CHASE BOAT TRAINING FOR LUNA ROSSA
When you have one of the world’s elite coaches in your team, it’s no surprise as a sailor to find yourself pushed way outside of your comfort zone. Yesterday out on the Bay of Cagliari, Philippe Presti who’s CV reads two Olympic Games, a couple of Finn Gold Cups, the 2007 America’s Cup with Luna Rossa and two further Cups with the Americans, had the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team on edge using the Chase Boat as competition with Shannon Falcone driving it hard.
The benefits of this type of race training are immense as it forces the sailors to make tough choices boat-on-boat and forces quick-fire decision making in real-time. The simulator work that all the teams complete shoreside is intense but boat-on-boat requires levels of co-ordination and communication amidst natural variations of wind and waves that are hard to replicate in the computer. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli are more than familiar with this type of training and used it to very good effect in AC36 as they showed remarkable improvement round after round eventually scoring well in the America’s Cup Match itself.
Wednesday’s session in Cagliari was fast and furious with almost perfect conditions of 11-12 knots and a challenging sea-state similar to what the team can expect in Barcelona. After some data gathering runs early in the afternoon session, Philippe Presti ordered a short course to be laid and a pre-start box to push the team at race pace with the ‘Chase Cat’ acting as a rather powerful and manoeuvrable opposition.
Talking about the session afterwards he commented: “The big difference is you don't have the wind shadow of the Chase Cat but you have the propeller wake and the foils are not very happy into this white water behind the boat, so that's a little bit the downside, but the rest of it you know we try to simulate races and encourage the communication on board and make decisions, have plans, you know, business as usual.”
That ‘business as usual’ was interesting to observe with the Italians showing masterful control over the LEQ12. Umberto Molineris and Vittorio Bissaro, the ever-present Flight Controllers, were doing a stellar job maintaining flight and pitch control in a tricky sea-state whilst Jimmy Spithill, Marco Gradoni and Francesco Bruni threw Luna Rossa through some epic manoeuvres dodging and joshing with the Chase Cat.
A collision at the kinds of speeds the LEQ12 develops would be catastrophic but Philippe is more than confident in his Chase Boat team saying: “We have a lot of power you know, we have Shannon who is driving the boat and is doing good job and we tried not to hit the boat - that's the main focus - trying not to end the day with a bad mood and no yeah we have a lot of fun around who will win the race, I think it's a great tool.”
With six people onboard today throughout the session and the helms swapping in and out, it was a hugely productive session. The new starboard foil appears highly manoeuvrable and a recon shot of the LEQ12 sailing head-on upwind certainly showed that it’s not giving up much in terms of leeway with the sailors able to sail in a very high mode when eking up to a windward mark. Off the wind, Luna Rossa looked stable in flight and bear-aways were flat and fast – very much the trademark of this team.
A solid testing session for the Italians who are looking tantalising in this America’s Cup cycle with big hours on the water completed and a real air of confidence around the team that are many people’s pick to make it to the Match in Barcelona come October 2024. No sailing on Thursday, the team have Saturday and Sunday scheduled as potential sailing days, weather permitting.
On Water Recon Unit Notes: The Italian LEQ12 rolled out at 10:30 and the mast was quickly stepped for craning the yacht in by 1050. The usual protocol checks followed and dock-out was scheduled at 1145 with the team eager to tick off the boxes of the previous sailing day.
Similar to the latter, the forecast models showed some steady SE ‘Scirocco’ breeze of 13-17kn with the respective choppy sea-state ramping up quickly in the afternoon. As the breeze was already filling in at the dock, the team swapped to M2 mainsail instead of M1 expecting higher pressure. Chase2 towed the LEQ12 just off of the harbour piers when the mainsail was being hoisted in 12-14kn SSE and then paired with the J2 jib. The choppy sea-state seemed to increase over the day with short period wave of approximately 0.7m height from SE.
For whole sailing day, the LEQ12 had six crew onboard and once all set, the yacht was up and foiling on portside tack by 12:15 sailing mostly straight line for testing including four manoeuvres in the first 20 minutes. Chase2 dropped four marks setting up a 1nm racecourse with leeward and windward gates and the LEQ12 began an intensive race practice with the Chase Cat providing some interference.
Chase1 was observed engaging the prototype within legs and even on some pre-start practice with time on distance inducing some match race decision making onboard.
Between several breaks in which the sailors seemed to debrief, a total of 5 pre-starts were observed with approximately 5 upwind and 6 downwind legs. As the call for the end of the training day was made, the prototype performed two final roundups around the only mark left by Chase2. For the day, a total foiling time of 98 out of 210 minutes with 24 tacks, 21 gybes and a number of mark roundup manoeuvres. [Michele Melis: AC Recon].
Dock out: 1145 Dock-in: 1520
Conditions: 11:55 SSE 9-11kn / 12:35 ESE 11-14kn / 13:15 ESE 11-13kn / 14:30 SE 9-12kn
Weather AM: 23°c @ 1100, sunny.
Weather PM: 20°C @ 1300, sunny.
Sea State: 13:35 0.6-0.8m SE chop BF 4-5
Onboard Today:
Helms: Jimmy Spithill / Marco Gradoni / Francesco Bruni
Crew: Umberto Molineris / Andrea Tesei
Onboard (Joyride seats): Guido Gallinaro
Sails Used:
Mainsail M2 (MN2-1S): 3 hours 10 minutes
J1 (J1.5-1-A): 2 hours 55 minutes
Total Tacks: 24 - 17 foil-to-foil, 4 touch & go, 3 touchdowns.
Total Gybes: 21 – 15 foil-to-foil, 3 touch & go, 2 touchdowns.