INEOS FLYING HIGH

Naturally the team’s concentration since then has been all on T6, their LEQ12 prototype but with that boat now into a full - unplanned - refit alongside a fully-planned upgrade programme, today it was the turn of the AC40 to steal all the headlines. Having rolled out in recent days from the shed, almost teasing the Cup community with its presence, today was the day for the boat to be christened ‘Athena’ and the sailing team to take to the water for a maiden sail. 

Conditions in Palma though were light with the breeze struggling all afternoon to get above 7.5 knots but as a shake-down outing it was well worth the effort and rewarded with some decent foiling runs and very quickly the crack testing team of Giles Scott, Ben Cornish, Leigh MacMillan and Bleddyn Mon were into high-speed, slick foiling manoeuvres. The sailors were quick to induce windward heel and on some runs it certainly looked like Bleddyn and Leigh turned off the auto-pilot to test out ride heights. Superb sheeting control as we’ve seen with the British on T6 was on display in their AC40, with the team eking out the gusts and maintaining flight impressively.

As a plug-and-play boat, the AC40 has proven to be remarkable in its off-the-shelf performance and in the more than capable hands of the British team, they made it look easy in the benign conditions. This is a team full of resource, brimming with confidence despite the capsize of T6, well-funded and data driven – adversities are easily overcome with the level of professionalism that INEOS Britannia has at their disposal.

The INEOS ‘bounce’ was expected and Giles Scott, always the calmest cucumber in town gave a superb interview after sailing saying: “It seems like a long, long time ago last week, but the last day’s outing on T6 was obviously a big one for us and not really the way we wanted to run into its refit that it's now into…it's very important for us to be able to bounce right back from that and get back on the water and get stuck back into it and fortunately we'd got the AC40 waiting in the wings.”

And talking about the T6 capsize, Giles commented: ‘We've had a lot of reviews of the capsize both from a systems standpoint and the internals of the yacht as well as the whole procedural righting, what we can do better next time so I think there was a lot of good lessons that came out of that although that being said that’s not something that we will try and do again…we had a round-up, had a little bit of a slam down and unfortunately there's some connectors that came unstuck downstairs and then we lost control of the control functions and just had a slow rollover onto its side.”

But moving onto the AC40, despite it being a slow day in Palma, Giles seemed more than pleased with the boat saying: “It was a bit of a slow day today, lot of trying to get through the main hoist and frustrating for us because you know all we want to do is really get everything sorted main on the lock, jib up, sheet on and go…but really today went pretty smoothly and we just about hung on to a little bit of little bit of dying breeze at the back end of the day…It's good that we were able to get the boat straight out the shed and straight into sailing it hard and a few racing manoeuvres thrown in there as well so yeah good day but hopefully the next one will be better.”

INEOS Britannia is back and their AC40 looked terrific with its minimal, classy silver decals set beneath the jet black 3DL sails looking stunning in the late winter light of Palma. The programme continues at pace both on the water and shoreside and hopes are high of improving weather conditions for more sailing into the weekend.

What a first day. (Magnus Wheatley)

On Water Recon Notes: The British America's Cup team rolled their AC40 out of the shed for the second time today, for it to be rigged, christened 'Athena' before launching for a two-hour commissioning and testing session dockside at the base.

The AC40 appeared noticeably more 'tender' alongside a team chase boat than the team's T6 LEQ12 with any body weight movement affecting the heel of the boat. Considerable care was taken to keep movement on deck to a minimum while a member of the shore crew was hoisted up the mast as part of the testing process. There were also noticeably less laptops involved in the testing and setup process than are normally used on T6. During the process the support crew could be see checking mast rotation.

Later at 1100 the boat was tied up for the first time against its official support boat INEOS Chase 3 to check attachment points and side towing procedures. After docking out shortly after 1230 the crew of Giles Scott and Ben Cornish (helmsmen) and Leigh McMillan and Bleddyn Mon (trimmers) got straight into testing mode even before the boat left the harbour with a series of partial foil arm raises that rocked the boat backwards and forwards.

Outside the harbour a short foiling tow-run was followed by an hour-long delay as technicians came aboard to remedy what we believe to be an issue with the rudder rake control. Further towed foiling runs followed before the M1 mainsail skins were hoisted and set up. A further wait ensued as the crew scanned the horizon for enough breeze to go sailing.

Eventually at around 1630 the boat was towed into a 15 minute foiling run that included two foiling tacks and ended with a partially completed foiling gybe. Three more foiling runs took place with the boat looking comfortable in flight even in some confused chop stirred up by the chase boats. With the breeze fading, time was called at shortly after 1700, followed by sails down and a foiling towed run back to the dock. 

Dock out: 1235 Dock-in: 1740

Conditions:
AM: 0 - 3 knots PM: 5 knots - 7.5 knots from 240

AM: Cloudy early morning but clearing to sunny conditions by 1030 7°c - 13°c

PM: Sunny with scattered cloud 15°c - 12°c

Onboard Today

Helms: Giles Scott / Ben Cornish

Crew: Leigh McMillan / Bleddyn Mon

Sails Used:

Mainsail (M1-1): 2 hours

J1 (J1-1): 1 hour

Total Tacks: 4 – 3 foil-to foil, 1 touch & go

Total Gybes: 4 – 2 foil-to-foil, 2 touchdowns

Recon Notes: Take offs all tow-to-fly