With two AC40s now delivered, commissioned and operational, the coming days could well see the first stint of two-boat race training for Alinghi Red Bull Racing in this America’s Cup cycle. Before then, however, AC40-4, the team’s first AC40 that has been converted to LEQ12 status and sports the Tubercle foil that Dan Bernasconi, Chief Designer of Emirates Team New Zealand, described as being “very interesting” was today out in Barcelona, for a first test run with the new M1-1 LE mainsail replete with the equally box-fresh J1-1 LE jib – the biggest in the range.
Light north easterlies were perfect for testing and the team rolled out some interesting camera tech at the top of the mast with two GoPros strapped to wands facing aft with supporting ‘shrouds’ to look down each skin of the double-skinned mainsail. The lay-up of the mainsail certainly looks different with a slightly more pronounced arcing roach towards the head which looked highly controllable through the traveller and mainsheet tension. The battening structure at the head looked similar to what we’ve seen on the LEQ12 of Emirates Team New Zealand with the concentration on keeping the flat-top steady and consistent with the leech.
The J1 jib was something of a marvel, stretched slightly at the foot, noticeable jib downhaul could be seen to be applied to flatten off the leading edge when needed but otherwise leaving depth forward all the way up and plenty of horsepower to play with as the tell-tales broke absolutely evenly to the top.
Performance on the one-design versus the Tubercle foil, with its purple hydrochromic paint on the underside and clear double flap arrangement, was hard to gauge. Arnaud Psarofaghis was in the port pod and thus gave Nicolas Charbonnier the honour of driving hard from the starboard pod on the Tubercle foil and, if anything, he and Lucien Cujean were able to fly lower for longer upwind with some delicious windward heel being induced. The team swapped over the J1 headsails going for the standard one-design headsail after about an hour of sailing to give relative A/B data to the sail loft analysis so all-in-all a solid lunchtime of testing was completed.
Speaking afterwards, Lucien Cujean spoke to the recon team about the new sails and compared the one-design to the LEQ12 sail, saying: “The one design sail, it’s made for everyone so basically it's a bit heavier and in terms of structure is a bit more compact so our design team try some other stuff on the AC40 sail and it's for us a very good platform to try things, to try a bit different shape a bit different orientation with the fibre, and then reproduce it for the for the big boat.”
And when pushed specifically about the differences, Lucien commented: “Well a couple of differences…I would say I think the game for Barcelona would be to create sails to play for a better range and obviously in AC36, the J1 was pretty big and powerful and in Barcelona now you want to take off with the J1 but as soon you are in the air you want to be on the J2, so I mean the difference between one design AC40 sails and our LEQ sails was I would say quite impressive.”
The Swiss team’s concentration initially on the J1 as a development is interesting so early in the campaign but Lucien was clear: “It's a first sail (jib) to be made and for us we are expecting very light conditions here in Barcelona and so the J1 will be a very key sail.”
Alinghi Red Bull Racing have the local knowledge now and are angling their campaign to what their experience tells them. Great day of testing for the Swiss and plenty more to come this week with the next five days blocked out for sailing.