New Spanish America's Cup boat receives sailnumber ESP-97

[Source: Desafío Español] The new Desafío Español boat, under construction in the King Marine boatyard close to Valencia, received today her sailnumber. The technical director of the America’s Cup Class, Ken McAlpine, made public to the head of the team's technical department that the new Spanish boat will have on her mainsail the number ESP-97.

ESP-97, whose construction is scheduled to finish during the month of January, will be the second boat the Spanish challenger builds under Version 5 of the America's Cup protocol and will be able to race in the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2007. She also is the fifteenth boat built for the 32nd America's Cup, since the first one to be built was Shosholoza's RSA-83 and sail numbers are awarded in an increasing order once lamination of the hull has started.

The new boat is an evolution of ESP-88, lead by the technical office of Desafío Español 2007 whose principal designers are Scott Graham, John Reichel and Jim Pugh. James Criner has been in charge of the appendix design as well as CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics).

ESP-88, the first boat built for the Spanish team was officially christened and launched on the 12th of May. Desafío Español raced with that yacht in Louis Vuitton Act 12, where it finished fifth, consolidating even further its fourth spot in the Louis Vuitton Ranking of the challengers.

The following members of the Desafío Español's technical office took part in the design of ESP-97:

Technical Director: John Cutler
Principal Designers: Scott Graham, John Reichel and Jim Pugh
Appendixes and CFD: James Criner
Tank Test: Richard Whitaker
Engineering: Arrand Bird and Oscar Jáuregui
Sail Design: Sandro Benigni and Nihat Aydin
Mast Design: Paul Snape, Dave Hulse and Pablo Rosano
Data Analysis: Carolina Maggioli and Gonzalo Infante
Composites: Alex Shimell
Construction coordinator: Iñigo Toledo