BARCELONA DELIGHTS AS JEDDAH SPARKLES

The INEOS Britannia race-training continued with the pace noticeably lifting but the cream really rising to top. Once again, it was a dominant Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott who really stamped their authority over Dylan Fletcher-Scott and Ben Cornish over a six-flight series of pre-starts and full-on race practice.

Any issue that the ‘works’ boat ‘Athena’ had in terms of speed deficiency over the newer AC40 of the Athena Pathway programme ‘Sienna’ are old news now and the be-medalled duo really put the hammer down, commanding the pre-starts and showing no mercy when ahead. Still though, plenty for Rob Wilson, the team coach, to analyse after racing with a few mis-called laylines but as the race reports from Argentinian Olympic Coach, Sebastian Peri Brusa, below show, it was pretty much one way traffic all morning after a super early dock-out.

‘Sienna’ has been, in comparison, struggling a little bit so far this week but Ben Cornish, helming today in the port pod fessed-up in his usual honest manner saying: "We talked about it on the way in, we were probably giving away a bit with some rusty manoeuvres...a few of the gybes were tricky on our boat today but other than that the racing was really good, it was tight, we were setting up for splits at the top marks within half a boatlength of the other boat so it’s pushing both sets of crews to real high intensity which is great.”

A nosedive and a cockpit full of water ultimately ended the day for ‘Sienna’ but overall Ben described the day saying: “It was good, early start so a credit to the shore team here, their alarms were off when a few of us were deep into a sleep last night. We got the morning drainage over at the airport as we have done a few times lately and we made the most out of the morning.”

INEOS Britannia will be back out tomorrow to continue their two-boat race programme with the electronics issue on ‘Sienna’ expected to be sorted out this evening. Whilst the British docked-in at just before midday, NYYC American Magic were well into their final preparations to dock-out into the stable afternoon air for a one-boat testing session of extraordinary intensity. Setting just one jib – their bespoke LEQ12 J1.5 C2 jib and pairing it with the M1-C5 mainsail for the entire three and a half hour session, this was a day where Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison were in full attack mode, testing tack and gybe angles and modes with no less than 108 manoeuvres completed – approximately 2 manoeuvres a minute and at a 96% foil-to-foil ratio. Outstanding.

Cup legend Sean Clarkson, now into his ninth America’s Cup campaign, spoke to the recon team after sailing saying: “We’ve been very fortunate with the weather here the last two or three weeks, it’s been really, really, good – a bit chilly but it’s been nice. Today was just very consistent breeze so the one jib covered all the range, and we had a good day of trying different things, different techniques and different manoeuvres, a lot of sail shapes and profiles, it was a good day...different trims, heels, cants and feeling what felt good or bad.”

Asked specifically about the sail programme and where the Magic team are at in their programme, this wiliest of sailors gave the classic answer about time being the enemy of every campaign: “I think you can always do more because you can go down a rabbit hole but at some stage you’ve got to make decisions. Our race sails are being designed and built very soon so at a certain stage your runway is done but you could always take more time.” American Magic have been looking imperious in recent sessions and today was another belter from the team who will be back two-boat race practising tomorrow.

Over on the Red Sea in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it was another superb afternoon for the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team who once again were going hammer and tong against each other with Dean Barker again mentoring Maxime Bachelin on the ‘Red’ marked AC40 whilst the all-conquering duo of yesterday, Arnaud Psarofaghis and Nicolas Charbonnier took the ‘Black’ boat – both with full bespoke suits of exquisitely finished LEQ12 sails.

Full race reports are below but the recon team caught up with Brad Favelle, one of the true legends of sail design to chat through the impressive ‘fruit’ that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have been sporting. “Basically the decision for our winter base to become a primary source for our winter testing with the sail programme especially with the AC40s, that decision was made early and we had enough time to set up a fairly decent temporary loft which is more than ample to do what we need to do and with a diverse team and a big team we're slowly shifting gears between Barcelona and Jeddah...The AC40s are a great platform in LEQ mode at the moment, and it's given us real-world data and feedback to get back to the designers and the concepts and the models so yeah it's vital.”

And Brad continued: “The conditions on the Red Sea have been pretty favourable especially this trip, the last three days have been pretty textbook to get the tests done and today we were on the J2 and J3's and a fairly flat sea...Today was a little bit different weather than we've had the last two days with the overcast conditions and being inside here on the Creek sometimes we just poke our nose out at the entrance to realise what the conditions are like and today we were a little bit small on the jib for what we saw and how it prevailed in the first hour of the session was on the J2's which was the right call at the end of the day.”

Asked about the batten technology that so many of the teams, and especially the Swiss are tweaking and playing with, Brad offered: “The battens are obviously integral to supporting the flying shapes and matching the models, so you know we're developing battens on every sail every day, small tweaks, but you know the details are the difference at this end of the AC40 campaign.”

Another big day for the Swiss with some 94 manoeuvres counted and a 97% foil-to-foil ratio. Good by any measure and plenty more to come from the Jeddah training camp.

One other bit of news today – check out the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli social media channels for an absolutely astonishing nosedive and pitchpole by the Italian Youth Team. If ever there was any doubt about the resilience of the AC40 when pushed to the extremes, the video posted is a great testament to McConaghy’s build and the resilience of the AC40 masts in extremity. Well worth a look. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report: INEOS Britannia: The British craned to the water their two AC40s, Sienna(b) and Athena(a) in one-design foil configuration, at 06.23 and 06.54, respectively; that had been left with their masts up and out of the shed overnight. The team docked out at 07.45, as planned.

Both boats got on the tow and headed towards the airport area with no sails. Once there, at 08:20 one-design mainsails were hoisted, combined with the LEQ12 J2-4 on AC40(a) and a one-design J2 on AC40(b). A north-westerly offshore wind of 8 to 14 knots of intensity prevailed during the session, providing good conditions for racing.

From 08:40 till 09:05 both boats warmed up, sailing independently one from another, while the coaches set an upwind-downwind course with top and bottom gates.

Race 1: At 09:05 the first sequence of the day got underway. Athena had the port entry, while Sienna came in on starboard. During the last thirty seconds remaining to the start, boat A had full control of B, standing to leeward and very close, being both boats to windward of the starboard end layline. Athena locked Sienna and finally had a clear-ahead start. From there on, boat A covered boat B and extended all the time. After five tacks, A rounded the top right gate in the lead with an eight-second gap. B rounded the opposite top gate. On the downwind leg, A crossed ahead of B after both boats gybed once. However, A went too far to the left side (looking upwind) and overlayed the bottom right gate (always looking upwind), almost losing the position to B. A managed to round still in the lead one boat-length ahead of B, after coming back on fast high mode. B tacked immediately after rounding and fell-off the foils. At that moment the race was abandoned.

Race 2: Both boats switched entries. It was an even start with A to windward and B to leeward. Slight advantage for Athena that took advantage of a right shift right at the start. The parity continued for almost the entire upwind, with the two boats rounding the opposite top gates almost at the same time, B to the left and A to the right. On the downwind, after both boats did one gybe, B crossed just ahead. However, B had a poor second gybe and then an even a worse third gybe that ended up in a hard nosedive. At that moment the race was abandoned.

At 09:30 there was a twenty-minute break. Boat B had to re-attach the anemometer at the end of the bowsprit that got released on the nosedive.

Race 3: At 09:55 a third sequence started. This start saw both boats approach the starting line coming from far away, deep in the box, sailing on closed-hauled course managing time and distance, with a big lateral gap in between them. A to windward of B had a better start and was already ahead and to windward of B before the first tack. A covered B from there on and extended to round the top left gate after four tacks with a 10-second lead over B who headed to the opposite gate. A rounded the bottom right gate after three gybes and then the race was abandoned. B struggled to achieve clean gybes.

Races 4 and 5 saw boat B falling-off the foils just before the start. Both races were abandoned immediately after started. Not sure if they were already suffering consequences of the electronic issues that became evident a few minutes after.

At 10.15, boat B took a tow-line to the chase boat and the boat captain plus two shore-team members came onboard to work for half an hour inside the port side cockpit. Unfortunately, whatever problem they had, could not be solved, and that was the end of the day for Sienna. In the meantime, A sailed around waiting for B.

At 10:45 the wind had dropped considerably, and A changed the LEQ J2-4 for a One-design J1. However, ten minutes after, once it became clear that B could not solve the problem, both boats lowered their sails and headed back to the port on the tow.  Once docked at 11:55, the intention was to try to go out for an afternoon session. However, twenty minutes after, the team decided to end the sailing activities for the day. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on INEOS Britannia

On-Water Recon – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing's AC40-4 (Red) and AC40-7 (Black) were rolled out at 09:00 and 09:30 respectively. Other than standard checks, there was a focus sail control systems, with work observed carried out by the electronics and hydraulics techs, particularly around the traveller systems.

Both boats were prepared with full LE sail selections. Notably, the teams carried J1 sails off the dock before dock-out. The crew configurations remained unchanged from previous days, and no crew swaps were carried out. The team docked out at 12:30, with J3 sails initially hoisted.

Stint 1 (12:55 - 13:23, 11-15kn 215° @ 12:55) Sailing commenced from the Obhur Creek entrance, with both boats stopping after a couple of minutes to drop the J3 jibs in exchange for J2 jibs. The Black boat set off on an upwind/downwind, as the Red boat dropped the M1-4 to adjust top diagonal batten on the new M1-4 mainsail.

Stint 2 (13:27 - 14:01, 5-8kn 220° @ 13:20) The Black boat set off on a long upwind stretch on port, as Red finalised sail setup, then joining up with Black to commence a long stretch on starboard sailing in parallel, followed by a shorter stretch on starboard. The yachts then turned downwind and sailed in parallel, completing five gybes each.

Stint 3 (14:12 - 14:28) The team sailed split tacks upwind and split gybes downwind, before dropping the J2 jibs in exchange for J3 jibs, this time swapping the J3 sails between boats to assess performance differences.

Stint 4 (14:45 - 15:13, 7-11kn 235° @ 14:45) Four pre-starts were practiced, with Black entering on port for the first two starts, and Red entering on port for the following two starts.  

Stint 5 (15:16 - 15:33)  Start 5 saw Red enter on port, and with a clear start, the yachts continued into a two-lap race, with multiple lead changes, as Dean Barker and Max Bachelin on the Red boat won the race just ahead of Black. The course was set at 230 degrees.

Stint 6 (15:48 - 16:11, 6-9kn 230° @ 15:45) Start 6 saw Red enter on port, starting to windward of Black and leading the 1.5 lap race from start to finish at the second windward mark, then continuing back to base to finish the day.

Sails were dropped by 16:20 and the last boat was craned out at 17:15 to conclude the day. During the four-hour session on the water, the team spent 145 minutes sailing, achieving a 97% fully foiling rate across 94 manoeuvres. 

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: NYYC American Magic followed up a day of single one design AC40 sailing yesterday (Monday February 12) aboard ‘America’ with a day on ‘Magic’ using custom sails.

Magic was rolled out at 11.18 and was rigged and launched by 11.42 ahead of a 13.26 dock-out. Sails (M C5 mainsail and J1.5 C2 headsail) were hoisted at the harbour entrance with the boat leaving the harbour at 13.50.

With the southerly breeze blowing at only 6-7 knots from the south it took the crew close to 10 minutes to get airborne. Once up, though, the sailors launched into a 37-minute downwind flight that featured 20 foiling gybes and one touch and go gybe. After a 10-minute break and with the breeze now at 10 knots the crew set off on a second flight that lasted close to an hour and saw 18 foiling tacks, 11 foiling gybes, one touchdown gybe, and one touch and go gybe.

After just a two-minute break, the boat was airborne again for a 10-minute flight in 7-8 knots of breeze that featured two foiling tacks and eight foiling gybes. A 15-minute stop for a battery swap followed before a final hour long windward / leeward flight that saw 45 foiling tacks, 3 touch and go tacks, and one fall off the foils in a lull.

The boat sailed into the harbour at 1725 and was back on the dock at 1745.

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: NYYC American Magic followed up a day of single one design AC40 sailing yesterday (Monday February 12) aboard ‘America’ with a day on ‘Magic’ using custom sails.

Magic was rolled out at 11.18 and was rigged and launched by 11.42 ahead of a 13.26 dock-out. Sails (M C5 mainsail and J1.5 C2 headsail) were hoisted at the harbour entrance with the boat leaving the harbour at 13.50.

With the southerly breeze blowing at only 6-7 knots from the south it took the crew close to 10 minutes to get airborne. Once up, though, the sailors launched into a 37-minute downwind flight that featured 20 foiling gybes and one touch and go gybe. After a 10-minute break and with the breeze now at 10 knots the crew set off on a second flight that lasted close to an hour and saw 18 foiling tacks, 11 foiling gybes, one touchdown gybe, and one touch and go gybe.

After just a two-minute break, the boat was airborne again for a 10-minute flight in 7-8 knots of breeze that featured two foiling tacks and eight foiling gybes. A 15-minute stop for a battery swap followed before a final hour long windward / leeward flight that saw 45 foiling tacks, 3 touch and go tacks, and one fall off the foils in a lull.

The boat sailed into the harbour at 1725 and was back on the dock at 1745.