SHORT DAY IN AUCKLAND

To see any AC75 in proximity is a breath-taking experience and the fastest one ever built to date is an utterly awesome experience to witness. The sheer power of the boats is conveyed in an instant as the sailors sheet-on and take flight. ‘Te Rehutai’ was popping super-fast from displacement with a minimum of sail trim, certainly a big reflection of the massive weight reduction that the new AC75 rule allows and in turn, manoeuvres appear much slicker with Nathan Outteridge and Pete Burling able to throw the boat around with ease. The numbers don’t lie with a 100% success rate (again) over 16 manoeuvres either foil-to-foil or touch & go. Impressive stuff from the America’s Cup defenders.

Simon van Velthooven, one of the super-fit power group of Emirates Team New Zealand summed it up brilliantly after sailing saying: “Yeah we’re starting throw it around a bit more now and probably the G-forces feel like it was pre-racing here in Auckland. Everyone is getting more comfortable in the ‘big school bus’ and yeah I'm just obviously excited for the further upgrades and further refinement and really starting to rip into it.”

With so much emphasis on power delivery to control the sails, the cyclors have been a revelation both on ‘Te Rehutai’ and on the old ‘Te Aihe’ that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have heavily modified. The four man team certainly seem more than capable of cycling at such a high intensity for up to an hour in training but Simon is under no illusion that their job is going to get far harder in the not too distant future: “If it was just us out there doing laps, we’re okay but you throw another boat in the race and you’re kind of influenced, everyone starts trimming a bit harder and requests a bit more power so it is the same for pre Auckland where we were comfortable and then you jump in a race with Luna Rossa and the numbers are just going ballistic so yeah I mean there's always going to be improvements but right now we can go sailing for an hour with no issues.”

Talking about the breakdown that curtailed what looked like being another strong day of testing, Simon commented: “We had an epic day yesterday, legs are a bit tired but you know we got through 44 minutes of warmup sailing and going through all the checks and then we stopped and swapped grinders and had a drink of water and then had a minor breakage and just decided it wasn't worth fixing the water so we came in…It was something quite important, small part but important with the whole sailing aspect so we couldn't obviously proceed with it but we just decided to fix it onshore and go out again at another time.”

‘Te Rehutai’ was towed back to base and hauled out mid-afternoon with the boat builders quickly onto the issue. Sailing is blocked out for the rest of this week ahead of the short break for Easter at the weekend.

Recon Unit Notes: Te Rehutai was rolled out of the shed at 1030 with a bit of waiting around she was towed out into the harbour at 1230 before getting sails up and going sailing for around 35-40 Minutes.

Team went for a crew swap and some lunch then before jumping back in noticed some damage (unsure to what) which they wouldn’t be able to fix on the water so headed in shortly after that. Recon RIB suffered damage early on so missed some sailing time, boat taken back to the base and Recon Photographer was allocated onto an ETNZ chase boat.

Onboard today:

Helms: Nathan Outteridge / Pete Burling

Trimmers: Andy Maloney / Blair Tuke

Power Group: Simon van Velthooven / Marius van der Pol / Louis Sinclair / Louis Crosby / Hamish Bond / Marcus Hansen

Notes: Full team onboard at times, 4x power group 2x helm 2x trimmer

Sails Used:

Mainsail M1: 1 hour

J2: 1 hour

Manoeuvres:

Total Tacks: 6 – 5 foil-to-foil, 1 touch & go.

Total Gybes: 10– 10 foil-to-foil.

Weather AM: Fine & Sunny. Sea state: Calm Weather PM: Fine & Sunny. Sea State: Calm-slight

Dock Out: 1230 Crane out: 1500