New Zealand's innovative design sure to give foes a hull of a time

A whale, a cow, and two hula skirts.

That's what the half-billion dollar chase for the oldest trophy in sports has been reduced to in Auckland, New Zealand, where the three remaining boats pursuing the America's Cup had their skirts lifted in a grand "unveiling" ceremony this week.

The whale belonged to Larry Ellison's USA-76, the black Oracle boat, which revealed a relatively stubby bulb that looks positively like a leaden Moby, complete with aft tail fins.

The cow, actually a cow decal, was affixed, upside down, to the more conventional keel and bulb of Alinghi's SUI-64, the Swiss boat piloted by Kiwi least-favorite sons Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth. It's not clear whether this bit of Holstein Swiss mischief was a joke, an omen of a large new dairy-product sponsorship deal, or perhaps a clever moo-stache hiding some fine detail on the bulb itself.

Both boats were interesting, but quickly became footnotes after the unveiling of NZL-81 and NZL-82, the two sleek, torpedo-bulbed Team NZ yachts. Today, as the two would-be challengers throw tacks and dirty looks at one another in a best-of-nine challenger series on Hauraki Gulf, the defending Kiwis have stolen the limelight without ever leaving the dock — with a nifty bit of reverse engineering to circumvent design rules.

Enter the "hulas" — a Kiwi codename for "hull appendage." Both new Kiwi boats sport false hull sections from behind the keel to just behind the rudder. The close-fitting second skins are sculpted plates about 20 feet long, built of an unknown substance, nestled within about 5 mm of the hull at the outside edge. Depending on one's view, they're either the most brilliant design breakthrough in recent memory, or flat-out cheating.

Normally, designers drawing AC-class boats are restricted by a formula that limits the amount of total hull and sail areas a boat can have when "measured." The genius of the Kiwi approach is that technically, the non-appendage portion of their hull has a shorter waterline than a normal craft. This allows the legal addition of greater sail area. But the hula appendages make up for that loss of hull area — and more — by adding the hull area back and "making the boat seem longer to the water" than it does to an inspector, as one designer put it.

The rub, perhaps literally: Like a keel or rudder, an appendage can only be attached along the centerpoint, a beam that runs the length of the hull. The hulas must fit snugly to reduce drag, but cannot contact the hull anywhere else. Some competing designers frankly don't believe that they don't bend and touch the carbon-fiber hull under the high pressures of racing.

Is it legal? Until Cup authorities say otherwise, yes.

Is it fair? No. But since when has the America's Cup been about fairness?

Neither Alinghi nor Oracle protested the appendages this week, but still could do so. If some designer's opinions hold true, that kind of legal challenge might be the only way to steal the Cup from the Kiwis.

Nobody but the Kiwis knows for sure how the hula-equipped boats respond in race conditions. But a growing consensus is that the appendages give the Black Magic boats an insurmountable advantage. Surely the New Zealanders wouldn't have turned out two boats anything less than measurably faster than their conventionally designed craft of 2000 — the very yachts challengers are still struggling to emulate.

The further genius in the Kiwi approach is that the hula might be protest proof: It is not, as expected, a "clip-on" device, but part and parcel with the hull itself.

"It's not a separate part," designer Clay Oliver said this week. "We drew the boat as we envisioned it ... and then decided where to cut an appendage."

It's not likely either Alinghi or Oracle could replicate it at this point by bolting one on a conventional hull. Nor is it likely Team NZ could be asked to remove the appendages and still field a competitive yacht. If a protest comes, the Cup brain trust is in yet another pickle: Approve the hulas, and perhaps watch Team NZ waltz to another mismatch victory. Or reject them, watch the petulant hometown Kiwis forfeit the races, and attempt to get off that rock alive.

Guess which way that one will go.

But, look at it this way: If nothing else, the "Kiwi clip-on" might steal some wind from those paranoid Kiwi "Blackheart" fanatics who believe the entire world is conspiring to steal the best and brightest off New Zealand's docks — and the Cup from its trophy case.

Most of the credit for the hula, it must be noted, is being given to Kiwi designer Oliver. He's an American. From Rhode Island. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Which makes him as good an answer as any to the question all those U.S. designers were asking this week when they stopped cursing the Kiwi skullduggery long enough to ask, "Why didn't we think of it first?"

Chin up, America: One of us did.

Ron C. Judd: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.