C-Tech began life in 1997 as a small back yard operation in co-founder Alex Valling’s shed writes Chris Kitchen for Sailworld.com
Fast forward 20 years and C-Tech has a lot to celebrate. Their composite technicians have produced over 50,000 custom designed carbon spars, and they’ve had a successful partnership with Emirates Team New Zealand for five consecutive America’s Cup campaigns.
C-Tech and Emirates Team New Zealand first worked together during their 2003 campaign to supply sail battens. Despite radical changes in America’s Cup classes, 15 years later C-Tech continues to supply wing components, rudders, dagger board cases, dagger board tips, fairings, lifting posts, accumulator tubes, struts, prods and ‘bike components’ for their 2017 challenge. C-Tech has also supplied most of the other America’s Cup teams with their prods and a number of compression struts.
Emirates Team New Zealand’s 2017 challenge has been one of the most dramatic in their history with C-Tech.
Days before America’s cup qualifying was due to start Emirates Team New Zealand damaged a rudder. C-Tech got the call to build an emergency replacement. The C-Tech crew pulled together and rostered a 24 hour shift to get two weeks work completed in five days.
Two weeks later just hours after Emirates Team New Zealand’s capsize on the Great Sound during qualifying meant another phone call to the C-Tech team. Within hours the emergency order order of fairings and struts were being built. They were completed and shipped to Bermuda in record time.
Continue to the full article here on sailingworld.com || June 24, 2017 |||