SWISS TOW TEST AND PREP AS AMERICA HITS DEBRIS

The Swiss are certainly signalling their methodical intentions in this cycle with the roll-out and launch being monitored by the technicians and every aspect being checked and double-checked over two hours on the dock. With so much new equipment onboard to commission it’s a prudent approach and it was early afternoon by the time the Chase Boat was called in to deliver the first proper towing session. Out along the Barceloneta beachfront, at around 16 knots, the foil flaps were tweaked and up she rose beautifully, looking stable in flight as the sailors and technicians checked through the dynamic controls.

After two stints that took up half an hour, the team returned to dock with confidence and prepared the new M1-1 mainsail and two legacy jibs to set just inside the harbour basin for first fit. Speaking afterwards Rodney Ardern, the Sailing Team Manager seemed pleased with what the team achieved today saying: “We could have done one more jib, but the day was dragging on and the guys are confident they got enough information about the sizing of the first two jibs so yeah it wasn't quite the full list but pretty much all of it.”

And seeing the boat on foils for the first time, Rodney commented: “I think that was pretty exciting for everyone, it looked spectacular, of course the first take-off was straight into the waves so a little bit challenging but managed to get it up and probably a harder ride was on the chase boat than it was on the yacht so they looked pretty comfortable there and yeah the feedback so far is good... “I think everyone's looking forward to the next day when hopefully we can actually sheet the sails on rather than just test them for size in the harbour.”

A lot of attention is being paid to the mainsheet systems on the new generation AC75s but what we saw today was a continuation of the work the Swiss completed on their first gen boat, confirmed by Rodney saying: “Actually it's the same system we had on BoatZero so it's exactly the same...the idea was for the systems we could develop on that boat and use and test up to the loads then we will do that and yeah it's one of those pieces we’ll stick with.”

Forecast isn’t looking great for Barcelona tomorrow so the first proper sail of Alinghi Red Bull Racing may well be delayed to later in the week where all eyes will be on just how good this radical design performs. Stay tuned.

For NYYC American Magic it was back to business in the AC40s with the relentless two-boat race practice continuing in a beautiful 14-18 knots spring breeze with a messy off-set swell that called for boat-handling of the highest order. Unfortunately, the day was cut short by ‘America’ hitting their rudder on some debris in the water and despite putting a diver down to check the foil and stock, ultimately the wise decision was taken to return back to dock and do a thorough analysis.

Speaking afterwards, Paul Goodison, helmsman for the team commented: “A beautiful day out in Barcelona, the sea-breeze built from this morning, it got better and better and better, unfortunately there’s quite a lot of objects in the water floating around, quite a lot of wood and logs today, which made our day a little bit of a stop/start day.”

And describing the hit onboard ‘America’, Paul added: “We ran into a bunch of stuff, had to stop and check and then again ran into some more stuff later on in the day which inevitably called the day short...we hit something pretty hard on the rudder, and we lost the rudder a couple of times after that moment, so we sent the diver in to have a check to make sure there's nothing broken and as obviously we hit something pretty hard and the boat was a little bit uncontrollable, we decided to send the boats back home as it was just a safer option...the boats have got to get pulled out and have a good check of the rudder and hopefully we've not done anything too serious.”

No sailing planned for NYYC American Magic tomorrow and late in the afternoon Alinghi Red Bull Racing also cancelled tomorrow’s planned session. Sailing will resume later in the week, and we may, it is rumoured, get the first sight of one more of the new AC75s. Exciting times at the Louis Vuitton 37^th America’s Cup. (Magnus Wheatley) 

On-Water Recon Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Another full day for Alinghi Red Bull Racing saw the Swiss Challenger rig, launch, tow test its new AC75, as well as trying a new mainsail and a couple of legacy J2 headsails for size. The boat was rolled out of the hangar at 0945 – 15 minutes later than scheduled – with the mast stepped by 1013 and set up by 1030 ahead of launching at 1038. A couple of hours of on-the-dock testing and set-up followed before the boat was declared ready to leave the dock.

The Swiss AC75 left the harbour at 1250 on a bow tow and – despite a short opposing 0.5 metre chop – it was soon up on its foils at an estimated take-off speed of around 16 knots. After 10 minutes of towing, the crew made a short stop for technical checks before setting off on a 20-minute tow to the north. After a second 10-minute stop for more checks, the boat was off again on foils on the way back to the harbour. Immediately after docking-in, the boat and support RIBs were quickly loaded with sails before a second dock-out 15 minutes later. After towing to the nearby harbour basin, a new M1-1 mainsail was set up and slowly hoisted. The set-up of this sail took an hour before the sail was put under load. With the mainsail set-up complete, the crew moved on to hoisting and checking two legacy headsails (J2 1L and J2 2L).

Sails were dropped at 1715 with the boat back on the dock at around 1730. No sailing or boat movements are scheduled for tomorrow Thursday April 18th.

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: AC40-8 ‘Magic’ was craned in at 11:10 and AC40-5 'America' craned in at 11:30 with dock-out at 13:00 and ten minutes later they started hoisting their mainsails: MC-4 for America and MC-2 for Magic, paired with J1.5 custom jibs.

A nice breeze of about 8-10 knots TWD 195º was blowing at 13:20, the time at which Magic started sailing. America seemed to have some technical problems. The sea was looking asymmetric to the wind, and it was quite messy, again.

The sailing session progress in the following stints:

Stint 1 (13:20 to 13:55): Magic started sailing upwind, did three tacks and then bore-away downwind. After four gybes, they arrived at a starting line in front of Port Olímpic, rounding one of the marks from downwind to upwind, tacking and sailing back to the port entrance to meet America. Once there, she tacked to starboard and after 300 m bore away into a short downwind and came back to find America, stopped beside her and performed some checks with the coach boat.

Stint 2 (13:55 to 14:50): The wind in this stint was about 10-12 knots TWD 190º. Both AC40s started sailing together in speed test mode on a starboard downwind course. After 2 minutes sailing on the same gybe, America suddenly lost foiling and gybed, it looked like contact with a UFO with the foil or rudder and made her lose the foiling and gybe suddenly. America recovered quick. Magic waited for America and they both sailed together down to the line. From there they split and Magic stayed in the starting area performing pre-start exercises while America did a long upwind (5 tacks) and downwind (6 gybes, 1 of them touchdown) back to the starting area. When arrived at the starting line, they stopped and changed jib to a custom J3. Magic did the same.

Stint 3 (14:50 to 15:30): The wind in this stint was about 14-18 knots TWD 195º. Three pre-starts were completed with Magic entering the box first on port gybe and America after on starboard. The first pre-start was very tight between both boats and it was America who won the start. America started to leeward of Magic and some meters ahead. Magic had to tack and from there they continued in a very nice battle to the top mark with Magic performing 8 tacks and America 7 tacks. When sailing downwind America made it to the start line (bottom gate) in 3 gybes and did a very poor rounding. Magic came in 30 seconds later after a failed gybe (touchdown) but did a brilliant round marking at the bottom. On the second pre-start America lost foiling after a gybe and did not make it to the start. Magic nailed this one. The third pre-start was quite tight, Magic was to leeward of America but America maybe crossed the line 2-3 meters before and that gave her a leading position. They continued sailing until the top mark in a very close battle. When going downwind, America lost the rudder and decided to stop to check what was going on (from the chase boat we could see America not sailing comfortably since they hit the UFO in stint 2). Magic finished the lap with three gybes downwind and a perfect mark rounding. Then after came back sailing close to America and stopped for a battery replacement.

Stint 4 (15:30 to 16:00): The diver from America’s chase boat jumped into the water to check if there was any rudder damage. They also checked the rudder stock which seemed to be okay. According to the Paul Goodison interview, they knew there was some damage on America’s rudder but they didn’t know how bad the damage was. With debris in the sea, they decided to send both boats back to port. Dock-in was complete at 16:20.

As a summary Magic and America foiled for 60 minutes (America) and 95 minutes (Magic). They performed 26 tacks and 19 gybes (America) and 30 tacks and 29 gybes (Magic), 3 pre-starts, 2 upwind-downwind course races and small speed tests together. Jose Piñana AC Recon