ALL ON IN JEDDAH, SAFETY FIRST IN BARCELONA

Alinghi Red Bull Racing, very much with the bit between their teeth at the moment, launched into a dying early-afternoon northerly breeze out in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia but what brewed over the horizon was something quite extraordinary.

Having started their first racing session after the initial downwind warm-up runs to the racecourse area off the Jeddah Corniche, the team looked all set for a full-on repeat of the previous four days with Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin teaming up on the latest of the team's AC40s - AC40-7 and the hard-pressing Phil Robertson and Nicolas Charbonnier joining forces on the older AC40 - AC40-4.

The first race was a classic, albeit a short up and down to the windward and leeward gates. Arnaud called the line perfectly and proved yet again that if you win the start, you take control and after a close battle upwind, led at the top mark. Downwind it was all on and the crucial move that the Swiss are working hard on nailing is the set-up for the leeward gate. Here it’s all too easy to lose distance by throwing in an extra manoeuvre or fatally to lose momentum in the wing wash of a fleet of AC40s. Smoothness of rounding and a fast angle into the mark and crucial and although Arnaud & Maxime performed a two-manoeuvre rounding, Phil and Nico put in a three manoeuvre but crucially came out with height and speed. The race was abandoned soon after but it would have been interesting to see who would have come out on top – for sure the gap was closing.

Then came the storm, with the wind shifting some 50 degrees and suddenly the anemometers were going crazy as rain, lightning and big squally puffs filtered across the racecourse area in front of the Floating Mosque. The recon team reported gusts well in excess of 25 knots and in those conditions the sailors dropped their jibs, hove-to under mainsails, and rode out the squalls on a long tow-line. Good seamanship from the sailors and even better co-ordination and calm heads on the chase boat teams. Once the squall was through, mainsails were lowered, and the boats returned to their dock down the Obhur Creek.

Speaking afterwards Matt Kelly, one of the Electronics Engineers for Alinghi Red Bull Racing  commented: “We've had a fantastic first week, we've had some really consistent sailing apart from today and you know we're really looking forward to the regatta at the end of November…our forecast did have a weather system come through but I don't think we expected it to put an end to our day, we obviously had this big  front come through, squally lightning the team did really well to keep the boats upright and everyone safe.”

Meanwhile over in Barcelona, it was just ‘one of those days’ for INEOS Britannia who took ‘T6’ their LEQ12 purpose-built prototype pretty much into the unknown for its fifth day of sailing in succession. Indeed, we have to go as far back as August 2023 to see sailing blocks of four days when they completed the feat on the 1-4^thAugust and 16-19^th August. So technical is ‘T6’ replete with a barrage of sensors on literally every component that usually the shore team and technicians baulk at big blocks of sailing as sea-water ingress is an ever present in such a wet boat and training is meaningless without calibration and accurate data capture.

Nonetheless, the team docked out on time before midday and set about the standard protocols before heading off downwind at pace over two legs and then a short upwind before calling a halt to the day. This is experience and boat preservation coming through from the sailing team led by Giles Scott and Dylan Fletcher-Scott with Neil Hunter and Leigh McMillan on trim, as they spotted an electronic malfunction that unfortunately couldn’t be solved on the water. ‘T6’ was brought ashore and the midnight oil will be burned by the superbly efficient INEOS Britannia shore team who will strip the boat to its core, check and double-check everything before sailing resumes on Monday.

Speaking afterwards, a calm voice of reason was heard from the highly experienced Leigh McMillan who put it all in perspective saying: “Fifth day on the trot and it’s probably the first time we've done that with ‘T6,’ normally it spends a bit more time just kind of getting a fine tooth comb going over all of the systems and it was a tricky breeze out there today, very patching and gusty, we saw some big gusts, we saw 25-27 knots at one point on the chase boat back when we were trying to diagnose a couple of issues and yes it's unfortunate that we just had a couple of technical issues on the boat that cut the day shorter than we'd hoped unfortunately.”

And Leigh went on to say: “They’re obviously incredibly technical boats, there’s electronics and sensors all over it calibration fences the lot you know covering everything on the whole boat and so yeah they require a lot of maintenance, a lot of care, they’re very sensitive bits of equipment some of these sensors and so sometimes they kind of don't play 100% ball…I think it's just part of the course of staying on top of every single little connector and sensor on this boat, and little bit of water getting in here and there you know overtime it’s had a few days and probably hasn't had time to dry out fully from some of the wet days so yeah nothing new but just one of those just playing it safe and making sure it's good to go for the weeks to come.”

Brilliant week overall for INEOS Britannia who have bounced back magnificently from the rudder failure on the 6^th October and have brought ‘T6’ back online quite sensationally. There’s a great buzz around the team and a lot of anticipation for a ‘step-on’ in their AC40 sailing when the America’s Cup lands in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the end of November. More to come first with ‘T6’ next week as they continue their sail evaluation and with still two wing and foil cards to play, could we start to see the emergence of new tech before the team head off to the Red Sea?

We shall see but exciting times for British fans and spectators of the Challenger of Record. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing rolled out their AC40-4 (Yellow) and AC40-7 (Red) at 09:00 and 09:30 respectively. Both boats were in the water by 10:00 and pre-sailing checks were carried out. One-Design sails were prepared on the dock as FCS checked were carried out. The north wind of the morning died before midday, as the team prepared for 12:30 dock out. The yachts were towed out to the Red Sea and one design J2 jibs were hoisted.

The yellow boat started sailing at 12:55 towards the Jeddah Waterfront, while the red boat encountered issues, with hydraulics and electronics techs working at the clew.

Stint 1:

- The red team set off at 13:30 and joined the yellow team, who seemed to have problems of their own. In the meantime, the red team set off on a warmup lap around the course.

- the yellow team joined at 13:45 and sailed a quick warmup before racing

- Race 1 (1 lap) - red boat sails over the yellow boat and hooks up, clear start.

- red leads the tacking battle up to the windward gate and controls the downwind.

- Red performs a two-point rounding of the leeward gate, losing a bit of distance, while the yellow boat performs a three-point rounding with better grip, exiting higher than red and tacking off to the right. Both boats then come to a stop and prepare for the next race.

Stint 2:

- wind turns 50 degrees to the left and increases with gusts of 16kn. A storm seems to be arriving on the horizon. Both boats drop J2 jibs and are put on long tow lines from respective chase boats. Wind turns left another 80 degrees, coming from the land. Wind increases with gusts well over 25 knots. A few close moments of the boats heeled over on their side, but no capsizes.

By 15:20 the storm passed over and the wind died, giving opportunity for mainsails to be dropped. The team then allowed for the bad weather to pass over the base before both boats were cautiously towed back.

On-Water Recon Report – INEOS Britannia: Team INEOS Britannia rolled out their LEQ12 at 09:30 am, with foil wing and flap #1 on the port side, foil wing and flap #2 on the starboard side, and with the LEQ R01 rudder. Two Go-Pro cameras were identified, one on each rail pointing up, probably to take pictures of the mainsail profile. The three patches on the mast continue to be there, as well as the camera on the anemometer stuck on the bow, pointing backwards towards the jib.

‘T6’ was craned to the water at 10:12 and the team docked out at 11:30, as planned, with Dylan Fletcher and Neil Hunter on starboard, and with Giles Scott and Leigh McMillan on port.

The MN1-3 mainsail and J4-2 jib were selected for today´s session and were the only sails used during the day. Both sails were hoisted at 11:50, and at 12:04, respectively, after coming out from the port. The issues the team had on the mainsail lock during the past days, seemed to be solved.

The team started sailing at 12:20 and after doing two short downwinds and one short upwind, performing three gybes and tacks, the boat stopped, and it turned out to be the end of the day.

‘T6’ stayed heading to the wind, stopped, with no chase boat next to it, for approximately 45 minutes. Clear indication that something was not running properly. Nothing specific could be identified. In the meantime, the jib was lowered and folded.

Once ashore, in the interview, Leigh McMillan, trimmer on port side, explained that they had an electronic issue and that they decided to play conservative and head back to the base, even-though he believed it would have been possible to continue with the session.

‘T6’ lowered the mainsail at 13.38 while coming back on the tow, entered the port on the tow, foiling, at 13:50, docked at 14:05 and was craned out of the water at 14:30.

INEOS Britannia plans to resume their sailing sessions on T6 from Monday next week. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on INEOS Britannia