The build-up to the next America's Cup is about to get serious, with the defenders launching their first boat in Auckland on Friday.
Team New Zealand's design team have spent months working behind closed doors on their radical foiling monohull.
Chief executive Grant Dalton believes that work will be decisive to their chances of retaining the 'Auld Mug'.
Team New Zealand will be the first to splash their AC75 - a 23-metre foiling monohull expected to be faster than the catamarans used in Bermuda.
"On the face of it, it looks normal-ish," said Dalton. "But once it starts to roll, once it starts to get up on the foils, it won't look like a boat - it will look like an aircraft."
While the teams will build a second version for racing in Auckland in 2021, most of the major design decisions have already been made, meaning the winners could already be decided 18 months out.
"The America's Cup is actually over, we just don't know who won yet, because decisions you make very early set the pattern of what will happen two, three years in time."
So far the boat's been shrouded in secrecy, which is why spies from the other teams will be at the team's base when they launch on Friday.
"Once that boat rolls out of the shed, it won't even get halfway out, before it's already in Europe and the United States."
The AC50 - the winning boat from Bermuda - now has pride of place on the side of the base, a clear sign Team NZ have well and truly moved on, and won't be dwelling on past glories, but determined to create new ones.
Newshub.
