America's Cup, brilliant Swiss double in Barcelona

Another sensational sailing session for Alinghi Red Bull Racing in absolute perfect Barcelona conditions with a rising breeze and a challenging swell that kept the sailors honest and on it all afternoon on Tuesday. Race practice was tight with Maxime Bachelin joining Sailing Team Advisor Dean Barker on the LEQ12 whilst Arnaud Psarofaghis and Nicolas Charbonnier continued their commissioning work on the AC40 in one design mode to get maximum practice ahead of the first Preliminary Regatta in Vilanova i La Geltrú in September.

A mix of pre-start practice, short course racing and long data gatherings runs were completed at a frenetic pace and whilst the racing was full-on, the big gain was in the testing procedures with both boats swapping sides effortlessly and lining-up for valuable learnings and plenty of data flowing off the telemetry.

It was an impressive, high-octane sight out on the Barcelona racetrack and speaking afterwards Julien Pilate, one of Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s sail designers who gave a very interesting interview talking through the two-boat testing schedule and broke down the process and how it’s easy to come to wrong decisions: “It all comes back to the planning and how we define the metrics. We have to be quite clever at defining the goals of the day, and it's not an easy job, there are so many variables and it's easy to draw the wrong conclusion. So, it's an iterative process you test, then you analyse, you learn, you might want to redo it to make sure it is working well, or you just move on in the learning slope.”

This is a team high on that ‘learning slope’ now and looking impressive day after day out on the water with a real dedication to getting vital time on the water. More to come this week for the team that is relentless in their training schedule.