The Emirates Team New Zealand design and shore crews have been working non-stop since yesterday’s haul out incident which damaged the AC75 ‘Taihoro’. After a long evening that went late into the night and the boat was safely back in the shed, a structured and precise repair plan has been in process.

After a thorough examination the team have been relieved that the damage was not as significant as initially expected.

“There was a big scope of work to figure out where the damage was and how to fix it. The structural damage is reasonably significant, but it was all stuff we can repair to the hull.” said structural engineer Dave Olsen.

“You wouldn’t say we were lucky because it was a bad afternoon, but compared to what it could have been we are feeling very thankful for sure.”

The work has been relentless behind the boat shed doors by a highly skilled group of boat builders that have embraced the challenged presented just 24 hours ago.

“The shore crew and boat builders are world class; they turn this stuff around really high quality and really quickly. They are all putting big hours and we will get this boat back on the water and racing again.”

The team are aiming to be back out on the racecourse tomorrow, Saturday 31st lining up again for their next scheduled race.

Having not been able to sail today against INEOS Britannia, the British team took a point for the race against Emirates Team New Zealand. However, due to lack of wind, the full today’s racing was not completed, so the scheduled race against Orient Express Team France will now be made up on another race day.

For Shore Team Manager Sean Regan who has been overseeing the repairs of Taihoro the last 24 hours is a situation he has had plenty of experience in.

“Sometimes things happen out of the norm, and you have to be ready to react to them. And we have amazing people in the team that are knowledgeable and able to get in and sort a situation and come up with a solid plan.

In this game it is not about planning over a number of days & weeks, it is about hours. We have to get the boat out sailing as soon as possible.”