FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR VILANOVA

However, for two of the teams it was back to training immediately with NYYC American Magic launching their highly modified AC40 ‘America’ with a host of new componentry into very light airs on Thursday where self-flight was impossible, and the Chase Boat team were busy. With American Magic their foil development seems to just get more and more refined with ever-slenderer wings and rudder profiles with the team now running the seventh upgrade, coded ‘G’, to both their port and starboard foils. A new and desperately small rudder coded mischievously ‘AB’ was brought out on Thursday whilst on the water, the team switched out two versions of their J1 jib for the brief minutes they could sustain flight in the sub 4 knot conditions.

It's a relentless and marginal gains programme that the Americans are adopting and it’s impressive to watch. Anderson Reggio, part of the American Magic Performance Analysis Team, summed up the thought process and the lessons learned when he said: “Every time you're able to get these boats in the water you know as long as you're able to get up on the foils you're going to learn something and we definitely learned a few things today but not as much as we had hoped as the breeze and really stick around much.”

And he continued: “The other boat that we're going to be racing next week is in the shed so we brought ‘America’ back out today. We saw the forecast was on the light side and we looked sort of at the list of what we had to tick off in the light air and we put ‘America’ in the water for that purpose today…unfortunately we probably spent more time in the snack bag that we did on the foils today but we got a manoeuvre or two in there and checked a couple of our objectives for the day, not the entirety on the list but such it is on the lighter days.”

 American Magic are looking good ahead of the Preliminary Regatta and when asked about the pressure building in the sailing squad, Anderson definitely feels it, saying: “Any time you line up two boats next to one another it's a race. Our guys will want to do as best they can and after the practise racing, we debriefed it all this morning, we learned some good lessons that we can apply to the racing next week to continue to get faster in one design mode – looking forward to Vilanova for sure.”

On Friday, Alinghi Red Bull Racing brought not one but two AC40s in strict one-design mode and in slightly more productive conditions than the Thursday session, desperate to keep on eking those gains and work on their manoeuvres. It was a three-hour session that resolutely stayed in the 4-7 knot region that saw Maxime Bachelin and Nicolas Charbonnier take the helms of AC40-7 (the newest AC40) with Arnaud Psarofaghis still recovering from illness, whilst Dean Barker and Pietro Sibello hoped to provide a stern test on the wheels of AC40-4.

However, for the Swiss it was a challenging day with both boats falling off the foils and struggling for flight. When they did get airborne it was a desperate act of maintaining flight with over-sheeted mainsails above the centreline and high angles as the sailors chased the zephyrs. A busy afternoon for the Chase Boat team launching the boats and long periods where any manoeuvre action was severely limited. After a stellar attempt to get another valuable training day under their belt, the team called quits and headed back to dock at 4.30pm.

Speaking afterwards, Yves Detrey, one of the most experienced and decorated sailors in this America’s Cup cycle was realistic about the day saying: “Yesterday wasn’t a great day either, very light, so we were trying to make most of it this week after the training and we were hoping for a little bit more breeze so we just gave it a try, unfortunately it never picked up above 7 knots so it was pretty hard.”

Talking about the practice racing held in Barcelona earlier in the week and whether the team were being ‘conservative’ on the racecourse, Yves commented: “I don't think we were very conservative. I think obviously when it’s the sea state, we're trying to find the limit between going fast and achieve manoeuvres and not avoiding too many crashes and it was good out there… the racing situation is fairly new for these boats and for everyone I mean we've been foiling a lot with these boats and practising with two boats but when they are five or six boats on the line, it's different things, and playing with boundaries and tactics and I think there's a lot to do here.”

And looking forward to Vilanova, Yves Detrey gave a great answer about where the focus is for Alinghi Red Bull Racing saying: “I think it’s to get all the manoeuvres right because there's a lot of metres and on every manoeuvre. You can fight for 0.2 of a knot on a long straight-line but then if you miss your manoeuvres, you lose a lot more.”

Vilanova i La Geltrú is just around the corner now for all the sailors and the sense of anticipation is building from both within the teams and from the fans around the world who will be coming to the venue or watching on the free-to-air livestream. Stay tuned.

On-Water Recon Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing prepped their AC40-4 and AC40-7, rolling them out at 11:45 and 12:10 respectively. Both yachts had one design foils. The AC40-4 was rigged with the M1-2 LE mainsail and the J1-2 LE jib, while the AC40-7 kept one design sails with the distinct Vilanova Preliminary Regatta branding at the mainsail head. A Starlink Receiver has been added to the roof of the Catalyst chase boat for WIFI connectivity.

Wind conditions shifted from a 'Xaloc' South East wind to a 'Garbi' thermal South wind, ranging from 3-7kn. Sea state was mostly flat, with some small waves bouncing off the breakwater walls.

Substituting for Arnaud Psarofaghis (apparently ill), Nico Charbonnier stepped up into the starboard helm, alongside Maxime Bachelin on port. Pietro Sibello replaced Phil Robertson on the AC40-4, with Dean Barker remaining on the port helm.

Both boats docked out at 14:00, sails hoisted in port. The AC40-4 (LE) headed North towards the Forum, while the AC40-7 (OD) remained in the sailing area between Port Olimpic and the W Hotel. Soon after, the AC40-7 joined its counterpart near the Forum.

The day's sailing was challenging due to the lack of wind. Displacement sailing marked the initial stint with wind around 4-6kn winds. Subsequent tow-starts for both yachts repeatedly failed to maintain flight for prolonged durations. The longest flight period neared a mere five minutes after a tow start from the W Hotel, heading offshore. The mainsail traveller was observed being pumped vigorously as the yacht met lulls and began falling to windward.

Tacking proved unsuccessful, with two attempts resulting in touchdown. By 16:30, both yachts lowered sails, signalling the end of the session, and returned to base via tow.

Throughout the day, the recon boat covered a distance of 22 nautical miles observing the Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s near three-hour stint on the water.

On-Water Recon Unit Report: NYYC American Magic (Thursday 7^th September): Short day on the water for the American Magic team who tried to get in the fight with skimpy wind conditions. The roll-out started at 10:50h, when ‘America’ went out from the shed with new gear:

New port Foil Arm AM-LEQ-FAS2 #2.

New Starboard Wing Foil AM-LEQ-FW2 #2 version G.

New port Wing Foil AM-LEQ-FW3 #3 version G.

New Rudder AM-LEQ-R1 #1 version AB.

The expectations for today were back on the development and testing the new components, but the lack of wind made It difficult. They docked-out at 13:00h and hoisted the Main and J1 inside the harbour, when the wind was barely reaching 4knts 130º. Self-take-off didn't seem possible, so at 13:32h one of the c haseboats towed the AC40 for 5' at 25knts. They did 2 tacks and stopped foiling for a J1 change when the wind dropped. At 13:55h after some adjustments they started towing the boat again, this time on their port side. After repeating the same procedure once again and not being able to sail more than 3' without losing the flight, they decided to wait half an hour. At 15:15h, after two more failure towing start attempts they went straight back to port, where they lowered the sails at 15:25h. Elia Miquel - Recon Unit NYYC