Hydrogen Tenders Its Application

How a foiling-power catamaran could change the future of boating.

- Michael Verdon

THE AMERICA’S CUP, yachting’s most storied race, is not where you’d expect to find the next source of emissions-free propulsion for ‘stinkpots’, sailor-speak for motorboats. Yet Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ), which won the regatta in 2021 for the fourth time, launched a foiling-power catamaran named Chase Zero (below) last year that could change the future of boating. As Cup defenders, the Kiwis were in charge of creating the new protocol for the 2024 event, for which they sought out areas desperate for new technology. “We realised our chase boats were years behind our foiling race boats,” says Nick Burridge, ETNZ’s operations and reliability manager. “To keep up, the tenders needed big horsepower, so were burning huge amounts of fossil fuel.”