After an extended Christmas break, Team Shosholoza is on the water again with a highly refitted RSA 83.

The yacht has a new bow, and the stern, rig, sails and rudder have been substantially modified to eke out more speed for the South Africans.

"She is completely different", said Team Shosholoza managing director Captain Salvatore Sarno who flew to Valencia for the yacht's maiden 2007 sail. "Her new bow is much more aggressive and powerful and the new stern is flat at the bottom and looks much more slick and fast".

"In fact the boat is so fast that now we'll have to learn how to put the brakes on", said Sarno, adding the first caught sight of the "new" yacht Shosholoza from the plane and "loved her immediately."

His enthusiasm is shared by all involved - designers, builders and sailors alike.

"It is fantastic. The crew is very excited and happy and our helmsman Paolo Cian feels much more comfortable in circling her for the pre-start dial-ups", said Sarno.

"But there is still a lot of work to do and an enormous amount of training ahead for us to reach the synchronism needed between the helmsman and the crew to manoeuvre perfectly in the prestart and win as many starts as we can. This is important in a two boat match race duel as whoever wins the start has 85% probability to keep the advantage and win the race."

The new RSA 83 is the result of 18 months of research, design and testing.

"We studied and tank tested 23 models, interchanged 200 different appendages and then decided to modify the current boat, instead of building a completely new one," said Sarno, adding the decision was also based on the yacht's excellent performance in 2006.

Next week's schedule for Team Shosholoza includes match-races against Mascalzone-Latino and Areva Challenge.

South Africans have their sights on a semi-final slot in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger selection series starting in April.