Official launch of RSA83 in Valencia

Thirsday was an exceptional day in Valencia. Under the blue sunny sky and with warm spring temperatures, the South African syndicate presented the world's first all-new version 5 ACC yacht.

According to team Shosholoza, RSA83 has a deeper keel, larger sail surface area and less weight, making all the difference to boats that competed in the last America’s Cup, in 2003. The new RSA 83 boat is 26 metres long, 4.5 metres wide and weighs 24 tons, while the mast’s height is 35 metres.

According to Captain Sarno, Managing Director of the first ever America's Cup team from the African continent, two persons played a key role in this very important achievement. Jason Ker, the chief designer, and Tony Evans, the build manager.

We would like to focus on some other important details given by Captain Sarno during his press conference. The total budget of the syndicate is 25 million euros, while the cost of construction of RSA83 reached 1.5 million euros. It was Captain Sarno's personal decision to go ahead with a totally new construction despite the substantially lower cost of converting the old boat, calculated at nearly 800 thousand euros. It is expected that within a week, Shosholoza's sailors will start training with the brand new boat.

Concerning the future boat for the South Afican team, RSA96, it is already being designed, aided by the alliance with T-Systems, the IT systems branch of the Deutsche Telekom group. Shosholoza can already take advantage of the German group's supercomputer power and will shortly have dedicated computers for all its design needs in its Valencia base. According to Captain Sarno, the actual construction of the boat will begin in March 2006 and is expected to end around November 2006.

Given his Italian origins, Captain Sarno should be better called Leonardo da Vinci, as almost all aspects of the South African syndicate are fruits of the Italian captain's passion. The name, the design, the management, the logo, even the translation of the Shosholoza song into Spanish all stem from Sarno's ideas.

Enjoy the photos of another Valencia Sailing exclusive.