FRENCH LOOKING GOOD AS MAGIC TWO-BOATS

For the French it’s all about time-in-the-boat now as Quentin Delapierre and Kevin Peponnet, the pin-ups of the French racing scene, look to drive the programme forward with just the one AC40 as a training vessel. Today in conditions described as ‘tricky’, the technique is clearly coming along but the big issue was swell with wave heights topping at up to one metre that caused several nosedives and stuffs. Manoeuvres looked positive and exit speeds appeared high once the team slowed the gybes down with little ride height differential and good trim provided by Matthieu Vandame and Jason Waterhouse.

A long session of almost five hours, the sailors battled on into the early evening, continuing to build the technique playbook and found some flatter waters near the harbour entrance in the final stint where they could get some decent laps in. With the auto-pilot switched off and full manual control, this was a good session for the French who are high on the vertical learning curve and making decent progress.

Speaking afterwards, Bruno Dubois one of the key architects and Principals of the Orient Express Racing Team spoke about the design that the team purchased off the Defenders, Emirates Team New Zealand saying: “We bought a design package, it's the latest design that’s available with (Emirates) Team New Zealand and that includes pretty much everything so it helps us to make a shortcut with way less people, we don't have the same budget as the others so it's a good way for us to get back into the Cup into this boat with the AC75. It was the best way to do it.”

On the subject of optimisation, Bruno added: “If we manage to spend 100% of our time to understand what the design package is exactly, and how it works, I think it will be an amazing success for us. We’re better to understand that and after that we'll see to optimise it but honestly everybody will start sailing in April and May and by August we're racing, you know you need a couple of months to understand what they're doing the best but yes we can continue to optimise and develop if necessary.”

Asked what success looked like, Bruno was candid saying: “The success will be to have the two same design in the final of the America’s Cup - Team New Zealand and the French together, that will be the success for me.”

Speaking about the sail design programme and asked whether there was any additional pressure on the sailmaking team to come up with advances, Bruno responded: “No I'm not too afraid about that, we are on track, we know where we're going, we have a good guideline and that's fine, we're testing some new things on this one (the AC40) on those  few sails which are mini AC75 design, so we’re on track, we’re okay with that.”

Out on the same racetrack, NYYC American Magic put in another two-boat shift with the wind building into the early afternoon. 

Speaking afterwards, Andrew Campbell, Flight Controller and always mustard in interview, summed up the day saying: “Well we wanted to make sure we got out in the early part of the day when the south-westerly came in and yeah it was awesome it was in the high teens for a moment there, you know the sea state was building and everything was looking like it was going to be a little too much all of a sudden. Then it mellowed out and it was a kind of a perfect afternoon for us when it went back to the west a little bit. We got what we needed to get done and these are great days for us when it blows out with south-west here and it has kind of that look like the summertime...”

Talking about the goals and priorities for this intense block ahead of the new AC75 arriving in Barcelona, Andrew added: “Our goals are mostly around racing this week, we had a couple of pre-starts with the other boat today and that's been our priorities last few weeks, making sure that we can get around the racetrack in a way that that we can compete well with these two boats together. So, from the trimmers side, it’s trying to be consistent, trying to not only be consistent side to side onboard our boat but be consistent between our trimmers on our boat and then the trimmers on the other boat. So, between America and Magic, we have to kind of be on the same page and you know then we can start to test different strategies and how we're doing our trimming and then how we're doing a race onboard so now we're building consistency first over these first few weeks of racing and then we can start to experiment."

Looking at the team's new mainsail, the MC-4 on 'America,' with its big aft fairing the recon team asked if they were getting good feedback with Andrew responding: "I think we're getting some good answers, the nice thing about having the two one design platforms is that it gives you good answers straight away - the masts are pretty close and we can get some get some ideas about how the changes affect our design strategy.”

The only downside to the day was an early retirement from action of ‘America’ who came to a halt just before the end of the session and called in the Chase Boat for a tow home with several crew-members hanging over the side inspecting an area just forward of the port foil. Hopefully an overnight fix as the NYYC American Magic campaign is really flying at the moment on all fronts. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – Orient Express Racing Team: OE Racing Team craned to the water their AC40 at 10:40, that had been left with the mast up and out of the shed overnight. After usual routine activities, the team docked out at 13.30, as planned.

The LEQ12-J3 jib and the LEQ12-MN-A mainsail were hoisted while heading out of the harbour at 13:40 and 13:50, respectively. Tricky conditions prevailed. A south-westerly gradient, shifting persistently to the right during the day, and oscillating in intensity in between 11 to 17 knots, combined with a one-meter swell. For the first twenty minutes, right after hoisting the sails and once just out of the port, the team had to work on what seemed like a minor issue on the mast rotation or cunningham system. A few shore team members got onboard carrying tools and one of them was seen using a hammer.

By 14:15 the minor problem was solved, and the training session got underway.

After sailing for ten minutes on starboard tack, both upwind and downwind, Orient Express stopped due to a new minor issue on the wind system that required the anemometer at the bowsprit to be replaced. Half an hour later, the session was resumed.

At 14:45 one long downwind was carried out, in top-end conditions. Multiple nose-dives and touchdowns occurred while trying to deal with the tricky wind and swell combination. However, all of them were well-controlled and none were in risk of capsizing. Then one upwind was executed.

From 15:10 till 16:10 the team practiced multiple bear-aways on both tacks, from reaching course into downwind VMG course, apparently being on manual flight-controlling mode. They succeeded in approximately a 50% of the intents.

At 16:15 there was a 20-minute break in which a batteries replacement took place.

During the last hour and a half, once closer to the harbour where the sea state conditions were much better, the team did five upwind-downwind legs, doing three to four tacks and gybes, respectively, focusing on the manoeuvres. It called my attention the speed at which they changed their course during on gybes. A little bit slower and taking more time than regular average gybes.

OE entered the port at 18.05, lowered their sails, and docked at 18:25. Fifteen minutes later the boat was craned out of the water, indicating the end of the day. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on OE Racing Team

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: American Magic Team boat AC40-8 ‘Magic’ rolled out at 9:55 this morning. The boat was prepared and craned into the water by 10:25. Five minutes after AC40-5 ‘America’ was also rolled out and got ready to be craned in and moored at the dock at 11:20. When alongside, sailors and engineers made some regular checks to be sure everything was in perfect condition before the sailing session.

Both Magic and America had LiDar cameras installed. As well we noticed that America had some new cameras (we guess they were cameras) installed on the bottom of the side of the hull, a couple of meters forward from the foil arms.

At 12:30 both Magic and America docked out towed by the chase boats. At the entrance of the harbour, they hoisted up both LEQ mainsails and J3 OD jibs each. America started sailing first and went for a short warm-up through a small downwind and upwind to finally join Magic once she was ready to start. At this time wind was about 12-18 knots TWD 210º @13:00 h.

From here the sailing session was conducted as follows:

Stint 1 (13:05 to 14:00): America and Magic started into a starboard downwind. Magic was some metres ahead and leeward to America. They did a gybe, a short portside run, another gybe which was great for America and ‘touch and go’ for Magic and then after a long starboard downwind run. America was looking faster, and they both had similar courses, no one going clearly deeper than the other.

Suddenly they went into a luffing match and started sailing upwind on starboard for a short run and tack after. They waited for each other and started a speed test upwind on port tack (custom foils in the water). America was leeward to Magic and was also on upwind clearly faster. Not sure if America was also able to point higher as the wind was turning to the right the closer they got to the coast. By the middle of the run, America bore-away and slowed down a little bit to let Magic come back. They continued a little bit more, tacked and went for a small starboard run and then bore away to start a downwind towards a start-line that one of the chase boats had set.

When they arrived at the marks it was around 13:50 and they decided to stop and perform a debrief and some regular checks at both boats.

Stint 2 (14:00 to 14.35): They got divided in two teams for this stint. Magic went for some mark luffing on both sides, a couple of starts and some short upwind and downwind lines.  America was 10 minutes later to start and went for a long upwind and downwind and did around 5 tacks and 3-4 gybes.

Stint 3 (14:35 to 15:15): America and Magic had a great fight in the three starts that they simulated. In the first one America get into the box just before Magic and they both seem to have a fight to see who was able to start at the pin first. This one was clearly won by Magic. On the second start America came into the box on starboard and Magic on port tack, both at the same time. America gybed to stay to windward of Magic and control her. When approaching the pin, America managed to start before Magic this time, close to the pin and took the start.  On the third start America gets inside the box on port side and Magic on starboard side. After some approaches from one to the other they faced the line separately with Magic starting close to the pin and America close to the committee.  After the third start they stopped to change batteries and meanwhile to perform a small team briefing @ 15:00.

Around 15:15 Magic started sailing upwind, but America was stopped as it seemed to have some problems at the hull as we could see some sailors trying to inspect certain area forward to the foil arm. We think they were concerned about a possible crack at that area of the hull. They dropped the sails and got ready to be towed back to port.

Magic sailed back to the entrance of the harbour and performed three tacks on the way. Before at15:36 dropping the sails. Dock in was completed at 16:15 h for both boats.

As a Summary America today foiled for 105 minutes, performed around 36 manoeuvres: 85% fully foiling and Magic foiled around 125 minutes, performed around 42 manoeuvres: 75% fully foiling. Jose Piñana AC Recon