BOOMLESS BULL
Alinghi Red Bull Racing today broke cover on their boomless mainsail system, something that’s been a bit of an open secret around the team who have been working on the development for several months.
On a Barcelona day that offered a complete glass-out, it was the perfect opportunity to rig up the new mainsail and run through the checks with a lot of attention being paid to the clew area and the attachment options that the Swiss team now has. Noticeable from the recon shots taken are the stiff battening that runs on the inside of both skins to the tack with the distinctive electronic cabling that connects through to the quite beautifully detailed clew car leech tensioner and push rod mechanism.
Throughout AC36 the debate of whether to have a boom or not was a hot topic amongst the teams with everyone trialling the boomless option at some point during their programme with Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli successfully developing concepts that featured in the final Match of the America’s Cup. Remembering back to those times, the Italians featured an under-deck concept that connected the mast rotation, traveller and leech tensioner into one system whilst the New Zealanders featured a lowered deck and, it is thought, additional sail area.
For sure, in AC37 we are set to see more innovation in this area as the design teams work up fail-safe ways to connect all the moving elements of their rig controls and it’s logical that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have chosen to follow this route relatively early-on in their programme.
What we can say for certain is that the Swiss are well into the detail of the AC75 and with a first-class design team, led by Marcelino Botin and staffed by plenty of experienced AC foiling colleagues, they certainly won’t be deficient in this area. And it was Gautier Sergent, in charge of Sails & Aero for Alinghi Red Bull Racing and formerly of INEOS Britannia who gave a great insight into the whole boomless programme saying: “We’ve been working on that in the last few months, and it was always the goal when we launched BoatZero, we always wanted to go boomless. Now was the time to do it. Obviously, there’s a few things that we want to see with the advantages of not having a boom and that’s something we wanted to explore at full-scale. Today was the first day of commissioning and was perfect, with no wind, so we had all the time that we wanted to make sure that everything was working; and to to put load on the system step by step. In the next few days, we will just wait for the breeze and as soon as we get sailing, we will start to record some data and analyse that.”
All of the teams are now running separate units of specialist analysts to sift through the mass of recon data, photos and videos that are being generated by the Joint Recon programme on a daily basis. And with so much data, it’s clear that teams need to filter and process accurately and avoid the natural temptation to follow down other teams’ paths. Gautier Sergent was unequivocal in relation to Alinghi Red Bull racing: “We are firmly focussed on our concept, on making logical steps and not getting too distracted.” (Magnus Wheatley)
Wise words indeed and it’s why Alinghi Red Bull Racing are so compelling to watch in this America’s Cup.
On-Water Recon Notes: A very light wind day, with wind measuring below 5kn and turning through 360° throughout the session. The focus of the day was to commission the new boomless system for the mainsail. It is a similar system to the one seen on the new Luna Rossa LEQ12, where the large centre piston rod connects to the mainsail track, and the two smaller pistons on tracks connect to the respective mainsail skins. In place of the gooseneck are now two actuators for the downhaul of each skin. The M2-2L mainsail was cut and adjusted for the new boomless system, noticeably in the "batwing" clew and the foot of the sail to close the sail-deck gap. The team spent two and a half hours adjusting and testing the fit new system and mainsail while alongside the chase boat, however they were not able to test the new equipment under sailing conditions due to a lack of wind. They plan to gather data from the new system in the coming sailing days. It was also noted that the J1-1R that had previously torn in the clew, was brought on the water, indicating that this sail is now repaired and ready to be tested.
Course Notes: Attempts were made to find an area of suitable wind, but the mainsail was brought down at 14:50. At 15:00, the yacht was towed north along the coast for a quick lap and then brought back to base.
Driving Group: Arnaud Psarofaghis, Nicolas Charbonnier, Yves Detrey, Bryan Mettraux, Pietro Sibello, Lucien Cujean
Power Group: Nicolas Rolaz, Arthur Cevey, Nils Theuninck, Augustin Maillefer
Dock-Out: 11.55 Dock In: 15.20
Weather: 21 degrees & cloudy. Wind Strength: sub 5 knots