GLAMOUR CONDITIONS SEES THE NEW AC75s LET RIP

The story of the day however, and one that has really set tongues wagging in Barcelona is the sheer performance of INEOS Britannia who, for the first time, let it rip downwind on a huge 10 mile run and at a truly astonishing pace. The commissioning of RB3 is going well and today was the moment to show its potential with Sir Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher-Scott starting to sail the boat supremely smoothly and with growing confidence in the platform. Ben has been rightly cautious and methodical in the approach to commissioning, writing at length in the British media about the process and the team’s approach. Today it paid handsome dividends.

RB3 looks to be something quite special with its muscularity bristling all over and every inch looks designed to the absolute maximum. Arguably the best end-plating design we’ve seen so far, she just attains beautiful flight upwind and today on long straight-line runs the team pushed harder than we’ve seen before – and got their reward.  

Speaking afterwards, Will Bakewell, the affable Test and Validation Team Leader for INEOS Britannia summed up the approach that the team have taken over the first few days with RB3 saying: “I guess a bit slow for the first couple of days, new yacht, this is our first effort in this rule with the AC75 so there's been some work-ups on that side that we've got to get right but we've taken a really sort of steady approach I guess in working that boat up but it was nice to give the sailors the boat today to actually go sailing so yeah pretty cool.”

Talking about whether RB3 was at its maximum today and when we will see that potential at its fullest, Will’s honest response was: “No, not really, we’re still in that work up phase but it was just nice to allow them to sail within the limits that we set so yeah all pretty good...It depends on the conditions, we've got a load of aims testing stuff in the background, making sure that we've made the right decisions in the design and that sort of thing so it's a bit of a balance but I guess we’ve got to be fastest in about however many months’ time, if we’re fastest in the first race that's the good time to get all of the performance out of it.”

When asked about just how technical RB3 is, Will offered an insightful answer, saying: “What’s quite interesting is we had a quite technical test boat, so actually in comparison it is still very technical but actually in terms of the things we're trying to measure on this we've toned that down a bit in the name of performance. So, in some respects it's less technical than our test boat but there are also the new challenges there in terms of having cyclors on there and drivetrains and all the different control strategies we're now trying to do.”

INEOS Britannia looked more than good on the crystal waters of Barcelona today and there’s plenty more to come over the coming weeks as they tap into the platform and deliver increasing performance. Shoreside, the team looked collected and happy. They just set a big performance marker and everyone’s watching.

For Alinghi Red Bull Racing this was a stunning day on the water as the ultimately committed Swiss extend their on-water training time and, of all the challengers, are impressively taking huge steps forward as they dial in to the curiosities and demands of the new AC75. When the afternoon breeze came in, they looked formidable with co-ordination building between the helms and Flight Controllers and seemingly able to throw the boat aggressively into manoeuvres.

A clear focus today was working through the gybing co-ordination and re-training the muscle memory from BoatZero into the whole new concept of BoatOne that does seem quite reactive to sea-state. Gybes along the shore onto starboard looked solid but with an off-axis chop, going through to port was a tougher call but they persevered and mastered it.

Speaking afterwards, multi-Cup winner and campaigner Yves Detrey, one of the coolest and most highly regarded sailors in the Port Vell, summed up the day, saying: “The objective is to get better and learn the boat more and more every day, obviously we had a very good day out there, a nice weather condition up to 15-16 knots, it was really, really, nice and enjoyable moment on the water.”

Talking about the gybing process, Yves added: “I wouldn't say it was it was harder, onboard it always feels a lot harder than it looks from the outside no matter what, maybe gybing is a little bit different just because of the sea state and angle with a wave and obviously the boat speed so you know it's the same boat it's changing all the time due to wind strengths or waves.”

Power delivery for the above-deck trim systems today looked rock solid but with a mischievous glint in his eyes, Yves responded to the question of whether there’s enough power: “Basically we are actually learning that, we're in the process of learning our system and hopefully improve our system so we are trying to get them (the cyclors) tired as much as we can, and they complain, and it's a little bit of a play between us and them so you know we are in this learning process and it can take a while.”

Great performance from the hard-charging Swiss who are beginning to set the on-water bar higher and higher every day as they push on relentlessly.

Over in Cagliari, it was day two of running the new, and rather interesting, starboard wing with the Italians opting for a lot of straight-line sailing to check through its profile and the key control systems. Very much a commissioning day, the Flight Controllers were exploring every angle of the cant setting, riding high at times upwind on a lower angle cant before hunkering down and end-plating as they pushed it wider.

Notable was the wave piercing protrusion on the knuckle that, in the flat waters of the Bay of Angels today, they kept hovering at the water surface. Of note was the reduced foil wash on starboard in comparison with the anhedral on the port side and also of note was the very fine, seemingly detached (by optical illusion), wash that emanated off the rudder stock – fine detailing here for sure.

Near-perfect conditions of 8-12 knots and a benign wave state, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli loaded up the pressure on the new wing, driving it at close to capacity in a straight-line to start building the data for the onshore analysis whilst through the 15 tacks and 10 gybes, the helms took it easy and steered wide angles in the lighter airs to make sure no issues arose. For sure they will be pushing harder and harder in the coming days.  

Speaking afterwards, Julien Meunier, Construction Manager for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli commented: “The second day of commissioning of the new wing, 11-12 knots and dropping out at the end of the day, so they went through some straight-line testing and slow speed manoeuvre on and on. A good day for the team and the system guys.” Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli will be back on the water on Monday.

Great day overall for the teams training in Barcelona and Cagliari and as the pace quickens, we are starting to see what the design teams have known for a while, namely that the AC75 is an awesome, apex platform for the Louis Vuitton 37^th America’s Cup. (Magnus Wheatley)

On-Water Recon Report – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: The Swiss rolled out their AC75 at 10:00 and craned it to the water at 10:25. The team docked out at 12:00 as planned, after usual routine activities. The same mainsail as yesterday and as on May 1st was selected once again for today´s session, combined with the J3-1 to start. Later, the wind increased in intensity and the J4-1 came into play.

Medium-light to medium-strong winds from the SSW prevailed during today’s session, building in intensity through the day, staying very stable in direction, combined with mostly flat-water seas. At 12:25 the team exited the harbour on the tow, with both sails already hoisted. 

The training can be summarized in three parts:
The first, mostly sailing on a straight line, performing long upwind-downwind legs, pushing for maximum VMG. This combined with a few tacks and gybes per leg, respectively.

The second, focused on the manoeuvrers.

And the third, doing four non-stop laps around an upwind-downwind course using marks with leeward gates.

When sailing on a straight line, the same patterns described in the last two reports were identified once more. In addition, it seemed easier for the team to succeed to perform foiling tacks than foiling gybes, especially when sailing with the J3 in medium-light conditions.

At 14:00 when the wind intensity had increased over 16 knots, the J3-1 got replaced by the J4-1. Then the training continued with an extra upwind-downwind sailing in a straight line, just before starting with the manoeuvrers.

When talking about the tacks and gybes, small difficulties appeared when trying to achieve stability on the gybes, especially after the boat has crossed dead-downwind course and when still decelerating, trying to start to accelerate on the new tack. Possibly at the moment of lowest speed during the manoeuvre. Even with both arms completely down, it looked a bit unstable and shaky. Generally speaking, so far, the boat seems more stable and “easier to deal with” when the wind is over fifteen or sixteen knots of intensity, in J4 conditions.

At 14:40 there was a ten-minute break and then they headed towards the course. A solid non-stop four-lap upwind-downwind was executed, being able to sail around the course in strong wind conditions with no problems at all, performing almost all tacks, gybes and mark roundings foiling consistently.

At 15:30 after a ten-minute debrief, the team headed back to the base practicing some tacks, performing seven fully foiling and just touching and going slightly on two.

The boat entered the harbour on the tow with no sails, and docked at 16:10. Half an hour later, it got craned out of the water, with no breakdowns or failures.

A really solid day on the water for Alinghi Red Bull Racing, especially considering it is just their eleventh day commissioning this boat and not even their tenth sailing. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on Alinghi Red Bull Racing

On-Water Recon Report – INEOS Britannia: The British docked out today at 10:20 and hoisted the M1-1 mainsail which was paired with a J3. This mainsail was hoisted the first day that the team launched the boat but had not sailed until today. Compared to the M2, it’s wider at the top and it seemed to be more cambered as well. They started sailing at 11:00, wind was about 7-9 knots TWD 190 @11:15, but 500m after taking-off they had to stop due to some technical issues (we think) at the hydraulic system. After 45 minutes they started sailing again, they went a bit upwind and suddenly they put the windward arm down and surprisingly bore-away into a downwind for the first time. The bow trend was to pitch down at the beginning but after stabilizing the boat they put the windward arm up and sailed with the lowest height as possible. Slowly they won confidence and started to fly higher but bouncing a little bit with the bustle against the water’s surface, the mainsheet track was in the middle of the track and seemed to be quite static. Then after RB3 did her first gybe with a nice entrance, releasing a bit the mainsheet track halfway to leeward but at the exit of the manoeuvre the bow pitched down to the sea surface, making the boat lose quite a lot of speed, but it was the first gybe ever from RB3!

When sailing on port they started to increase the speed and started to find the right balance while testing different heights. They gybed again and then the helm went back to Ben Ainslie whom after some minutes of looking for the right flight trim released the brakes and pushed RB3 for some solid 40+ knots as far as he could sailing almost 10 miles on the same gybe. The boat sailed with the keel parallel to the sea surface most of the time with a stable height, mast perpendicular to the sea level, mast track on the centre, mast semi rotated to windward, mainsail cambered on the bottom and with a light twist that seemed to begin from the spreader level. Trim was very smooth with small movements of mast rotation and mainsheet and, on occasion, the bustle was carefully touching the sea surface and coming back to place quickly finding high stability again.

We measured 9-11 knots TWD 200 @ 12:30. When sailing upwind RB3 looked much more stable compared to yesterday and the team seemed to play quite a lot with the pitch and the ride height. Also, when sailing upwind they were working on both port and starboard tacks on a kind of take-off test continued by a quick upwind followed by a smooth landing and then repeating.  When sailing stable and clean on the upwind legs, speeds of between 30 and 35 knots were seen. The team stopped at 14:00 for battery replacement and we guess that also cyclors were switched. RB3 was quite far away from the coast in front of Barcelona in a wind of just 8-10 knots TWD 190, but when she got close to the shore a strong SW wind of 16 to 20 knots was found and after a short downwind, they realized that sailing with the J3 was a bit too much and they decided to stop, dropped the sails and bring an end to this productive sailing session. One of the chase boats towed the boat back to port and on the way back we could see that a small plate from the bottom of the rudder was missing.

The following manoeuvres were done today:

6 gybes: 3 fully foiling, 2 touch and go and 1 touch down were seen.

7 tacks: 3 fully foiling, 2 touch and go and 2 touch down were seen.

Dock in was called at 15:45 for INEOS Britannia team. Jose Piñana - AC Recon

On-Water Recon Report – Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: The team rolled out the B3  AC75 at 12:00, preceded by their new mast MT03 which was quickly stepped to crane in the yacht. Docking out at 13:40, the forecast included a flat sea-state and building sea-breeze of 10-12kn from 160°; the mainsail M1-7 was paired to the J2-7. The yacht self-took-off on port tack first inducing some bow-down pitch and heel to windward canting up, sheeting in sails and lifting the platform quite balanced out of the water at a speed of 16-17 knots on 85°.

Once locked in, the team focussed on closer observation of the new wing being loaded. As expected, windward heeled and bow down pitched, piercing outboard tip piercing and the arm wedge and partial arm stock/boot kept just above the waterline. The yacht sailed mostly straight lines interrupted by occasional tacks.

Further offshore, the breeze decreased and so did the exit angles of tacks, hence pressing down cant to build again while over-sheeting the mainsail. As the yacht bore-away on port tack and gybed, the team chase boats also observed closely the bottom part of the lifted starboard wing, quite challenging to find some space to shoot.

Some board drops were noticed at different speeds before executing a series of gybes. When flying on the new wing downwind boat speeds of lower 40's were recorded. In the lighter puffs, the yacht occasionally seemed unbalanced in leeway slipping sideways before adjusting sails. The first stint ended after 46 minutes of non-stop sailing and some crew members rotated: one afterguard and two aft pods cyclors. The two cyclors sitting behind helms in the forward pods seem to not be rotating at all during breaks on the water, only the two in aft pods.

Further inshore, the breeze had also decreased to 6-8 knots from 170°. The second foiling stint lasted another 26 minutes as another self-take-off was recorded on port tack at 85-90° with 16-18 knots according to our onboard GPS. During this run, the team focussed more on lighter airs upwind and downwind manoeuvres. These looked more successful when transiting from new wing to legacy wing. Exiting some gybes, different board up cant speeds were observed depending on exit angles and ride height stability.

Downwind the yacht sailed mostly heeled to windward and higher ride heights were observed comparing to upwind courses. As the yacht attempted to trim back up on port tack, it fell to displacement with a quite significant windward heel and a large spray on the starboard wing, sails were then lowered.

Overall, an impressive performance in light to medium airs to gather data in flat waters for the new wing. A total of 72 minutes foiling, 15 tacks and 10 gybes were counted. Michele Melis AC Recon.