effort…even just sweeping the floor before we were going to paint… it's a pretty cool thing to get it done in this short amount of time.”
Section 41. Reconnaissance
a) As a campaign cost reduction measure, COR/D has mutually agreed to cooperatively implement a centralised reconnaissance programme for all teams for the reconnaissance of all Competitors’ AC75 Yachts, AC40 Yachts and LEQ12 yachts including both on-land and on-water imagery (the “Joint Recon Programme”).
b) Each team is assigned a two-person Recon Unit to follow their every on-water move, but it's not that simple. The cameras are supplied and identical for all Recon Units. Drones are not allowed, and they can't get that close, plus following a boat and keeping a camera steady at 45 knots isn't that easy to begin with.
c) A three minute interview follows each on water day, and teams must answer the Recon Unit's questions while trying not to give too much away. It's a raw, unedited view of the never before seen behind-the-scenes development of a team and their boat to win the oldest trophy in international sports.
#AC37Recon #AmericasCup #Barcelona2024