FRENCH PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF ON LIGHT DAY IN BARCELONA

Gallic grit on display, Quentin Delapierre and Kevin Peponnet just never gave up – a hallmark of their career to date and of the French team’s approach to the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup. Good on them. After a long wait as the breeze banged around south to slight south-easterly and played chicken with the anemometer’s reading of 7 knots, eventually flight was secured, and the French got some oh-so-valuable manual flight time offshore. It may only have been a few short runs but at this end of the competition with the clock ticking, it must have felt like gold-dust.

Surprisingly, a new face appeared at the base today in the form of Cup legend and double-winner Glenn Ashby who was last seen on an America’s Cup boat, Te Rehutai to be precise, on the 17^th March 2021, crossing the line to another famous victory. Now drafted in as an adviser to the French team, Glenn will be dipping in and out to share his huge technical knowledge with them in, as he says: “a sort of a helicopter view from the outside if you like looking inside the team so obviously it's spending time with the sailing team, working with them to try and help them learn a little bit about the AC75 and spend a little bit of time with the LEQ just talking about the physics and the sailability of how the boats work and what they’re likely to experience as they move forward so while still spending time with the sailing team, I guess there's other departments - design and management - that I can be involved with as well so it's really a global overview of the campaign as a whole.”

“First impression...they're all very, very, enthusiastic and very excited to move forward into the AC75 which is fantastic and for me I haven't been involved with the America’s Cup or with a team since the last race really of the last America's Cup so been living back in Australia and doing other projects if you like that have wheels and things like that, it's been nice to get back on the water again I certainly haven't really done much sailing at all over the last couple of years, except for a little bit of windsurfing...so for me it's a real pleasure to be here... it's a fairly small team with a relatively small budget so the learning curve’s really, really, steep but I think it's a fantastic opportunity for them to be a part of the show and I think hopefully their design team have done a nice job of designing a fast boat.”

Elsewhere, both Alinghi Red Bull Racing and INEOS Britannia attempted to sail but called it a day as the wind just faded into the early afternoon. The Swiss had some brief moments of flight but realised they were in for a struggle so witched the day and took the fabulous opportunity to let members of the team who wouldn’t normally get the chance to go onboard the AC75 spend some time on the boat. The Alinghi Red Bull Racing ‘family’ were up for a bit of fun too putting their helmsmen Maxime Bachelin and Arnaud Psarofaghis in the cyclor pits and swapping everyone around. Team spirit is everything at Alinghi Red Bull Racing and they all had a smile on their faces despite the weather not playing ball.

Cyclor Théry Schir even commented: “We also saw some dolphins, so you know it was quite romantic out there!” On a more serious note, Théry also spoke about the new boat that the team are all eyeing and when asked if the cyclor performance will be different, commented: “I don't think it would be very different, I just think where we developed before with BoatZero is going to be very useful for BoatOne. You know you always want to develop your systems to make them as easy and to produce the less possible watt and to take out the maximum advantage of it so we will see how the boat reacts to any new concept or our own concept, so that's very exciting.”

An ex-Olympic road cyclist, Théry knows the demands that are going to be placed on him and the rest of the Power Group at Alinghi Red Bull Racing. It’s a task they’re looking forward to: “It is very close to what I was used to going to the Olympics on the track or in road cycling so it's really high performance on those boats and you need to prepare yourself for this, I mean the attitude, the training, and the fitness side of it, because it's really intense.”

For INEOS Britannia it too was a wait for the breeze before calling it a day which was a shame as they were looking to get their testing runs completed before letting the Athena Pathway sailors increase their hours on the water.

Dylan Fletcher-Scott, helmsman summed it up saying: “We thought it would be light, but we thought it would be maybe a couple more knots than it was, but ultimately the breeze has been fantastic recently and all the teams have been getting good hours in and the thing what’s been nice is we've had that south-westerly, frustrating day but you know it comes with it in winter in Barcelona.”

Dylan has been spotted sailing his International Moth in Barcelona, and as the current reigning World Champion (still), he has been keeping his eye in whilst the team one-boat test after the battery fire on Athena curtailed their two-boat programme. Asked what he can relate between the two, he added: “I guess I’m doing a little bit less sailing now so just going out there and you do see some things and it's always useful to experience those conditions. The team are definitely keeping busy off the water too with Dylan adding: "The SIM’s always valuable, you know we're spending an increasing amount of time in there as we get closer to the big boat launch so yeah it's fantastic to have that tool our disposal.”

NYYC American Magic elected to stay shoreside today but are eyeing an improving weather picture for the rest of the week to resume their two-boat programme. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – Orient Express Racing Team: The French Team craned their AC40 to the water at 11:08, that had been left with the mast up and out of the shed overnight. The team docked out at 13.05, as expected. A one-design J1 and the LEQ12-MN-A mainsail were hoisted while heading out of the harbour at 13:08 and 13:15, respectively. A marginal southerly breeze of 4 to 7 knots of intensity prevailed during today’s session, combined with flat water conditions.

After hoisting both sails inside the harbour, for the following twenty minutes team OE experienced some kind of minor problem that required two shore-team members to work inside the front hatch. Nevertheless, by 13:40 the team was ready to go.

For the first half an hour the AC40 sailed upwind on both tacks with a very aggressive pitch angle flying high on the foils, with the bow pointing down and the rudder elevator very close to the surface. We could identify spray coming out from the back of the rudder and the bow hitting the surface at times. This tendency was sustained during the entire session.

At 14:10 there was a fifteen-minute break in which Glenn Ashby got onboard for de-briefing. Once finished, the wind had dropped, and the first of four towing take-offs occurred. After one intent, the team was forced to take another break due to the lack of wind. Taking advantage of the break, both sails were lowered to adjust the tension on the battens.

By 15:25 both sails were up again, but the wind was not strong enough. For the following hour and twenty minutes there were three towing take-offs that allowed OERT to sail in a straight-line until they did one tack or gybe, to end falling-off the foils.

When talking about the manoeuvres, we only identified two complete fully foiling tacks the entire day. However, most of the manoeuvres counted as ‘fully landed,’ occurred in conditions under the racing wind limit. At 16:45 there was ten-minute break in which there was a battery replacement.

During the last twenty minutes, OE racing team did one upwind-downwind, trying to make a few tacks and gybes, but the wind was not strong enough, falling from the foils on all of them. At 17:15 the team decided to end the training and lowered their sails. OE entered the port on the tow with no sails at 17.45 and docked at 17:52. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on OE Racing Team

On-Water Recon Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing's AC75, ‘BoatZero,’ was rolled out at 09:05 and craned into the water by 09:30. The crew gathered on the yacht to carry out standard systems checks. Firefighting training was also carried on the forecourt.

The yacht, equipped with its largest sail plan - the M1-1R mainsail and J1-2R jib - docked out at 14:00, searching offshore for sufficient breeze. Despite being tow-started into flight, the yacht struggled to maintain foiling in the light wind conditions, which did not exceed 7 knots. Several attempts to tow start and maintain flight were made, interspersed with periods where the yacht sailed in displacement mode, with staff members also on board for a joyride, exploring different roles on the boat. The power group also switched positions with the helms and trimmers for a period.

Despite their efforts, only one tack and one gybe were attempted, both resulting in touchdowns due to the insufficient wind. The day concluded with the yacht being towed back to port, where sails were dropped to end the session after 2 hours and 45 minutes on the water.

On-Water Recon Report – INEOS Britannia: A lack of breeze in Barcelona prevented the British team from clocking up any meaningful sailing today aboard the British AC40 Sienna. The boat was set up in one design mode for the two-hour session using the one design M1-1 mainsail and J1-2 headsail. After launching at 1103 and docking out at 1233 the boat left the harbour at 1400 and was put straight on to a bow tow in sub 6 knots of breeze. After coming off the tow and foiling under its own momentum for a couple of minutes on starboard tack the boat abruptly fell off the foil and stopped. A subsequent tow up resulted in 8 minutes of flight time and included one foiling tack before the wind faded and the boat dropped gracefully into displacement mode. After that, despite towing for 20 minutes over to the stretch of water adjacent to Barcelona airport, the breeze failed to register more than brief 7 knot puffs. Time was called at 1535 with the boat towed back to the harbour for a 1615 dock-in. No recon is required before Monday March 11 at the earliest.