NAILING SAILING IN PALMA

On the evidence of today, the team look onto something. From the recon video we can see the boat sailing deeper downwind on the starboard W-foil and it certainly looked highly responsive with Giles Scott and Dylan Fletcher-Scott driving it hard, willing it deeper and deeper.

Upwind, Bleddyn Mon and Leigh McMillan clearly had one eye on the testing notes as they experimented with a bow-up pitch bringing the kinked bustle level on its aft plane that matches the extreme run-off of the stern profile. It looked effective bar a couple of ventilations that rather dramatically causes the bow section to very briefly splash with the forward ‘kink’ of the bustle piercing into the waves. Whether it’s a control issue or just the product of the actual foil arm being shorter is for debate, but the team are getting mightily comfortable overall with the new set-up and had T6 in flight for all but 20 minutes of an extensive four hour session – truly remarkable.

Straight from the off today, just outside the harbour entrance, there was an air of cool confidence onboard. Through the day this just grew and a near 100% record of foil-to-foil manoeuvres across 37 tacks and gybes underlined what’s going on within the British camp at the moment. The sailors are top drawer and sailing hard whilst the belief in the technology is strong. When Ben Ainslie stepped in, later in the afternoon relieving Giles Scott on helm, it was a masterclass in power sailing with dynamic trim of the new mainsail maintaining flight, power and height as speeds rocketed into the 30’s upwind with superb windward heel on display and effortlessly exceeded 40 knots downwind as the flight controllers dared themselves ever higher on the foils.

Speaking afterwards, Bleddyn Mon who is such a vital link between the sailors and engineers, gave a terrific interview with the recon team and summed the day up brilliantly saying: “It was a perfect day out there, kind of medium-strong sea breeze and great conditions for us testing and actually able to get a variety of sea states across the Bay…we had a few design related tests to do in the first part of the session, kind of testing at various boat speeds and pitch angles and cant angles and then later in the day it was more kind of VMG sailing and exploring sailing the boat in a bit more sea state so we headed out to the east of the Bay.”

Talking about the ‘bustle trim’ – an area that INEOS Britannia are clearly highly focussed on, Bleddyn added: “Yeah obviously we have had the new bustle on the boat now since the down-period a few weeks back and we're still gather as much data about that really and understanding how it behaves in different waves.”

The inevitable question arose about the W-Foil which all the sailors seem to be animated about as a technical concept to explore, and Bleddyn commented: “It's obviously an interesting design. We had a similar foil last time round, so we’re really kind of exploring how it's performing, and also getting the behaviour in the waves is a big thing knowing what we expect to see in Barcelona.”

If INEOS Britannia keep on nailing the sailing sessions like they’ve done this week, they will have data to die for and if the W-Foil is a concept they choose to pursue into the 37^th America’s Cup on their AC75, it could well be a game-changer. Fantastic to see. This is a challenger team really on an upward trajectory.

On-Water Recon Notes: Although the weather on Palma Bay so far this week has been somewhat unpredictable for the British America's Cup team, this afternoon saw a return to more characteristic Mallorca conditions with winds after midday ramping up quickly to a peak of 17 knots – initially from 180m, but steadily shifting right to around 220 as the afternoon progressed.

The INEOS Britannia LEQ12 test boat T6 was off the dock at midday and by 1240 the mainsail and J4 headsail were hoisted. The crew – initial helmsmen Dylan Fletcher and Giles Scott before Scott swapped out for Ben Ainslie mid-afternoon, with Bleddyn Mon and Leigh McMillan on sail trim and flight control – clearly had their sights set on maximising flight time with the silver-hulled yacht spending all but around 20 minutes of the nearly four hour session in the air.

Early in the session the crew looked to be checking off a list of wind angle and flight height modes – with (like the previous couple of days) a significant amount of time with the newly extended bustle skimming the water (often with the boat in a bow up orientation).

Also, like previous days, the new W-shaped starboard foil was intermittently kicking up high splashes. With Ainslie in for Scott the second half of the afternoon session was spent doing high speed laps of the Bay – with upwind speeds in the low to mid 30s and downwind speeds in the low to mid 40s. The sailors looked to be experimenting with windward heel upwind and downwind. The final hour of the session saw the crew venture around 9 miles offshore into a more pronounced sea state, before a fast blast downwind to arrive outside the harbour entrance at shortly before 1645.

Sails were down by 1700 with the boat back on the dock by 1720.

Recon Notes:

Dock-out: 1200 Dock-in: 1720

Conditions: 1230: 11 knots 160; 1300: 12-13 180; 1430: 15-17 220

Weather AM: Warm and sunny 15°C;

Weather PM: Warm and sunny 17° Celsius. Sea state: Flat initially; confused .75 metre chop later

Onboard Today:

Helms: Dylan Fletcher-Scott / Giles Scott (who swapped out for Ben Ainslie during the session)

Crew: Leigh McMillan / Bleddyn Mon

Sails Used:

Mainsail M1-2: 4 hours

Jib (J4-1): 3 hours 50 minutes

Total Tacks: 16 – 15 foil-to-foil, 1 touch & go.

Total Gybes: 21 – 20 foil-to-foil, 1 touchdown

Additional recon notes: A couple of gybes from port to starboard were exited on two foils for around 15 seconds before starboard board raised. One gybe went straight into a 180 degree turn back upwind.

Take off Speed: 18 knots at 50° TWA (True Wind Angle). All take-offs were ‘self’ today.