CONCORD , Mass. , Jan. 18, 2005 — Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) has won the America's Cup Season Championship title – the first round of qualification for America's Cup 2007 – in a racing yacht designed and analyzed in SolidWorks® and COSMOSWorks® software. In a competition that ended in October, ETNZ beat Alinghi, the 2003 America 's Cup Champion, BMW Oracle, and four other boats to take a step closer to challenging Alinghi for the trophy in 2007.

ETNZ engineers used SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software to design components, structure, and hardware that make up the racing yacht – including the hull geometry, the high-grade steel keel fin, solid lead keel bulb, and deck hardware. COSMOSWorks design validation software significantly reduced the time and cost of building expensive prototypes of the keel and other key equipment on board.

“Developing a competitive racing yacht involves a lot of design complexity that engineers must work out in a very tight timeframe. SolidWorks helps us take a design from concept to reality quickly because it lets us visualize every aspect of the boat as if we could hold it in our hands, so that we can see how everything fits together,” said Grant Dalton, CEO for Emirates Team New Zealand . “Its graphical interface makes sense to our engineers, who can now quickly test new concepts to see if they will make the yacht faster and still stand up to the rigors of competitive racing. SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks have given us more confidence in the performance and reliability of every feature of the yacht.”

ETNZ uses COSMOSWorks to analyze highly loaded appendages, such as the keel fin, which is four meters long and must support a weight of nearly 20,000 kilograms. Engineers can test the keel fin's strength on the screen, without enduring several lengthy rounds of prototyping. To manage the voluminous design data ETNZ generates, the team uses the PDMWorks® product data management tool. PDMWorks allows ETNZ to ensure design accuracy and maintain tight version control, which is especially important in an environment where designs evolve rapidly.

ETNZ started using SolidWorks more than six years ago, and has since won several key races in America 's Cup competition. SolidWorks has provided ETNZ one source for 3D design, validation, product data management, and collaboration software.

“Every milligram counts in America 's Cup racing, and Emirates Team New Zealand is constantly refining its yacht design to stay ahead of the competition,” said Ved Narayan , vice president of Asia Pacific operations for SolidWorks . “We are proud of Emirates Team New Zealand's achievements in the qualifying round of America's Cup, and hope that SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks will continue to give the team an edge throughout the competition.”