OFFSHORE PERFECTION

Terry Hutchinson, President of Sailing Operations and Skipper gave a deep-dive insight into the team’s performance and the overall programme in a wide ranging interview afterwards. Asked about the day he offered: “Obviously as we see the Recon coming out of Barcelona and we’re pretty keen to go out sailing in a sea state and some swell and I think early on we got out there in the in the ebb tide but it was a little bit more conducive to what we were after a little bit further offshore so we got aways away and when you can't see the skyline that much in Pensacola anymore then you know you're pretty far out there. It was a good day to sail in the sea state and a good day too to try the different settings and different cant positions that we were after.”

“What you're looking for is really the control as the boat goes up and down in the chop and goes up and down in the swell. You know all the teams are going to navigate through rudder lengths and foils and stuff like that so you're really looking at how you can manage control of the boat as you go through a changing swell or a changing chop because that's surely where the performance lays.”

And looking at the overall American Magic programme in relation to the other teams afforded Terry the chance to assess just where they are at, and he offered: “I think you see some really strong teams. I think it's impressive to see how far Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s come in a short period of time, clearly they're very well set up and they have some great sailors. Obviously the Defender (ETNZ) is very strong in their execution of the AC40s. Luna Rossa is very well thought-out, that platform is very well thought-out as is the INEOS Britannia boat which is very technical, highly optimised with instrumentation, so what you see there is probably a team that's learning how to talk to each other between engineer and sailor so I when I look across the fences, I'm happy with where we're at but I'm also very respectful of the fact that the others are very good…when you think about where we were five years ago with these boats, with the concept, and how far along everybody has gotten in such a short period of time it's pretty exciting.”

The established sailing team onboard Patriot looked well within their skillsets today and the suspicion was that this was more of an intense data gathering exercise for the designers and technicians. Clearly the team have been seeing the swells that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have been experiencing in Barcelona and gaining maximum data in those conditions is at a premium. All eyes are on the new build of the American Magic AC75 which Terry said: will be signed off on the design in late May and the build side of it we're going to do in house up in Rhode Island in our facilities.” These days out in the offshore swells could well be hugely valuable as the nuances of that crucial design come to a head in the coming weeks.

Another solid test session by the team with the most on-water hours under their belt of all the candidates for the 37^th America’s Cup in Barcelona.

On-Water Recon Unit Notes: Patriot sailed offshore today, covered approximately 61 nm, comprised of 12 W/L legs. Five headsails were loaded into the support RIB, 1 was used. Sailing began at 11:29, completed 16 manoeuvres and ended sailing at 15:20. Patriot had a total flying time of 88 Minutes. Top speeds were approximately 35k upwind and 39k downwind (according to RIB GPS). The sailing today was mostly long-distance sailing on one board, while the team appeared to experiment with flight control/ride height. The legs were upwards of 5nm at a time finding Patriot approximately 15nm offshore for a good portion of the day. Terry Hutchinson explains in the interview that sign off for the new AC75 is in late May and it will be built in house by the team in Newport. Patriot is not expected to roll out tomorrow, Tuesday 1/24.

Total Tacks: 12 – 12 foil-to-foil

Total Gybes: 4 – 4 foil-to-foil,

Notes: Patriot was on foil a combined total of 88 minutes. Flight times ranged from 1 minute to 26 minutes (3, 13, 6, 14, 1, 4, 8, 1, 26, 4, and 8 minutes respectively).

Take off speed: 21 knots at 90 degrees TWA (True Wind Angle)

Initial take off was self, 10 additional self-take offs/ 1 tow up.

Onboard Today:

Helms: Paul Goodison / Tom Slingsby

Trimmers: Lucas Calabrese / Riley Gibbs

Flight Control: Andrew Campbell / Michael Menninger

Power Group: Colten Hall / John Croom / Madison Molitor

Conditions: Partly Cloudy 50 degrees (AM). Sunny 62 degrees (PM). Sea State: 1-3ft chiop
11:00 8-12k NE/ 13:34 12k NE/ 14:47 12k NE. Wind speed measured 8ft above sea level using a handheld anemometer.

Sails Used:

M1 (AM-MN9): 4 hours 20 minutes

J4 (J2-5): 4 hours 7 minutes

Dock-Out: 1030 Dock-In: 1610