BRITAIN’S PARALLEL DIMENSION
It may well have been a short session, dictated by inclement early summer storm persistently hovering inland on the island of Mallorca, but again another superb day of two-boat testing as T6 went up against its rather beautiful little sister, the AC40. Remarkably the speed-profile, rather different to the performance profile, of both boats is similar but in T6 you suspect there’s a whole host of gears and modes that can be rifled through at the flick of a switch and it’s still the boat you struggle to take your eye off on a line-up.
Today wasn’t a day for hand-to-hand combat with the INEOS Britannia team opting for straight lining at an almost polite distance with each boat taking it in turn to hold either the windward or leeward position. Ben Ainslie stayed on the AC40 today, clearly building his hours ahead of the upcoming pre-regatta in Vilanova i La Geltrú in September and was joined by Giles Scott who swapped in from steering T6 yesterday. This left Dylan Fletcher-Scott and Ben Cornish, two superb talents to come to the America’s Cup arena, with the keys to the LEQ12 test platform and they looked a dynamic, comfortable and confident combination.
In light breeze, the sight of these benchmark boats in world sailing, both angling upwind with windward heel is something that can’t be unseen. A terrific sight out in Palma and a huge credit to the current concept of America’s Cup thinking. T6 riding relentlessly low to the surface looks powerful and logical. The AC40 in contrast looks alive, light, responsive and more than capable of holding a lane. It’s only downwind with the LEQ12 sailing on port gybe with the starboard long-span anhedral foil immersed where any noticeable, albeit minute, differences can be seen by the naked eye. T6 looks to eb able to hold deeper for longer in the angles and the exit speeds after the gybe appear a click higher. As the two boats traverse up the wind range, hopefully in the coming days, those differences could well be amplified if the team allow that pace to be shown.
Speaking afterwards, Giles Scott, Head of Sailing and such a key member of the INEOS Britannia team offered his usual fabulous insight saying: “The two yachts have been built for very different purposes and I suppose it’s reasonably opportunistic that they've ended up coming out reasonably even which from a sailing standpoint and the wider team standpoint we will be looking to take advantage of that. It’s always good to get two boats on the water, it sharpens us up as sailors obviously and also provides another data point for comparison which is really quite useful.”
It's very clear that the past month has been hugely productive for the team with long days on the water and the shore team doing a first-class job all round to get to this two-boat programme. Giles is looking ahead and with Barcelona looming fast added: “There's still a lot we need to get done in the next couple weeks now, but we have had a really good sailing block and we've been able to look at a lot of the test list items that ultimately have been rolling into the big design decisions that are in the pipeline for RB3 but yeah that being said it's going to be great to get over to see what Barcelona has to offer.”
INEOS Britannia will be a serious force at AC37 in Barcelona – there’s talent coursing through this team in every department and on the water, they certainly look on the money. Barcelona and the first regattas can’t come soon enough.
On-Water Recon Notes: The British America's Cup team squeezed in a second session of two boat sailing on Palma Bay today – albeit a short two-hour session due to the arrival of a threatening set of swirling thunderstorm cells from the centre of the Mallorca land mass.
With the skies darkening and the thunder already rumbling in the distance while the two boats were being rigged outside Palma Port shortly after midday, the two boats made a beeline for the clearer skies outside Palma Bay where the steadiest of the 6-9 knot southerly thermal breeze was blowing.
Making the most of the flat sea state – and perhaps also due to the lighter winds than the previous day – the two crews kept the manoeuvres to a minimum and focused instead in paralleling each other in long straight line runs. From our observers position it was hard to detect any noticeable difference between the two boats going upwind. When they turned downwind the AC40 was able to gybe easily while the heavier T6 was unable to pull off any airborne gybes. More windward heel was observed on the AC40 than on T6.
As the thunderstorms and torrential rain prevailed ashore the breeze began to steadily ease back forcing the T6 crew – helmsmen Ben Cornish and Dylan Fletcher with trimmers/flight controllers Luke Parkinson and Iain Jensen – called an end to the day at shortly after 1430 and after a long tow in were back on the dock at 1530.
A T6 only sailing day has been scheduled for tomorrow (Friday June 2).
*****Noted at launch yesterday but omitted from the report was the removal of the offset camera on the starboard foil (leaving just the central upper and lower cameras)*****
Recon Notes:
Dock-out: 1215 Dock-in: 1530
Conditions: 180 6-9 knots at midday. Fading sub 6 knots by 1500
Weather AM: Cloudy early morning with thunderstorm cells forming inland. 17-20°C.
Weather PM: Coastal thunderstorms. Clear skies offshore. 22°C.
Sea state PM: Flat
Onboard Today:
Helms LEQ12: Dylan Fletcher-Scott / Ben Cornish
Helms AC40: Ben Ainslie / Giles Scott
Crew LEQ12: Luke Parkinson / Iain Jensen (5th Man: Neil Hunter)
Crew AC40: Leigh McMillan / Bleddyn Mon
Sails Used:
Mainsail M1-2: 2 hours
Jib (J2-1): 1 hours 40 minutes
Total Tacks: 7 – 5 foil-to-foil, 0 touch & go, 2 touchdowns.
Total Gybes: 4 – 0 foil-to-foil, 0 touch & go, 4 touchdowns.
Take off Speed: 19 knots at 70-80° TWA. Take-offs were all ‘self’ today.