“I think one of the coolest boats was the AC72,” says Davies who nominates the wingsail catamarans sailed in the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco. “Building one of those now would be terrifying – the speeds you could get!

“It was at the infancy of foiling and a very radical stage because no one had done any foiling on a race boat. There’d been some straight line foiling boats, but nothing that tried to go around a windward/leeward course. So that was a very special campaign where we were basically inventing foiling at scale. The innovation in that campaign probably hasn’t been rivalled yet.

“The AC75s are very, very cool, but we know a lot about foiling now. Back then, it was a bit of a cowboy show doing it for the first time. Early in that campaign we were down on lakes, towing craft around and capsizing and nose diving, pitch poling and all sorts of things, but then to commit to foiling at an early stage was very exciting.”

Photo: Abner Kingman /ACEA

Make sure you check out our full list of Coolest Yachts.

AC72 stats rating

Top speed: 44.15 knots
LOA: 22m/72.2ft
Launched: 2012
Berths: 0
Price: $8-10million
Adrenalin factor: 98%

Ray Davies

Ray Davies is a seven-time America’s Cup campaigner, helmsman, strategist, and Kiwi sailing legend. He has won the Cup both on the boat with Emirates Team New Zealand and in his current coaching role. He won the 2001 Volvo Ocean Race, finished 2nd in the 1997 round the world race, and has a clutch of other trophies including TP52 MedCup wins.

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