ETNZ's Te Rehutai, a light airs warhorse

Emirates Team New Zealand completed a vital day of light airs training out in Auckland with ‘Te Rehutai’, the team’s much modified AC75, seeking down-range maximum power in a breeze that struggled to get above 8 knots all throughout the afternoon.

If the Kiwis are to successfully defend the America’s Cup in Barcelona in October 2024, they will need to be the masters of lighter airs sailing. In the 36th America’s Cup Match against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, particularly in the early exchanges of the Match series, it was nigh on impossible to pass once a lead had been established. In Barcelona it could well be the same so getting absolutely comfortable with extracting and harnessing the horsepower from the sails and foils is why light airs training is so valuable.

Today (Wednesday) on the Hauraki Gulf, Emirates Team New Zealand looked dialled into the breeze, inducing powerful windward heel to keep the rig rocked over to the perpendicular or further. Flight control was low and incredibly stable – almost as if auto-pilot was engaged – and the power delivery from the aero cyclors was immense. Even in light airs, the power requirement is stratospheric as the cyclors pump the oil to control the vast array of hydraulics on the sail control and foil mechanisms.

Despite the massive modifications and weight reductions to Te Rehutai, she’s still not the definitive light-airs flyer that is no doubt sitting in the super-computer of chief designer Dan Bernasconi and the team called for a few tow-ups early in the session to get onto the foils in sub 6-knots of breeze to let the apparent wind do the rest. The sail set-up saw the massive J1 jib flying initially but as more consistency in the breeze was found later in the afternoon, the team switched down to the J2 which is a sail they appear to prefer, even in the light. With the cyclors rotated, Nathan Outteridge and Pete Burling threw Te Rehutai around a short course and completed approximately three practice starts that were bang on the button every time. Impressive time-on-distance sailing at high speed.

With the afternoon clocking on, a further rotation saw Performance Engineer Elise Beavis and Hydraulics specialist Scott Barnes jump onboard for the ride of their lives back to the harbour with the team hitting some 45 knots in a wind that barely troubled the wind gauge above 10 knots. Awesome blast.

After sailing, a stoked Scott Barnes talked to the recon team specifically about his area of hydraulics and speaking about the pump system he said: “It's a one design component for all the teams, the pump for the cyclors, so all the teams will have the same kit…we have got a different setup of cylinders on the boat because now the boats don’t have runners, you’re moving different displacements around, but you know it's all the same sort of principle…There are different displacements you can choose…there’s a huge range that you can cater for your own design. (Higher volume lower pressure and vice versa – as noted by the recon team). The rule is 600 BAR in the sailing circuit, which is quite high as a maximum so all the teams will be pushing that I guess…there’s a class accumulator which is titanium and yeah that’s pushing the boundaries too.”

Refining those systems and delivering another AC75 that is capable of winning the America’s Cup is where this highly focussed team are at. Valuable days in Auckland this week as the team push on ahead with the sailing programme at scale before de-camping to Barcelona for the summer. Interesting times.