Technic

Emirates Team New Zealand AC75 Yacht

A wildly different Technic set that trades gears for sails and full-on drama.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 42174 · 2024

Pieces964

Minifigsn/a

Year2024

Set number42174

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The verdict

This one caught me off guard, and I mean that as a compliment.

It's a Technic set with almost no rolling machinery and instead a tall, elegant racing yacht that looks incredible on a shelf. The pneumatic foils are a genuine delight to pump, and honestly nothing else in the Technic line looks anything like it. Just know going in that the appeal is a bit niche and there's a small mountain of stickers waiting for you.

Best for: Sailing fans and Technic builders craving something totally unlike the usual cars and cranes

The full review

Let's be honest, when you think Technic you picture gears, pistons, and something with wheels. The Emirates Team New Zealand AC75 Yacht is a LEGO® set that throws all of that out the window and hands you a 27-inch tall racing sailboat instead. It recreates the actual foiling monohull that New Zealand sailed at the 2024 America's Cup, built at roughly 1:40 scale, and the finished thing is striking. It stands 68cm tall, stretches nearly 57cm long with the bowsprit, and has this lean, purposeful shape that reads as fast even sitting perfectly still on a shelf. If you have any soft spot for sailing, or you just want a Technic model that doesn't look like every other Technic model, this is a real change of pace.

The headline function is the pneumatics, and they're the best part. You pump a little air system and the hydrofoil cant arms rise and lower, which is exactly what the real crew does to lift the hull clear of the water at speed. It works well and it's the kind of hands-on gimmick you'll fiddle with every time you walk past. There's also a rotating mast held up by proper rigging, plus mainsheet and jib controls, so there's a bit more going on than a static display piece.

Now the caveats, because there are a couple. This is a stickers set, and not a light one. Twenty stickers cover the sponsor branding and livery, and some are fussy little logos you'll want to line up carefully, so give yourself patience for that stretch. The two big sails are printed rather than stickered, which is lovely, but they're single sided and get placed back to back, and a handful of builders mentioned their sails sat a touch loose in the frames. The smaller sail is printed on both sides, though one side ends up mirrored if you look closely. And the subject itself is a bit of a coin flip. A specific sailing team from a specific race isn't going to light everyone up the way a supercar does.

So here's where I land. If you love sailing, if you followed the America's Cup, or if you're a Technic fan who's a little bored of the usual vehicles, grab it without much hesitation. It's around 120 dollars, the price per piece is fair for a licensed set, and it delivers a display model you genuinely won't see on anyone else's shelf. If you're chasing complex mechanical engineering, gearboxes, and moving drivetrains, this one will feel light on that front, and the sticker session might test you. But for the right person, this is a quietly special set that rewards a slower, more careful build.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build runs about 205 steps across a single 216 page instruction book, and it takes most people two to three hours. It doesn't feel like a typical Technic grind either. You start with the internal frame and the pneumatic plumbing, which is the most Technic-ish stretch, then move into the long sweeping hull, and finish with the mast, rigging, and sails. That last act is where it stops feeling like machinery and starts feeling like you're rigging an actual boat, threading string and raising the mast. It's a calmer, more deliberate build than the pistons-and-gears sets, and the payoff is watching a genuinely elegant shape come together.

On pieces, the stars are the sails. The two large skin sails are printed to give a real 3D curved shape rather than flat panels, and they carry the team livery beautifully. Beyond those you get the pneumatic pump, cylinders, and air tubing that drive the foils, which is always a fun parts haul for anyone who likes building working systems. There aren't a ton of flashy new molds here, it leans on the standard Technic panel and beam palette, so the value story is really about the pneumatics and those printed sails rather than a big pile of rare recolors. At 964 pieces for roughly 120 dollars, it sits at a reasonable price per part for a licensed model, and you're paying for a distinctive silhouette more than a parts bin.

Fun facts

01The model is built at roughly 1:40 scale, standing in for a real AC75 that measures about 22.7 metres (74.5 feet) long and can hit speeds over 100 km/h on its foils.
02The America's Cup is the oldest trophy in international sport, predating the modern Olympics by decades.
03The real yacht lifts its entire hull out of the water on hydrofoils at speed, and the set's pneumatic cant arms mimic exactly how the crew raises and lowers those foils.
04It launched on 1 August 2024, timed to the America's Cup in Barcelona where Emirates Team New Zealand defended the trophy.