Former Team New Zealand tactician Brad Butterworth believes potential challengers for the 2021 America's Cup have been put off by the new boats.
Team New Zealand revealed the new monohull racing yachts that will be sailed at the Cup after collaboration with Luna Rossa's design team.
Speaking to Andrew Gourdie and Jim Kayes on RadioLIVE, Butterworth revealed what he thinks is turning challengers away.
"One of the main problems is the boat's a bit far away for most people and there's only a few teams who can get to the level needed to design and build and sail those boats," he said.
"It's a foiling boat which favours Team New Zealand for sure because they've got a fantastic design team and some world class sailors, which all bodes for a good thing if you want to retain it - so that's probably the biggest hurdle for other teams.
"You have to understand the rules at the moment don't really encourage participation.
"It's hard for new teams to get involved because as a challenger outside that group [Team New Zealand and Luna Rosa] you don't really have any say."
Team New Zealand are confident the yacht can become the future of racing beyond the America's Cup, and that their goal was to design a class that would be challenging and demanding.
Butterworth defended their designs, and is looking forward to seeing them on the water.
"There's nothing around like it - it's bit of a unicorn, it's what everybody likes. These guys want to sail it and it's going to be very exciting," he said.
"America's Cup is the pinnacle of sailing for everybody in the sport, so the boats have got to be difficult, they've got to be hard, they've always has been in the past," he said.
"When a new team wins, they want to change things and the boats; they start a new process which, nine times out of 10 is an advantage for the defender - a good thing if you're a New Zealander.
"It really doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, the defender can decide the boat with a friendly challenger record and it's their right and they need no one's permission."
Newshub.
