The original Twisted Flow Wind Tunnel was built in 1994 by the University of Auckland in conjunction with North Sails NZ and Team New Zealand.

The wind tunnel has been used mainly for downwind sail testing. The testing carried out by Team New Zealand was instrumental in their victory in the 1995 America's Cup and successful defence in 2000.

The wind tunnel was then taken over entirely by the University of Auckland's Yacht Research Unit as a commerical and research facility.

In late 2000, the "new" Twisted Flow Wind Tunnel was built in larger premises at Auckland's Mount Wellington.

This provided an opportunity to update the facilities and equipment and to improve on the twisted flow capabilities of the existing wind tunnel.

In 2004, the tunnel was moved to the centre of the building and shortened slightly, to improve the flow characteristics.

The wind tunnel now boasts a "base" turbulence intensity of < 1% over the working section and a highly uniform flow field.

In 2010 the twisted flow vanes were upgraded to produce less wake and allow more accurate and repeatable twist profiles to be created.

In 2012, the tunnel test section has had a repaint, while the velocity profile bars have also had some improvements. These bars are now fully adjustable and give much finer resolution of velocity profile created at the test section.