RECON LOG: TAIHORO FIRST FLIGHT – ALL IN THE DETAILS

The boat left the dock at 11:30 and arrived on the AC course E, inland of Waiheke Island. Conditions were TWD 040–050° with 9–12 knots TWS. After a long tow and what appeared to be some non-hardware technical issues, ETNZ started hoisting sails at 12:50, raising the mainsail and the J3 (hoisted high, approximately at the 50% mainsail shape stripe).

ETNZ began sailing at 13:40 and started on starboard tack. It took some time to invert the heel and achieve take-off. After one tack to port and a few minutes of sailing, they stopped to adjust the jib foot line, which was flapping. At 13:48, they resumed sailing upwind for about 5 minutes, executing 5 tacks, before stopping again to open the front hatch and debrief. At 14:20, they began a two-lap race simulation, sailing for about 20 minutes and executing: 8 tacks, 5 gybes, 2 bear-aways, 2 round-ups.

ETNZ stopped sailing at 14:40. The RIB came alongside and technicians boarded the boat. At 14:48, they started a jib change, which took approximately 12 minutes. They changed to a J2, which has a luff approximately a couple of metres longer than the J3.

At 15:10, they resumed sailing for 15 minutes, executing: 5 tacks, 4 gybes, 1 bear-away, 1 round-up At 15:24, ETNZ stopped again to adjust the jib foot line, resuming sailing at 15:26. They then sailed another two-lap race simulation, executing 11 tacks and 8 gybes over 24 minutes. At 15:50, ETNZ stopped for a quick debrief and snacks. During this time the wind dropped to 10–12 knots.

They resumed sailing at 16:05. At 16:20, they performed two practice pre-starts: one entering on port, one entering on starboard. At 16:39, ETNZ lowered the sails and returned to the dock.

Crew onboard:

Starboard trimmer: Blair Tuke
Port trimmer: Iain Jensen
Starboard helm: Nathan Outteridge
Port helm: Seb Menzies
Starboard hull (behind helmsman): Jo Aleh

Guest spot: Nick Burridge

Pierluigi de Felice: ETNZ – Day 1 Observations

Overall, considering that ETNZ had three new crew onboard, the boat looked very stable when sailing in a straight line, and their manoeuvres improved progressively throughout the day. One of the most interesting technical elements observed was the mainsail traveller fairing.

Another key point was the foil cant system logic during tacks and gybes. During tacks, as soon as the new foil board begins to drop, the boat reduces heel almost to leeward heel. At that stage, the new foil appears to deploy with a cant angle narrower than the foil currently supporting the boat, inducing windward heel during the exit phase of the tack and increasing the effective cant on the outside-turn foil. Once the old board starts to retract, the new foil progressively increases its cant angle until it matches the target cant for steady-state sailing. A similar control logic appears to be used during gybes, although with different system settings.

Another interesting observation was Jo Aleh’s role. Positioned behind the starboard helmsman, she spent most of the time with her head below the sheerline, clearly focused on systems control and performance monitoring, as also mentioned by Nathan Outteridge during the post-sailing interview. Overall, despite having three new crew members onboard, ETNZ looked very composed, with manoeuvre execution improving steadily throughout the session.

Nathan Outteridge, skipper of ETNZ commented on the day saying: “It was a good commissioning day today. We had to be pretty patient all week because the weather's been a bit windy all week. But we found a really good day, and it was awesome to be commissioning and then doing laps and pre-starts by the end of it. A bit of a change actually for Blair (Tuke) and I. Today we were port side, last Cup we were side by side on the windward side, so that was pretty cool to be on the starboard tack and the new guys on the boat did a great job. It was awesome to start with Goobs (Iain Jensen) and Seb's (Seb Menzies) first drive of sailing the AC75, and of course, we had Jo (Aleh) onboard as well. So, a lot of firsts for the team today, but as you probably saw, the boat worked pretty nicely, and we were doing some really nice laps.”

Asked specifically about Jo Aleh’s role as the fifth person onboard, Nathan added: “She's monitoring the performance of the boat and the trim of the sails. I think one of the cool things about this Cup is now we've got that fifth person who can get involved in different parts, so definitely focused on trimming the sails and really sort of helping us. We're pretty heads down trying to make the boat go quick so it's a good set of eyes. You probably didn't see her peering over the side too much, but looking at all the performance data, so I guess over the next couple of months, we're going to start to really define how that role's going to work, but it was great to have her on board today.”

Getting into the technical details of the new AC75, and specifically the battery power that has replaced the cyclors, Nathan said: “The new power routing system on our boat's really good. I think the way they've spec’d the rules seems about right. We obviously didn't sail in a heap of breeze today, but what we sailed in felt really similar in terms of power supply to the boat. There were definitely moments where we wish we could move things quicker than we were, just like in the last campaign. So, I think it hasn't been over-spec’d, it's definitely not under-spec’d, and I think our guys have done a fantastic job of getting the new power system into the boat, and everything was working really nicely today. So nice job by the team, but also I think for the guys putting the rule together, it seems a really good balance there.”

With the cyclors replaced by batteries, and an overall weight reduction of the new generation AC75 yachts, Nathan said: “It was nice to feel it lighter. There were moments where it felt like the boat was definitely accelerating a bit better. Take-offs were pretty easy today. We were sailing in as light as seven, and we were sort of up to around eleven, twelve knots for a bit of it as well. Performance-wise didn't really seem a big difference in a straight line once we're up to speed, but it definitely felt a little bit lighter and nimble from what I remember, but significantly heavier from the AC40s that we've been sailing lately. So for us, it felt nice to just be back out on the boat and, it was only Blair and I out of the sailing crew today that had sailed the boat before, so I'm sure we'll have a little bit of a think about how the boat's really changed in performance once we get into the performance debrief tonight, but overall, it was a good step.”

After observations from the recon team regarding cant settings into the tacks and linked systems with the mainsheet traveller, Nathan said: “I think ultimately, like everyone knows that the cant helps the boats turn, so when you're prepping for tacks, you'll be canting out to help the boat turn up. You can do things with sequencing, but you can also completely just separate the aero from the foils as well. We've done a lot of work on the AC40s since the last Cup finished in terms of how we really think we could take some steps forward and probably what you saw today was just some of those ideas coming together. I’d really prefer not to get into the details, but I appreciate the question because ultimately that's where this Cup's going to be. It's about those tiny details to try and get more performance out of the boat in those manoeuvres.”