Marginal session in Barcelona for NYYC American Magic

With a forecast that kept other teams ashore on Monday, NYYC American Magic ventured out of the Port Vell for some crucial light airs training, desperate to find and work on the transitions from marginal flight to foiling. It was hard, hot work for the sailors who had made significant changes in crew allocation with Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison taking charge of the AC40 in One Design mode whilst Lucas Calabrese paired with one of the up-and-coming Youth sailors onboard the LEQ12.

Interestingly, when the boats finally got out of displacement for around 36 minutes of flight time over a session that lasted some three and a half hours from dock-out to dock-in, it was the LEQ12 working its foils better and showing some impressive height upwind in a straight line. All the tricks of the foiling trade were on display from Slingsby and Goodison but on today’s evidence, those super leeway-reducing bulbs on the LEQ12 were just working sublimely.

Up in the sky, just above the immersed foils on the LEQ12, could clearly be seen the obligatory drone catching as much data as possible from the wing wash to correlate with the underwater data being captured by a phalanx of cameras mounted on and around the foil itself and up the foil arm. The recon unit noted a few issues with the LEQ12 in terms of ventilation explained by Lucas Calabrese in the interview as being: “It was just we were sailing on two boards and we got a bit too slow and it was really light so it’s hard to get out of that spot and the other one that was at the end we had a little bit of what we think was a hydraulic issue that we're going to check and make sure we're ready for the next day of sailing.”

Talking about the team bringing through the Youth development teams, Lucas is all for it and impressed with what he saw saying: “Yeah definitely we are sailing with two boats now so we're two full teams and we have we had young guys on ‘Magic’ and they're doing a great job. We're trying to basically make sure that everybody is up to speed on every role so we can have really good testing and really good two boat racing which will come shortly, so yeah definitely those guys are looking great, I mean we're really happy how everyone is performing.”

And even on a day where the breeze struggled for consistency and barely registered above the 8 knot mark atop a choppy sea state before receding to near zero as the afternoon wore on, Lucas saw the benefits saying: “It's great to be out in marginal conditions…it's easy to sail when it’s 12 knots and flat water but we really need to get good in the marginal stuff and find where the limits are for the foils and for the crew.”

Limits found, and not the highest number of manoeuvres the team have completed on a day by a distance, the LEQ12 team docked in at 1.30pm to a busy MB92 dockyard that is at full steam now. Interesting and valuable, if a somewhat frustrating, day for the Americans.

On-Water Recon Notes: Two boat testing today with ‘America’ (LEQ12) and ‘Magic’ (AC40 OD). Roll out was 0745H for Magic and 0825H for America and Dock Out was @1000H. After a long mainsail hoist by ‘America’ we were out of the Port @1030H, both boats on J1. Wind reading was 7kt @90º and a sea state of 2 Beaufort Scale with 0.3m, 3”, 80º wind chop and a residual 0.5m, 5”, 105º swell, air and water temp 27ºC.

Crew on America was Lucas, Andrew, Michael and not identified, Magic had Tom, Paul, Riley and young Finn. It took a while to get both boats foiling and lined-up with ‘America’ showing more difficulty in getting airborne (@12kt BSP as so far). We started sailing on a boat-on-boat upwind STB tack @28kt BSP with ‘America’ to windward showing a better angle, 4 tacks were completed with 1 touch & go. Short stop @1100H and we went for a downwind, again Magic was earlier and easier on the foils than America, total of 2 gybes with one touchdown for both boats. America ‘ventilated’ and lost foiling twice on that run for no apparent reason, Lucas Calabrese blamed it on hydraulic issues when asked about it on the interview. I wasn’t able to assess speed differences between boats on that run. ‘America’ stopped sailing @1106H and Magic @1112H and both boats had a debriefing, by then the wind had dropped to 4-5kt. @1220H the wind had further dropped @2kt and sailing was finished for the day. Dock in was @1256H for Magic and not until @1330H for America, reasons unknow. Lea Sitjà