SOLID TRAINING SESSIONS IN BARCELONA AND CAGLIARI

In Sardinia it was another case of docking-out early to catch the morning breeze with both the LEQ12 and the AC40 punching out into the Bay of Angels at 8am and with a switched up crew. Marco Gradoni joined Jimmy Spithill on the AC40 whilst Francesco Bruni and Ruggero Tita took charge of the LEQ12.

With the anemometer barely breaching 10 knots, this was a day for the lighter-weight AC40 to really show its potency in the pre-starts and out of seven, it was six to the AC40 and even stevens on the very last start. Impressive performance in the start box from Spithill and Gradoni who had a game-plan and stuck to it, unafraid to luff aggressively when to leeward and more than capable of doing the ‘monohull foiling dance’ back to the line with the kill-speed swoops and positional fakery.

Communication is something that everyone is working super-hard on at the moment and Phillippe Presti, Racing Coach for Luna Rossa alluded as much saying: “We did a good debrief yesterday, mainly about the communication and you know the way to set up our strategy around the pre-start which is very specific for these boats especially in this light air and very pleased today to listen to the comms yeah very nice and yeah I wish we get more breeze for the next sessions.”

Talking about the benefits of the two-boat training despite the obvious upwind speed advantage of the LEQ12, Philippe added: “Well it’s pretty close, I mean with pre starts you know you don't need to have close performance to do something very interesting because it’s something that is very hard to model in the simulator is the ‘gas’ - the bad air effect - and you know I think it's very good to have two boats of similar performance so you can visualise that and then have a good start despite the gas of the boat in front of you, so very good learning.”

Back in Barcelona it was an eventful day for NYYC American Magic who had a tricky first couple of hours with numerous breakdowns but as yachting journalist and recon analyst Justin Chisholm accurately described it was ‘patience and persistence’ that were the watchwords of the Americans today. It’s very clear that ‘Patriot,’ the team’s Auckland-designed AC75 struggles in the Barcelona chop with a deep volume hull design that gets easily sucked into displacement aligned with anhedral foils that are certainly showing their design-age. However once flatter water can be found, she’s an absolute weapon and as the afternoon progressed, the performance levels went through the roof.

A nasty nosedive saw Paul Goodison coming off the boat as a precaution with a heavily sprained wrist – thankfully nothing more – and Luca Calabrese stepped in to drive alongside Tom Slingsby. Describing the situation, Tom said afterwards: “Well it's simple really we washed the rudder out, we got a little too high, too much heel and in these boats they're very easy to sail if you've got zero heel or you're a couple of degrees to windward, even a couple to leeward, but as soon as you get 5° one way the rudder wants to let go very easily and we just got a gust and a bad wave and the heel got wrong washed the rudder out and then a big nosedive...Goody (Paul Goodison) had to come in, he sort of sprained his wrist in that crash and from what I hear it's okay, it's just a bit of a sprain but yeah that meant but he couldn't do the rest of the session. The rest of us, we got knocked around a bit but we were okay, all fine, but yeah unfortunately Goody took a bit of a knock.”

Tom also gave some colour to the day saying: “Patriot doesn't like the bump, it's pretty obvious with the flat bottom on this boat and without the bustle, every time you touch down it's a lot of drag, a lot of area, so flat water this boat excels and also the foils - a T foil is a lot nicer in waves and these Y foils are pretty good when it's flat water so yeah at the end we found flatter water close to shore and we stayed in there most of the time.”

The Americans were on the water for just under five-and-a-half hours -m precious winter training time ahead of the AC75 being de-commissioned and the team switching to two-boat AC40 training and development in the coming days.

INEOS Britannia, meanwhile, brought an additional touch of high octane sailing with their two AC40s blasting around the America’s Cup course area and starting to really ramp up both the match-racing and pre-start intensity whilst also encouraging their Youth & Women’s team sailors with both Hannah Mills and Nick Robins getting time on the AC40. When racing started over virtual courses, Dylan Fletcher-Scott and Ben Cornish helmed AC40 ‘Athena’ whilst Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott took charge of the newest AC40 ‘Sienna.’

With the recon team reporting very little speed differences throughout the session on both timed runs and around the course, it was interesting to note that in the match-racing it was ‘Athena’ that won both races. As we’ve seen elsewhere with all the teams, there are places up for grabs on the AC75 and everyone is beginning to get ultra-competitive to try and stake their claim for a place. The British are no different in that respect. 

Speaking afterwards Dylan Fletcher-Scott summed the day up accurately saying: “To be honest the difference between the boats is very, very, small. Kind of nice today to do some speed-work and work on a few things and yeah as you saw the boats were very level pegging all day.”

Asked what teams INEOS Britannia feared in the match-racing, Dylan commented: “You know I’m sure the teams are all very strong. I think we're very lucky to have such a talented group of individuals and obviously Ben (Ainslie) and Giles (Scott) are hugely experienced in this area. It's good to throw the 40s round and try some things out so I think everyone enjoyed it and will be pushing more and more.”

The forecast for the rest of the week across the Mediterranean is for marginal conditions so the meteorologists will be earning their keep looking for weather windows. Stay tuned. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: Patience and persistence were the two watchwords of NYYC American Magic's five-hour day on the water which saw the first half of the session marred by a series of technical issues with their second generation AC75 ‘Patriot.’ The team spent these first two and a half hours in stop/start mode, with much more time spent head to wind effecting repairs than up on foils. 

The sailing team's patience and persistence was rewarded however with a much more productive second half to the session where ‘Patriot’ looked to almost be back to full strength.

The team rolled out at 0850 this morning and had the boat rigged and launched by 0910. Dock-out was delayed on the advice of the team's weather experts who wanted to give the forecast south westerly breeze a chance to properly develop. After docking out at 1200 the team had the MN7 mainsail and J1.5-2 headsail hoisted inside the harbour entrance at 1220 and the boat sailed out of the harbour a few minutes later.

An initial tow up due to the 6-7 knot breeze resulted in a 10-minute flight which ended when the boat turned downwind and sailed out of the new 10 knot band of wind coming in from 260 degrees. The next flight ended abruptly after five minutes when the rudder elevator broke the surface downwind on port, which dropped the stern abruptly and then nosedived the boat into the back of a wave before emerging on the other gybe with the wind instruments dangling from the bowsprit.

Port helmsman Paul Goodison left the boat with a reported sprained wrist and was replaced by Lucas Calabrese for the rest of the day. There were many more short flights and long breaks for repairs – including what looked to be the replacement of one or both of the hydraulic rams used to control the mainsheet traveller.

Then at the end of a 15-minute stop in the flat water by the harbour mouth a flat rectangular unit was handed off the yacht to the chase boat. After this the boat looked transformed and the crew were able to complete long freestyle windward / leeward laps and pull off foiling tacks and gybes seemingly with ease. It wasn't completely perfect however as there were a number of ‘touch and go’ splash downs during the second half of the day.

Time was called at shortly before 1700 with the boat back on the dock by 1723. Another sailing session is scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday January 23.

On-Water Recon Report – Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: The Italian team rolled out their AC40 (white) at 7:30 and their LEQ12(red) at 7:55, stepped masts and craned in respectively at 7:45 and 8:10. As previous days, both wings of the red boat were equipped with two GoPros each. The previously detected modification on Wing01 and rudder elevator were confirmed by the team’s 51st declaration. Compared to previous days, helm and trimmers swapped between boats before docking the yachts out at 9:15. Out on the bay, the forecast looked similar to previous sailing day: lighter than forecasted, flat water and 8-10kn from 305°. Considering the breeze, M1-2 was paired to the J1-1 on red and the M1 OD was paired to J1 OD on white.

As white self-took-off, the GoPros were activated on red’s wings before being towed up on port tack and bearing away shortly after. Both boats started sailing around a virtual course while marks were being set up.

After two individual starts, red and white tested the course sailing an upwind and a downwind leg. The 1st official prestart was observed at 10:05 with white on port and red on starboard entries. Both yachts sailed towards the lower right box bottom before turning up. White led the start and red seemed to start 2-3 seconds later tacking off right away. Both yachts sailed half the leg before bearing away to keep up the start practices.

The pressure seemed to be shifting slightly to the right and decreasing to 7-9kn 320°. Before the 2nd start, the LEQ12 fell off the foils after an unsuccessful JK. A self-take-off followed and the 2nd prestart was lively with white on port and red on starboard. Both boats started on time, white further down the pin. During the upwind leg, white seemed to squeeze red with a high mode forcing red to tack away.

The 3rd prestart unfolded similar to the second with both yachts down the right bottom and turning up towards the line. Red chased white and tacked right over the starting line. During the 4th, the breeze seemed to be suddenly dying, both yachts came off the foils whilst heading up. It became a drag race with white being able to stand up on the foils quicker than red and winning this start by 25 seconds.

Red boat was then towed up, and the 5th prestart took place with, once again, white on port and red on starboard. White was almost late for its entry, but still able to pull off another start beating the red boat which fell off the foils after a manoeuvre. Breeze was still marginal with 6-8kn from 320°.

On the 6th start, red was on port and white on starboard. Once again, for the LEQ12 the breeze seemed to not be enough to stay up on the foils, handing the prestart win to white. Both yachts decelerated and tow lines were passed by the Chase Boats for a longer break of 20 minutes waiting for some profitable puffs.

Once the wind seemed to pick up slightly again, both yachts were towed up and sailed similar angles upwind and downwind, engaging occasionally covering the manoeuvre of the opponent. The higher manoeuvrability of white during tacks and gybes certainly proves an advantage compared to the longer two boards transitions of red. However, on the longer straight line runs, the LEQ12 seemed to be definitely quicker than the AC40.

As the breeze finally picked up again, red and white headed quickly towards the leeward gate. For the 7th start, red was on port and white on starboard. Both boats started on time with white closer to the committee boat end and red closer to pin which tacked to split. As racing was live, several lead changes took place with white in front on the first cross, red on the second and finally white on the third. Racing was then cancelled due to a ferry coming through and the day was called for the LEQ12 with approx. 95 minutes foiling time and approx. 36 tacks and 39 gybes [Michele Melis AC Recon].

On-Water Recon Report – INEOS Britannia: Team INEOS Britannia rolled out their two AC40s, Athena(a) and Sienna(b), at 08.30am and 10.00am, respectively. Both boats on complete on one-design configuration. At 08.55 Athena(a) was craned to the water, while Sienna(b) was sent almost two hours after. The team docked out at 11:35, as planned.

One-design mainsails and J2s were hoisted while coming out of the harbour at 11:40 and 11:45, respectively. At 11:50 the training started with each AC40 sailing on their own, doing some warm-up tacks and gybes in a marginal 5 to 6 knots south-westerly breeze.

At 12:30 there was a first break in which Hannah Mills, who was steering on the starboard side of AC40(b), got replaced by Ben Ainslie. From 12:30 till 13:30 the wind intensity decreased considerably, and both boats were unable to take-off without towing assistance. During this hour, not much sailing happened.

Finally, at 13:45, the forecasted south-westerly kicked in, averaging 12 to 14 knots, and the training was back on. The J2s were replaced by J3s on both boats, and then both AC40s were off for speed testing. One long downwind and one long upwind were carried out.

The parity in between both boats was remarkable, both while going upwind and downwind. No specific differences in boat balance, sails trimming, or boat tunning could be identified.

After that one speed test, at 14:55 once back at the race-course area, there was a new half an hour break in which a batteries replacement took place. Before closing the day, after three warm-up laps and a few practice pre-starts, two two-lap upwind-downwind virtual races were carried out using virtual marks and virtual boundaries. Both match races were won by AC40(a). There was a third start, but the race was abandoned at the top mark, when both boats continued to sail upwind towards the port.

Both AC40s entered the harbour at 17:05. Sails were lowered a few minutes after and the team docked at 17:25. Team IB plans to resume their two-boat training program tomorrow, with an early morning session. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on INEOS Britannia