Boat Details

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America's Cup Class Boat Record
Sail Number	20
Owner	David and Karie Thomson
Country Currently on Sail	USA
Lying	Auckland
Status
Current Activity
Notes (add any information relevant to this boat - press the Update button to record your changes. We will update the database fields with your additions & corrections)	New Zealand (NZL-20). The most famous of the 1992 class, the ”little red skiff “ as she was known, was the pride of New Zealand. Bruce Farr came up with the most radical yacht the cup has ever seen. Sporting 1 ton steerable tandem keels with a 9 ton bulb slung between them she was lighter and more skiff like than her competition. With Rod Davis and David Barnes at the wheels she rolled through the competition compiling a near perfect record. She made it to the Louis Vuitton Cup finals against Paul Cayard on IL Moro 5. She started out by winning four straight races but was protested for the way her crew used it's bow-sprit. A race was taken from her by the jury and Il Moro went on to win the series. Like her sister NZL14, she was used by Team New Zealand in 1995 as a training yacht and then stored in an Auckland truck yard with NZL14 and left for dead. She was in a terrible state and at several points, nearly chain-sawed up for scrap. In 2000, David Barnes persuaded the San Franciscans, John Sweeney & Tina Kleinjan to buy NZL 20 and NZL 14. She under went a clean up in Auckland and was then shipped to San Francisco as the third boat in the Sausalito based IACCSF fleet. David Thomson, a kiwi living in San Francisco and a passionate admirer of NZL 20 and owner of several Farr designed yachts jumped at the chance to own New Zealand’s most colourful yacht and to race her in the IACCSF regattas. They shipped her to New Zealand for the Millennium Cup races during the AC 2003 and gave her a complete refit, rigging, bearings, paint and sails upgrade and she sailed in the Millennium Cup and showed her speed by beating many of the larger “Maxi’s”. She participated in the RNZYS 20 mile race to Kawau Island and won line and handicap honours. She returned to San Francisco where she continued to race in the San Francisco IACCSF fleet and was often out sailing in winds over 20 knot and sailing at speeds beyond her San Diego design criteria. Both her designers, Bruce Farr & Russ Bowler have regularly crewed on her both in Auckland and San francisco, and sometimes with trepidation. In 2005 NZL20 was shipped back to Auckland where the Thomsons sail her 3 or 4 times a year in evening races often against NZL(FRA)40 and NZL(JPN)41. She is perfectly restored and maintained and lives in her cradle in the Viaduct Basin. People are welcome to visit and see her unique design and engineering and crew have a great time sailing and racing her. Even today her radical underbody's potential is still not completely understood and remains a constant source of inquiry. She now sports a 100 HP Yanmar Diesel, eliminating her need for a tender. I am indebted to Nick Crabtree for his skill, knowledge and leadership in restoring, maintaining and sailing her, and recently to Stuart Molloy for his maintenance and sailing support.
Web Links ( these are not yet live links - this is just a space for collecting links - they will be live later)	http://www.sailingbillboards.com/bios/new20.html
Rule Version
Just the Notes and Links fields are updateable on-line. We will transfer your information from there to the proper database fields. This feature has been abused and will be removed - a revised update mechanism will be be created soon.
This page will be developed to include a full ownership history, racing history and photo gallery for each boat. This will be kept up to date as news arrives. For now we are catching up on any current information. If you know where this boat is, her condition, owner, current activity etc please add to the Notes section above (with your screen name), we'll update the database. The data that is on this page is a mixture of information form other websites (thanks Bill Hughen & Erwan Le Ravallec), recent news, personal knowledge and guesswork. Any help would be much appreciated.