AWESOME POWER PLAY ON THE MEDITERRANEAN

In Barcelona it was nigh on perfect for the new-gen AC75s with 8-12 knots of breeze and once again an almost billiard-flat dancefloor to throw some shapes on. INEOS Britannia, Alinghi Red Bull Racing and NYYC American Magic wasted no time on the side-lines, all putting in a big shift that will have thrilled the data analysts and given the coaches plenty of fresh material to work with.

For the newly commissioned and launched ‘Patriot’ it was, in essence, it’s first big day on the water and with the huge experience of Tom Slingsby today back in town, it wasn’t long before they started really pushing through manoeuvres and getting the boat up to speed. Remarkable how little time the Americans have needed to get into their stride – almost certainly a marker of the excellence they’ve built into the programme and the confidence both on the water and off.

Speaking afterwards, Tom Slingsby gave a typically outstanding interview covering a wide range of topics and started by summing up the day saying: “Well it was about commissioning really, yesterday I guess was ‘Day Zero’ and the guys were just fitting sails and tow-testing and then they got about a 5-10 minutes sail at the end of the day but today the focus was proper sailing, check everything, check all the numbers and check the sail loadings, but a really successful day it wasn't long before we were allowed to sort of go start doing manoeuvres and get into it...the boat felt pretty locked-in so our flight control system seemed pretty nice and full manual with the cyclors as well so that's encouraging.”

Talking about the recumbent cyclors, facing aft and pedalling furiously, Tom opined: “They can't really see much if I'm honest down there, down in their holes, but I'm sure every team made the decision between going recumbent or upright and we think that the numbers support being recumbent and we were a bit surprised that other teams didn't come with us on that. Obviously we take a bit of an aero gain by getting everyone lower and maybe a small power hit but on the numbers we’re seeing we thought this was a way to go for us.”

And speaking about the novel side-by-side helm and trimmer pods, Tom was pleased with how the idea is working: “Having your trimmer right next to you instead of directly behind you it's quite nice you can see what they're doing and you can be chatting and you can tap them on the shoulder and point instead of people behind you so it's a bit different but yeah we think from everything we're seeing it seems pretty good.”

An interesting exchange took place when asked about the F1 style steering wheel that the recon team observed and Tom happily explained: “It's just a steering wheel with a different shape that we came up with, with buttons which are a bit easier to hit than a round wheel. We tested it a lot in the AC40s and it seemed to work well in the AC40 so we thought we'd put it on here...From the wheel I can control all sorts of things: I can control the traveller, the mainsheet, cant control, the foils on each side, the jib, yeah probably pretty much anything you can really control from that. There’s a few things that you can’t obviously but I've got access to everything. I don't press that much, that often, but I guess it's a backup if a button fails or something like that.”

Outstanding day on the water for NYYC American Magic – Vice Commodore Harrington would have been more than impressed watching as she was from a support RIB today. Top class all round.

After docking-out almost in sync with NYYC American Magic was INEOS Britannia who arguably put in the performance of the day, lighting the after-burners and just looking better and better as the southerly wind came up into the afternoon. In the lighter airs around midday, flight was easily attainable and the British elected to ride high with a bow-down profile but as soon as the breeze came up, ‘RB3’ just hunkered down into that delicious squat position, exercising the aft bustle and end-plating better than anyone we’ve seen so far.

This was great sailing from Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher-Scott who connected up well through a series of downwind gybes – yes room for improvement there to keep the nose from dipping at the exit – but so many positives to take away from the day, not least the sheer, outright pace of the boat. The recon team on the water reckon they easily broke through the 45-knot barrier today and in rough estimations looked to be the fastest boat on the water. Heady stuff and there’s a real air of confidence now building into the INEOS programme as they start believing in the hyper-design that’s been delivered to them.

Speaking afterwards, cyclor Matt Gotrel played down the performance somewhat, knowing that these are early days as he commented: “Today was a pretty nice day actually, nice to get out there, flat water just get some good time foiling and sailing about, we’re still working it up so yeah it wasn't really that challenging it was just nice to get some solid time on the water.”

Matt echoed the sentiment around the team at the moment, saying: “It’s great we didn’t sail a 75-foot boat for kind of two-and-a-half/three years now since Auckland, so everyone's buzzing to go back on the water and get some hours locked up so yeah it’s going well, everyone is pretty happy.”

This was a big day for the British campaign who are locked into a serious training block now through May and the results are there to see day after day. Impressive performance.

On almost precisely the same stretch of water as the British, Alinghi Red Bull Racing was into yet another day of precision sailing with a big concentration on manoeuvres and race laps. Amazing how fast this team have found their stride and already they’re pushing harder each day, looking for the marginal gains that make all the world of difference.

Today’s session looked like a big concentration on bear-aways with marginal trim differences being seen as well as steering angles. One thing for sure, all the AC75s don’t appreciate rapid dial downs and getting the smoothness, co-ordinated with the trim setting and ride height is something of a dark art that the Trim and Helm unions very much keep to themselves. Observing Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin today, they tested through a variety of scenarios, always smooth as is their signature whilst Bryan Mettraux and Nicolas Charbonnier worked like Trojans in the forward trim pod to eke the power play through the manoeuvre.

Nils Theuninck, former Finn sailor and now a highly regarded cyclor in the Power Group at Alinghi Red Bull Racing, summed up the day, saying: “Another beautiful day here in Barcelona I think we had the wind range from between 9 to 11/12 knots so really good conditions, flat sea state which is really nice with these boats, and yeah we managed to get all the things we wanted today all the manoeuvres we wanted, all in all it was a really, really, good day.”

And speaking about the bear-aways that they focussed on, Nils added: “Obviously the more we practise them...the more data we can collect out of them and trying to get those little gains to go faster around the racetrack and it's about finding the little trims that give us an advantage and also trying to find the right power to give us an advantage.”

As the afternoon wore on (this was a five-hour session), the Chase boat Team set up a start line and we saw a smart bit of time-on-distance from a virtual ‘box’ and the Swiss were off on a smart couple of laps almost as if they were sailing an AC40 – and they did that pretty well. All manoeuvres were foil-to-foil indicating just how much easier these long-span foils are to maintain flight and the Bull looked rock-solid in flight, nimble, highly manoeuvrable and all round a joy to sail. Tired legs from the cyclors, that’s another big day in the bag for this hard-charging team.

Over in Cagliari it was a slightly more overcast affair with a dynamic weather system over the Bay of Angels and the constant threat of rain showers. A shifting wind that gradually built to 12 knots but averaged 10 knots was more than enough for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli to rifle through their standard training drills over a near four-hour afternoon training session but the introduction of marks and a virtual starting box indicated a whole new shift in direction. 

Still running with the anhedral legacy foil on port that Michele Cannoni, the Boat Captain for Luna Rossa, joked would be off...“Very soon because Jimmy doesn't want to bear away on this old wing anymore.” Will we see the new foil before the team de-camp to Barcelona? A possibility according to Michele and for sure the sailors would be delighted to see it. Nonetheless, Jimmy Spithill, Marco Gradoni and Francesco Bruni put the AC75 right through its paces again today, executing well and building all-important confidence into the programme.

Michele Cannoni summed it up well afterwards saying: “It was a beautiful day, everything went smooth, we didn't have any issues, everything went well, we went around the marks, we lined up the whole racecourse for the boys to go around it and we are happy with our day on the water.”

Asked about relative outright performance to the other teams training hard, Michele gave an insight into the thoughts of the Italian team saying: “It’s hard to understand the performance, I think only us and the Kiwis and Alinghi Red Bull Racing went on the water for more than 10 days. I think apart from the Kiwis who, like us, launched with the old wings but I think Alinghi is showing they have a good boat and good appendages and I think everyone is going to be there, so it's going to be a beautiful event, it’s going to be a fast event, and it will be very nice...as you know we were one of the few teams that didn't use the AC75 from the last campaign so for us it was a bit of a question mark and we are very happy with everything we achieved in the shed before launching the boat and today we proved that we can go around the marks. I mean it's going to be hard for the boys that's why they train for two years relentless, but we didn't miss something big, so we’re happy.”

Big days all round for the on-water teams in the Louis Vuitton 37^th America’s Cup. The days get longer but the time gets shorter. The race against the clock is the first battle, then comes the competition. Game on. All on. (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 M1-1 was selected for today’s session, combined with the J2-1. Both sails were hoisted just before heading out of the port. Light-medium winds from the South prevailed during the day, combined with flat-water conditions.

The training started at 12:30 with a downwind-upwind warm up. Then there was a ten-minute break in which some of the team’s technicians got onboard, even though nothing seemed out of order.

At 13:00 the session continued with a four-lap upwind-downwind virtual course, practicing two manoeuvrers in particular: Gybing immediately after rounding the top mark, and tacking right after rounding the leeward gates. These manoeuvrers were repeated on all mark roundings, achieving a 100% foiling effectiveness, altering port and starboard roundings.

At 13:25 there was a fifteen-minute break in which the J3-3L with narrow top and middle sections came up to replace the J2-1, in slightly stronger wind conditions. During the following hour, Alinghi Red Bull Racing practiced bear aways and head ups, zigzagging from upwind closed hauled course into downwind VMG course, back and forth, multiple times on both tacks. No difficulties were identified, foiling consistently all the time with a good coordination of sails trimming, boat balance and turning speed.

At 14:25 there was a full cyclors rotation. The net cycling time of the first shift was sixty-five minutes. Ten minutes after, the session resumed. A long upwind was carried out on starboard tack sailing on a straight line. Then after doing a tack, there was a sudden stop. Some of the shore-team members got onboard and it appeared to be like they were dealing with some kind of issues. However, after dealing with it for fifteen minutes it was sorted, and sailing resumed with a long downwind leg on port tack. Once close to the harbour, some additional zigzagging was executed.

By 15:55 Alinghi Red Bull Racing was back at the race-course area and a short break occurred. To end the session, at 16:15 one pre-start was delivered entering the box on port tack and doing two laps around an upwind-downwind racecourse using marks. Fully foiling manoeuvrers were executed during the starting sequence. Alinghi Red Bull Racing entered the harbour on the tow with no sails and docked at 17:00. Thirty-five minutes later, it got craned out of the water. A great day focused on the manoeuvrers for the Swiss Team. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on Alinghi Red Bull Racing

On-Water Recon Report – NYYC American Magic: American Magic rolled out Patriot at 08:55 for their second day on the water, with the focus on further commissioning and “proper sailing”, according to skipper Tom Slingsby. The yacht was craned in at 09:25, with control system setup (no physical testing observed) carried out until dock-out at 11:30.

The MN2-1 mainsail and J2-1 jib were hoisted under the breakwater, before commencing sailing at 12:20. The team spent six hours on the water, of which 160 minutes were spent sailing, divided into eight stints. With an average wind speed of 10-12 knots and a relatively flat sea state, the team started with short upwinds and downwinds, stopping every so often to check systems. A crew member was observed sitting on the starboard foil arm, looking to be adding a temporary repair to the leading edge of the foil, which presumably was lightly damaged by one of the many pieces of driftwood on the water following the rainstorm from the previous day.

After a long downwind to Badalona, the J2 jib was exchanged at 13:30 for the J4-1 as windspeeds increased, with gusts measured up to 15 knots. The team got into drilling tacks and gybes, as well as a few bear-aways and round-ups, before sailing what seemed like laps of a virtual windward/leeward course. Fairly significant vibration of the leeward shrouds was observed during the higher wind speeds, with a sailor getting out of the pod to inspect while foiling.

By 16:00, winds decreased below 10 knots. The team kept the J4 jib, as foiling consistency dropped through manoeuvres, specifically gybes. The sailors reacted with significantly higher ride height through the gybes to complete the manoeuvres foil to foil, but an attempt at a JK manoeuvre was unsuccessful. Still with the J4, Patriot was able to lift off in about 7-8 knots of wind, before returning back to the port entrance to end the day. Sails were dropped at 17:20 and the team docked in at 17:30.

A total of 63 manoeuvres were observed, of which 81% were fully foiling. Justin Busuttil – Recon on NYYC American Magic

On-Water Recon Report – INEOS Britannia: The British rolled out RB3 at 8:30 today with the same rudder from yesterday. After receiving, this morning, the latest component declaration from the team, we can confirm that it’s a legacy rudder. Crane in was at 9:00 and dock-out at 11:15.

Mainsail MN1 was paired to a J2 jib at the entrance of the harbour. Only 5 to 7 knots TWD 180º were blowing when ‘RB3’ started to sail out from the harbour, but there were clearly good enough so she could start takin- off on her own and headed straight downwind to ‘El Forum’ and from there they luffed into a very active upwind mode performing many tacks. The first ones in a very low range of winds and we could see them lifting the boat up in height before starting the manoeuvre but after tacking they were losing the foiling by the end of the manoeuvre. From the third tack we think they tried the following pattern: start bearing away a little bit to gain speed, increase height and then turn faster to drive all the inertia to the exit of the manoeuvre to avoid losing the foiling. It was looking great and as the wind increased, they needed less height to RB3 before starting the tack.

When gybing today an improvement was made from yesterday especially on starboard to port side gybes, when sometimes the boat was heeling to windward when lifting the windward arm at the exit of the manoeuvre. Today none of the gybes were ‘touch down’ and plenty were fully foiling. We think that here the speed on the turn was also the key so when entering into the gybe with a faster turn, the boat was getting a bit of heel to leeward on the new gybe, and that helped the boat not fall to windward at the exit of the manoeuvre when the windward foil arm was lifted. As well we think, but we are not sure, that the canting angle from the leeward arm of the new gybe is reduced when entering the gybe and after the exit of the manoeuvre is moved to the right canting angle for the downwind course.

When sailing in straight lines even upwind or downwind the height was more stable compared to yesterday. From one side INEOS Britannia was not trying too many different height modes of sailing like they did yesterday and from other side we think that maybe the mainsail MN-1 used today was helping to give better directional stability to RB3. We also had the feeling that the trimmers were more active with the mainsheet.

The J2 jib was sailed for one hour and at 13:00 was replaced by the J3. After the replacement INEOS Britannia wanted to test the boat reaching. First on starboard and after on port. The wind was about 10-12 knots TWD 190º @ 13:35 and we guess the boat could score speeds of around 45 knots when sailing on port side. When reaching on starboard the nose went a bit into the sea surface and produced some spray all around the hull but to our surprise the boat got back into its flying position smoothly and without losing speed.

We could see also today RB3 testing rounding virtual/imaginary marks from downwind to upwind on port side with both arms down and other times with the windward arm up.

Two cyclist swaps (4x4) were done today at 13:00 and at 14:00 (batteries were also changed). It looks that the team is trying all cyclors in different positions.

A total of around 27 tacks (2 touch down, 16 fully foiling, 9 touch & go) and 25 gybes (20 fully foiling, 5 touch & go) were completed. Dock in was at 16:25. Jose Luis Piñana – AC Recon

On-Water Recon Report – Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: The team rolled out the B3 AC75 at 11:50, proceeded with mast and cables stepping procedure and crane in. The team docked out at 13:40 finding flat waters and 8-10 knots from 285° at first. Several rain systems were to be seen around the Gulf which led to pressure changes in strength and direction. Once up and foiling on port tack flying M1-7 + J2-7, the yacht completed the usual training routine beginning with some tacks, bearing-away and executing one gybe and mostly straight-lining downwind before trimming up on two boards and stopping.

Already on the first tack, the westerly breeze had shifted to 9-11kn from 195°. After a short break with technicians on board, the yacht self-took-off on starboard tack and sailed a long downwind run straight-line, before a JK initiated a longer upwind run on port tack. The yacht seemed to struggle slightly more to self-take-off on the legacy wing with take-off speeds of 17-19kn rather than 15-17kn on the new wing.

By 14:40, the breeze had increased with 12-14kn from 190° and hence the J2-7 was lowered, to hoist the J3-7. At 14:58, B3 self-took-off again on starboard tack, proceeding with straight-line sailing on both tacks sailing the usual training pattern.

Physical gates were then setup and B3 started cruising around marks; a first start was practiced with time on distance killing 2 minutes in a rather large box. At 15:40, the pressure had shifted further to 165° with 9-11kn and one helm, one trimmer and both aft pods sailors were swapped after 65 minutes foilborne. Another steady self-take-off was observed on port tack just as the breeze was shifting further to the right, now from 175° 10-12kn, while the team practiced another timed start. On the last upwind leg, the breeze seemed to be decreasing again to 7-9kn and shifting to 135°: the J3-7 was lowered to rehoist the J2-7.

One more self-take-off on port tack led B3 to its last foiling stint in which the team practiced a series of final gybes before trimming back up to stop in 12-14kn from 125°. Several technicians were noticed to be working below hatches for a speculative issue and sails were lowered as the pressure was increasing even further with rain systems getting closer. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli called it a day after approx. 112 minutes foilborne; 31 tacks and 35 gybes were executed mostly foil to foil. Michele Melis - AC Recon