AC40: COMMISSIONED & READY
It has been a massive team effort all over, and today the Emirates Team New Zealand sailors came ashore content that the one-design commissioning phase of the world’s first AC40 is pretty much done and dusted.
After a transitional day where the wind meaned at 6 knots but puffed at 10 knots allowing for flight and “ripping” it was a good session under auto-pilot that saw the team head out to Takapuna to find the most stable air.
Speaking afterwards, Nathan Outteridge, who has been steering for almost all of the commissioning phase, supported by Josh Junior and Andy Maloney on the wheels with Pete Burling and Blair Tuke trimming, gave a fascinating insight into sailing the boats and how the commissioning process has gone to date.
About the programme overall:
“The boat’s still 100% in one-design configuration but today probably marks the day when we can say it’s commissioned and signed off and then we can hopefully start to move into some custom parts for the boat.”
“It’s been really cool to have the other teams down here looking over the boat and watching us sailing today. Chatting to Slingers (Tom Slingsby from American Magic) and Hendo 9Andrew Henderson – Shore Team Manager INEOS Britannia), I think they’re pretty impressed with the package and impressed that everyone’s going to get one of these boats as it’s working right now.”
“There’s been lots of little software upgrades and improvements on the auto-pilot. It’s all trending in the right direction now and we’re pretty comfortable that it’s in good shape.”
About sailing the boat, and the communication required between the crews:
“You can’t see to leeward and you can’t see the people to leeward. The motor and pumps onboard powering the systems are so noisy that if you take your ear caps off, you can’t hear anything either. If you have a comms failure, it’s best to park the boat and get it fixed.”
“When you are sitting to leeward, you get a really good vision of the apparent wind between the slot and the mast. Downwind you get a really good vision of what you’re sailing into and what you’re going to gybe into. The same upwind. So the guys to leeward have a better picture than the guys to windward as they see so much more of the apparent wind.”
On handovers after a tack or gybe:
“For sure there’s a lot of handovers…over the past few weeks we’ve been trying to work out who does what, when and where because it would be nice to be able to give over a basic playbook to the teams. Especially so for the Youth and Women’s AC Teams, we want to be able to say: ‘Hey, if you’re going to sail the boat, we would recommend doing it this way,’ but we’re still not there yet as there’s so many ways you can do it.” (Magnus Wheatley)
Wind Strength (PM): 6-10 knots, gusting 12 knots
Wind Angle: South
Current: Incoming
Sea State: Flat
Dock Out: 1145 (Dock In: 1345)
Total Tacks: 12 – 6 foiling, 4 splash & go, 2 touchdowns
Total gybes: 6 – 5 foiling, 1 splash & go
Helms: Nathan Outteridge, Andy Maloney, Josh Junior.
Crews: Pete Burling, Blair Tuke
Sails: M1 (used for 1.5 hours) J2 (used for 1.5 hours