COMFORT LEVELS RISING
Sir Jim Ratcliffe was on the water in Palma today to witness a sensational training session of ‘T6’, the British team’s LEQ12 test platform, as Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott pushed it to the outer limits. At times, T6 looked almost supersonic as they rocketed around the Bay hitting mid-30 knots upwind and well into 40 knot barrier downwind and had the innovative W-Foil really performing to its profile.
Leigh McMillan and Luke Parkinson were utterly brilliant today on flight control, holding T6 with its new bustle, expertly just above the near 1 metre waveforms and rifling through the modes at breakneck speed both upwind and down. At times on the W-Foil the boat could be seen to dip the bow down causing huge plumes of spray to be thrown up but it’s almost certainly at times when the team are trying new things or pushing into performance corners to extract meaningful test data for the Mercedes Applied Science engineers who are watching every move from afar.
It was a short session as the team chased a changeable breeze that swung some 180 degrees by mid-afternoon but beneath threatening cloud forms, they found a beautiful up-range window to really stretch T6’s sea legs. Trim was precise on the mainsail and the J4 jib which has been rarely used this winter, was working smoothly and co-ordinated especially on take-offs that were super-fast pops to flight. ‘T6’ is very much looking the real deal and the sailors are finding the learning process with the W-foil fascinating.
Luke Parkinson is one of the key flight controllers for INEOS Britannia who brings a wealth of foiling talent and long experience to this America’s Cup campaign. Speaking afterwards he gave a terrific interview with the recon team who dug into the differences that he can feel between the foil designs: “It's definitely an interesting concept and there's a lot of pros and cons to it. It's something that we looked at last Cup and the designers wanted to look at it again. I guess it's just different junction heights that’s really the big thing but there's different angles and forces going on so there’s a fair bit of interesting things…Each foil is always different depending on a T or a W or the albatross like the Team New Zealand one. They all have different little features to refine the window of where you fly them to get their performance.”
INEOS Britannia’s on-water operations continue to get better and better. The sailors are all of the highest calibre and the rotations in on a daily basis are proving to be profitable, affording a good number of people plenty of experience on the prototype. Luke summed it up perfectly when he alluded to the level of comfort that the team are finding and the speeds they’re generating, saying: “I don't know if we set a top speed (today) but we were close and it was nice to be sitting at the higher speeds for a while, first time we've been on the J4 code jib for a while so just sitting up range is quite nice and we're pretty comfortable, so you know our comfort levels are going up and up and we look forward to a bit more next time.”
The British are looking both comfortable and calm. It’s a long road to the America’s Cup but it feels very much like they’re well on track. More to come this week.
On-Water Recon Notes: Although the day dawned with clear skies over Palma Bay this morning, by the time the British LEQ12 T6 test boat had been rolled out, rigged, launched, and left the dock at 1245, there were rain showers over the land and menacing looking cloud formations swirling ominously around offshore.
With winds in the high teens forecast for the afternoon the crew – helmsmen Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott with trimmers/flight controllers Leigh McMillan and Luke Parkinson – opted for the little used J4 headsail. It did not take long to become clear how good a choice that had been as the British T6 LEQ12 test boat leapt effortlessly into flight mode and tore around the bay at speeds in the low to mid 30s upwind and in the mid 40s downwind.
With a tight window of opportunity before the breeze was expected to shut down around 1530, the team was clearly focused on maximising flight time. Indeed, over the two-hour session the boat was airborne for almost an hour and a half.
Easily noticeable once again were periodic large splashes thrown up by T6's W-shaped starboard foil. Watching the action closely during the high adrenaline sailing session from onboard the high-performance tender to his superyacht Hampshire 2 was team owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
When the breeze started to die away at 1500 the team called a halt to proceedings, with the sails packed away by 1520 and the boat on the dock by 1545.
Recon Notes:
Dock-out: 1300 Dock-in: 1800
Conditions:
Wind: 1300: 12-13 knots with gusts to 15 from 230; 1445 17-18 knots from 240
Weather AM: 1000-1130: Warm and sunny 15°C; 1130: cloudy with rain showers 13C Weather PM: Cloudy with rain showers 13° Celsius. Sea state: Flat initially; confused .75 metre chop later
Onboard Today:
Helms: Ben Ainslie / Giles Scott
Crew: Leigh McMillan / Luke Parkinson
Sails Used:
Mainsail M1-2: 2 hours 20 minutes
Jib (J4-1): 1 hours 50 minutes
Total Tacks: 9 – 6 foil-to-foil, 3 touch & go.
Total Gybes: 7 – 5 foil-to-foil, 2 touch & go.
Take off Speed: 18 knots at 50-60° TWA (True Wind Angle). All take-offs were ‘self’ today.