SWISH SWISS
Riding high above an, at times, two metre swell out on a pitch-perfect Barcelona afternoon, Alinghi Red Bull Racing had their AC40 in a new performance mode, keeping the bow up and the hull very level. Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin, who had swapped pods in an interesting bit of A/B test sailing, were noticeably dialled into the mode, relentlessly pursuing a very high flight downwind and absolutely nailing laylines over a short course. Bear-aways were flat and fast, gybes were super-high and pre-start circling practice was co-ordinated and slick between the pair.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s first session of April continued the confidence sailing that we’re becoming accustomed to with the sailors throwing the boat around like a dinghy. The Swiss tacks are super-fast with the windward board dropping beautifully into the sharp turn and some highly co-ordinated sheeting of both the jib and the mainsail in sync producing power out of the manoeuvre. All day in the Barcelona sunshine, the black 3DL sails were glistening through the pin-point trim azthe team maintained flight over some 50 nautical miles of sailing. Big numbers for the team again and a decent return of foil-to-foil or touch and go flying over 55 manoeuvres.
After sailing the team elected to sail into the busy Port Vell rather than tow-in behind the Chase Boat – another sign of supreme confidence with the sailors navigating the harbour entrance swell with ease before double-boarding into a gybe and effortlessly dropping into displacement just off their temporary base. Swish stuff.
With the design team now far down the road of finalising their one-build AC75 that will challenge next year for the America’s Cup, the recon team managed to grab a fascinating interview with Nico Bailey, formerly an aeronautical engineer for Airbus, who was corralled into the American Magic programme for the 36th America’s Cup before joining Alinghi Red Bull Racing for this cycle. With some wide variations in foil design being trialled on LEQ12 prototypes by all the teams, Nico gave an insight into the Swiss programme saying: “I guess all the teams are the same, we try to model with as high a fidelity as possible. All the foils we model in all our setup tools that we have, so Simulator, CFD, all kinds of calculations and we try to understand what are the weakness of the opponents and what are the good points to try to make the best possible.”
And Nico continued saying: “The first step is to validate that all that we are doing on the computer matches on the water and then we start pushing a little bit to the limit until we get the best performance of the foils.” Talking specifically about the W-Foil concept that INEOS Britannia are testing out in the Bay of Palma, Nico sees real innovation there saying: “It's really impressive, the challenge that this kind of foil can represent in terms of systems and in terms of foil design so yeah we're really looking at how they are working.”
Validation and calibration of foil design are going to be key to success at AC37 in Barcelona and the Swiss have adopted a highly logical, progressive approach as Nico confirmed: “We try to make the things as objective as possible and try to remove all the subjectivity to get the best result as we can.”
If the Alinghi Red Bull Racing designers can deliver a fast boat, the sailors will perform. Their on-water programme continues this week. Swish Swiss.
On-Water Recon Unit Notes: Alinghi Red Bull Racing rolled out their AC40 at 10:00, anticipating the better breeze forecasted for later in the day. The team hoisted the M1 mainsail and J1 jib in the port and towed the yacht out, releasing the towline at the port entrance. The wind at the start of the sailing day was 8 knots, gusting 11 knots, with ground swell from the East, perpendicular to the wind direction.
The crew swapped from usual positions to sail on opposite sides for the day; Arnaud and Yves Detrey to Port, Maxime Bachelin and Nico Rolaz to Starboard. Crew swapped again in the day, with trimmers also switching sides mid stint. Sailing commenced just before 2pm. Maxime Bachelin warmed up on starboard, sailing short lengths at different angles out towards the course. The course, set just off Barceloneta beach, consisted of a leeward gate (doubling as a start line) and a windward mark 1 nautical mile upwind.
The team spent the first half of the day sailing about the course, training pre starts and mark roundings. They had a few struggles in the early part of the session, with sailing paused on two consecutive occasions for engineers to inspect below deck. The J2 jib was brought out for an hour and with wind peaking at 12 knots, the team put in their best stint of the day sailing around the course . The wind started to decrease, forcing the team to find better wind further offshore, despite the larger swell. They put together a decent hour and a half stint, finishing with a long downwind to the port.
The team spent almost five hours on the water, covering over 50NM, and reaching an estimated top speed of 38kn. They completed just over 60% of their manoeuvres (foil-foil), from a total of 55 moves.
Onboard Today
Driving Group: Arnaud Psarofaghis / Maxime Bachelin / Nicolas Charbonnier
Trimmers: Yves Detrey / Lucien Cujean / Nicolas Rolaz / Bryan Mettraux
Additional: Starting Crew: Arnaud Psarofaghis / Nicolas Rolaz on Port. Maxime Bachelin and Yves Detrey on Starboard. Pietro Sibello on Chase Boat.
Conditions: South Wind - 8-10kn S @14:05 , 9-12kn S @ 15:00 , 5-8kn S @ 15:55 , 6-8kn S 16:45. Weather AM: 15°c, Sunny. Weather PM: 16°c, Intermittent Clouds. Sea State: Beaufort 2 - 1m East Swell.
Sails Used:
Mainsail M1 (M1-1): 4 hours 50 minutes
J1 (J1-1): 3 hours 20 minutes
J2 (J2-1): 1 hour
Total Tacks: 29 – 16 foil-to-foil, 5 touch & go, 8 touchdowns.
Total Gybes: 26 – 18 foil-to-foil, 5 touch & go, 3 touchdowns.
Recon Notes:
13:55 – 14:25 Sailing (Foiling – Only on starboard tack) – Pause for engineers below deck
14:20 – 14:25 Sailing (1 Tack – Touch Down) – Engineers back on board + jib change
15:05 – 15:55 Sailing (10 Tacks - Fully Foiling, 4 Tacks - Touch & Go, 2 Tacks – Touch Down, 11 Gybes - Fully Foiling, 3 Gybes - Touch & Go, 1 Gybe - Touch Down)
16:35 – 16:45 Towing (Sails up)
16:45 – 18:10 Sailing (6 Tacks - Fully Foiling, 1 Tacks - Touch & Go, 5 Tacks – Touch Down, 7 Gybes - Fully Foiling, 2 Gybes - Touch Down)
Dock-Out: 1325 Dock-In: 1830