FLIGHTS CAMERAS AND ACTION
Ben Ainslie was back in Palma on Saturday for INEOS Britannia’s first proper test sail of their much-modified and upgraded LEQ12 prototype, codenamed ‘T6’, and what a session it was. The British were keen to get foiling on the starboard W-foil that has divided opinion in the America’s Cup community but on first showing, it looked rapid and stable in a straight-line whilst tacks appeared to be razor sharp upwind. This is a design direction they pursued in AC36 with wings that didn’t end up making the raceboat but with some tweaks to the rule that have opened up this direction, this highly technical team could well be on to something very interesting.
What was noticeable on Saturday was the ultra-low flight that Iain Jensen and Leigh McMillan held T6 in upwind. The new bustle along the keel-line was skimming the surface and immersed through the chop in Palma but it looked highly effective and the boat was rocketing around the Bay sucking up huge amounts of vital data for the design and engineering teams that are closely monitoring the boat both at ‘Mission Control’ at the team’s base in Palma and back at the Mercedes Applied Science offices in Brackley. Northamptonshire.
The shore team added a sculpted, aero in-built camera to the inboard leg of the port side of the W-foil to capture flow analysis in conjunction with the Pitot tube that the team very much favour on these early-stage foil designs. The recon team did notice however that the ‘foil was seen to break surface on more than one occasion, which required a bit of remedial action from the crew to avoid a crash.’ Something for the team back at the base to work on but other than that it was a full-on action day as the sailors went through a total of 31 manoeuvres with a 93% success rate either foil-to-foil or touch & go.
Ben Ainslie offered a terrific interview after sailing today and was full of praise for the team who have worked round-the-clock to get ‘T6’ re-fitted and upgraded. “It's a big day for the team. Great to get back on the water after the refit and modifications after the capsize and a huge team effort to minimise those delays. And what a perfect day for testing. We were really fortunate with the conditions, 12 to 14 knots, a bit of sea-state, a steady wind so that that data coming back for the designers and engineers will be really helpful moving forward… we've made quite a lot of changes to the boat as you can probably see but some you can’t see in terms of the systems and setup of the boat so really just trying to get decent data so we can analyse that and feed that back to the designers and engineers who will then crunch the numbers and we'll discuss it in terms of how the boat felt and operated, and fed back into design ideas for RB3 - the race boat for next year.”
Talking specifically about the W-foil concept, Ben seemed very pleased with the opening day of full-on testing saying: “It was really interesting to see the changes and you could probably see on the port tack with the W foil…some different performance there, different interactions with the sea state and that's just invaluable feedback for the whole team to go away and have a look at that and think about what that means for the race wings for next year for the Cup. We’re only allowed to design and build one set of race foils so that's going to be critical to get that right and this information will really help us with those ideas, that progression, and developing of those race foils.”
Asked whether today was about seeing an improvement in performance or just gathering the data, Ben was open when he said: “Both really. We had some expectations of what we thought we would see with these foils and we have a change to the bustle on the keel line of the boat and it's about tying those in and the performance is important, of course, we want the boat to start going faster but really it's the understanding of what's going on with the setup of the boat and again the quality of the data coming off the boat that that's really what we're after.”
Great session for INEOS Britannia, a long day on the water for the sailors but a critical day for the engineers who will have been more than pleased with what they saw.
‘T6’ is back in its hangar with sailing scheduled for Tuesday this week.
On-Water Recon Notes: A solid day of data gathering for the INEOS Britannia team as helmsmen Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott, with trimmers/flight controllers Iain Jensen and Leigh McMillan put the British LEQ12 T6 through her paces in close to perfect testing conditions with an initial 6 knot southerly breeze ramping up to 13 knots over the six hour/72 nautical mile session.
After rolling out of the team hangar at a few minutes before 1000, T6 was rigged, launched, and setup ready for an 1150 dock-out. A 10-minute stop and go towing session without sails started the day off, but by 1315 the silver test boat was released from a side tow with the M1-1 mainsail and what looked like an unused (yet to be confirmed) J2 headsail.
The boat was soon in the air under its own power in around 8 knots of wind but as the pressure quickly ramped up the crew stayed with the J2 for under 10 minutes before trading down to the J3 for the rest of the session.
Other than a few periods of downtime alongside a chase boat T6 spent the vast majority of the afternoon in flight mode as the sailors pushed the boat hard both upwind and downwind. Notably, they appeared at times to be experimenting with sailing high angles upwind, as well as working on sailing the boat at a ride height that had the newly reconfigured (deeper) bustle skimming the wave tops upwind and down.
The new W-shape starboard foil wing seemed to be performing well with no noticeable lack of straight-line performance – although the foil was seen to break surface on more than one occasion, which required a bit of remedial action from the crew to avoid a crash.
Tacks and gybes looked smooth with the majority carried out at speed and from foil to foil. After a battery change stop at 1600, the final over one hour flight session saw the British boat rip around two laps of Palma Bay before coming to a halt outside the City's Cathedral at 1715. Sails were down by 1745 and the boat was back on the dock by 1800.
No sailing is planned for Sunday or Monday with Tuesday the next targeted testing day.
Recon Notes:
Dock-out: 1150 Dock-in: 1800
Conditions: 6-13 knots from 180 degrees. Sunny 15-22° Celsius (AM). 18-22° Celsius (PM). Sea state: Medium chop inshore, significant chop offshore.
Onboard Today:
Helms: Ben Ainslie / Giles Scott
Crew: Iain Jensen / Leigh McMillan
Sails Used:
Mainsail M1-1: 5 hours
Jib (J2-1): 30 minutes
Jib (J3-1): 4 hours
Total Tacks: 12 – 8 foil-to-foil, 2 touch & go, 2 touchdowns.
Total Gybes: 19 – 14 foil-to-foil, 5 touch & go, 0 touchdowns.
Take off Speed: 18 knots at 60° TWA (True Wind Angle). All take-offs were ‘self’ today.