GREMLINS & MODEL VALIDATION

For all the teams it’s about refinement now. Making systems work more efficiently and playing with sail construction to extend the operational window on the jibs whilst inducing more control on the mainsail. This is the period where the America’s Cup is won and lost and it’s endless hours on the water, more often than not in straight-line, with cameras and imaging devices capturing every nuance of the sailor’s trim.

For Alinghi Red Bull Racing it was exactly that today in marginal conditions in Barcelona where the only jibs they could use and analyse were the J1 and J2. The cross-over between the two is a fine line but the sailing team do appear to look more comfortable on the J2 set-up and seem to be able to play with shape more effectively through the puffs. In the sunlight, the 3DL sailcloth shimmers and gives away clues to how the Swiss are maintaining flight, power and pace with so much emphasis on the leech of the mainsail and the critical play-off between traveller and mainsheet ram adjustments.

Gautier Sergent, one of the key members of the sail design team at Alinghi Red Bull Racing explained the process saying: “A big part of the job is to validate the model so when we go on the water, we call that ‘model validation’ which is making sure that what we see on the water is what we see in the models and if we get confidence on the AC40 that means whatever we do to the AC75 would also be applicable.” 

And Gautier continued: “Today we had a light day so that was a good opportunity to for us to test marginal conditions, there's always more to learn…the breeze was very unsteady, it was really puffy and very marginal as well, so you know if we’re sailing in six to seven knots and you have one less knot, you'll just touchdown, it's not enough.”

Alinghi Red Bull Racing will be packing up both of their AC40’s very soon to be shipped down to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the second Preliminary Regatta and, as already confirmed yesterday by Rodney Ardern, the plan is to continue the testing schedule down there with one or perhaps both boats out of the One-Design format. The shift back in Barcelona is towards the AC75 and the team will be focussing on ‘BoatZero’ for the next few weeks. Interesting days for the hard-charging Swiss. 

Out in Cagliari meanwhile, the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team got back into their LEQ12 prototype after some four weeks of concentration on the AC40 programme. It was a strange day on the Bay of Angels with the offshore Mistral fighting with the sea-breeze when the skies cleared and saw the team chasing the patterns. With a beautiful backdrop, Jimmy Spithill and Marco Gradoni clicked together on the helms and sent a largely unchanged (in terms of set-up) Luna Rossa through its paces, getting the crew-work up to speed and building the muscle memory back into the control functions.

The recon team noted a few issues onboard with the foil cant system but as Hamish Wilcox, the uber-coach to the Italian team commented: “There's always gremlins that creep in after almost a month of not sailing, so we found a few gremlins and it's good to just give it a shake out today and obviously shake some rust off the sailors because it's been a while to sail this boat, it’s very tricky to sail, and shake some rust out of the boat as well and find some problems to fix.” 

Hamish has been pleased with the progress on the water and believes that the LEQ12 has been a perfect platform for the sailors to step on up to the team’s new AC75 when it’s delivered next year, saying: “The LEQ12 Luna Rossa is a tricky boat to sail so I think it's going to be really good training for us for moving to the AC75. I think the transition out of that boat to the AC75 will be a smoother one than would otherwise be. The AC40 obviously with the autopilot and the simplicity of its functions makes for a really interesting platform as well, you’re on a level playing field and the sailors have got to perform on that level playing field, so both are really interesting and really fascinating.”

The Italian team very much look the part both on and off the water and are winding up to present a mighty challenge for the 37^th America’s Cup, now a little over a year away from the Match. Much will depend on the initial design and then the ability to work the boat up through the Challenger Selection Series as they did so magnificently at AC36 in Auckland 2021. Watch this team with interest. No stones left unturned. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Unit Report – Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: After almost four weeks of keeping the LEQ12 in the shed, the Italian team rolled out their prototype at 11:15, craning it in twenty minutes later. The appendage configuration seemed to have remained unchanged compared to ‘Day 86’ with the removal of the inboard tip winglet on the port side anhedral wing and flat wing03 on starboard.

During routine checks the team seemed to be spending most time on comms check, rudder rake checks from all four crew pods and, even more intensively, testing board rises/drops, perhaps running into some issues on the Foil Cant System.

At 13:15 the offshore Mistral breeze was still quite present in the Bay, approx. 8-10 knots from 330TWA. The team towed up their LEQ12 after having locked in the newer mainsail M1-2 and pairing it with their biggest J1-1 jib. The LEQ12 was boarded by 4 crew only and towed up on starboard tack by Chase2.

The breeze had turned very light at 4-6 knots and, unable to keep the yacht foiling, this procedure was repeated several times before a tow run of some minutes at a speed of 25kn was recorded. Once back in displacement shortly after having released the tow line, the team took a quick break before setting course closer inshore with increased offshore breeze of approximately 10-12kn. Just outside the harbour the LEQ12 found some steady breeze and was able to sail for two short stints even completing some foil-to-foil manoeuvrers end-plating the hull on the flat waters. After trimming up, the LEQ12 suddenly decelerated and lowered the sails, perhaps due to a speculative issue on the hydraulic systems. The day was called after a total of 7 tacks, 3 gybes, and approx. 14 total minutes foiling time (Michele Melis AC Recon).

On-Water Recon Unit Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing went for another sailing session with their focus on aero testing in marginal wind conditions.

The Swiss rolled out their AC40-7 at 11:30h equipped with one-design foils. The yacht was subsequently craned in and placed alongside the chase boat. After pre-sailing checks, the team proceeded to dock out at 14:05h with Arnaud Psarofaghis, Maxime Bachelin, Yves Detrey and Bryan Mettraux onboard. They hoisted the mainsail and J1 inside the port, where they commenced a tow to take them two nautical miles away from the coast.

Wind conditions were marginal during the session with a light and unsteady 6 knots of breeze from 110º accompanied by a 0.1m flat sea state with a 3s period.

At 14:45h the AC40 started foiling upwind in a straight line on port tack after one assisted take-off. They did one tack, and after 15 minutes stopped because of not enough power in their sails. At 15:06h they did another assisted take-off which lasted 10 minutes and ended in a touchdown gybe. Followed by another tow, this time sailing downwind-upwind 6NM away, where they reached 30knts on the tow and ended up in the same touchdown.

With an unsteady 6 knots breeze, the sailors were trying several times to go from reaching to 30 degrees upwind, without losing their flight, which was apparently not possible, as they were touching-down instantly. By the time they lowered the J1 and hoisted the J2-2-LE the Recon boat had to leave the session to go to the fuel station. Once back, they were towing the boat back inside the harbour, without any crew configuration change. They lowered the sails inside the port and docked in by 17:40h.

The team spent three hours on the water, covering 40NM, of which 60 minutes were spent sailing. Six manoeuvres were performed, four of them were fully foiling.