America’s Cup: Kiwis set the tone in Barcelona

After a remarkably efficient re-commission day on Friday, Emirates Team New Zealand again took advantage of the weather window in Barcelona for an entertaining session on Saturday in perfect conditions and a flat sea state where the Defenders of the 37th America’s Cup quite simply excelled.

Warning shots are being fired all along the Barcelona beachfront that Emirates Team New Zealand means business and they translated their high-octane practice sessions in breezy, puffy Auckland effortlessly to the Mediterranean and looked more than comfortable in a breeze that fluctuated between 9-13 knots all afternoon.

The sailors elected to stay close to shore today – the data they will be amassing on the breakwater wash and the swells that kick up off the sunken man-made reefs that dot along the underwater profile of the America’s Cup course will be like gold-dust to the technicians and analysts that have been itching to see for themselves what the real-world environment of Barcelona is like. For sure, the team have trawled through the recon videos analysing in minute detail what others have experienced, but this was day two of an intense four-month programme and they hit the ground running.

The dock-out at 1pm was smooth and efficient and the team elected to hoist the M1 mainsail paired with the J4 jib – a preferred combination with the main giving so much power – and pretty soon Pete Burling and Nathan Outteridge brought Te Rehutai onto her foils, and they never looked back. Long runs to dial in the VPP performance were followed by crisp, sharp tacks and gybes that the team executed at an impressive 85% foil-to-foil rate and zero touchdowns but the stability of the AC75 in flight will be something that will send alarm bells up and down the Port Vell. Te Rehutai simply looked rock solid and powerful with Andy Maloney and Blair Tuke able to dial in ride height at will and harness the huge power of the AC75’s mainsail to keep the boat flying, with ease. This was an impressive performance once again from the team who man for man are operating at a very high level already.

The dock-out at 1pm was smooth and efficient and the team elected to hoist the M1 mainsail paired with the J4 jib – a preferred combination with the main giving so much power – and pretty soon Pete Burling and Nathan Outteridge brought Te Rehutai onto her foils, and they never looked back. Long runs to dial in the VPP performance were followed by crisp, sharp tacks and gybes that the team executed at an impressive 85% foil-to-foil rate and zero touchdowns but the stability of the AC75 in flight will be something that will send alarm bells up and down the Port Vell. Te Rehutai simply looked rock solid and powerful with Andy Maloney and Blair Tuke able to dial in ride height at will and harness the huge power of the AC75’s mainsail to keep the boat flying, with ease. This was an impressive performance once again from the team who man for man are operating at a very high level already.

Speaking afterwards, Nathan Outteridge was pleased and relaxed with how things went on the water saying: “Yeah, it's good for our second day here in Barcelona. It was obviously a bit windier yesterday and today we got to experience what we think will be more normal conditions, a little bit lighter around that 10 Knot wind range and yeah it's been a big job for the whole team to get the boat over here and to get out and for us to finally experience what Barcelona summer’s like so we're very happy with how the boats going and how everyone is settling.”

Talking about the differences between Auckland and Barcelona, Nathan added: “I think some of the big changes are more around the fact that in Auckland, sailing around, you’ve always got islands and the wind is always quite puffy and shifty so you end up having to drive and steer quite a lot, but so far with the sea breezes we've had the last couple of days we've had a lot of conditions where the wind’s been quite stable so it's been good for us to really concentrate on sailing the boat as accurately as we can and it's a good venue here I think to validate the VPP performance of the boat because you have stable wind, you can get a really good feel for how it’s performing so from a handling perspective and the sailing team it’s good for us to really try and fine tune a lot of stuff we've been working on and also a good venue to do some development on the boat and make sure we're getting what we expect out of the boat.”

Nathan knows that this is a long road. Kevin Shoebridge, COO of Emirates Team New Zealand has already alluded to the fact that there’s a lot of work for the team to do to get to a level where they can be confident of defending the Cup. Nathan mapped out the road ahead, saying: “For us one of the biggest things that we really want to find out here is how the conditions are compared to what we've sailed in a lot and that will affect the ultimate design of the race boat, so being up here in the 75 that the team has done a lot of sailing in previously, sailing in these conditions unloading the sea states and the wind that's kind of what we really want to get out of being up here and just getting used to the environment. For sure we've only done two days so it's hard to know what we've really learned but I think it's pretty valuable to be up here in full scale and get out there as often as we can and just learn about the nuances of this venue. It looks quite simple and straightforward, but you see the racecourse so close to shore, looks like it can get quite puffy and shifty in there so it's only day two and we're going to be here for a while so looking forward to learning more.”

Stunning day from Emirates Team New Zealand who docked in at 4.20pm after a solid two-and-a-half-hour session with the forecast looking to drop. The team are eyeing a further 2-3 days of training next week on the AC75 and all eyes are trained now on the Defenders of the America’s Cup. Impressive all round.

On-Water Recon Unit Notes – Emirates Team New Zealand:  ETNZ rolled out their B2 AC75 from the shed at 11.20 am. Immediately after, the mast was set with no problems this time. The boat was craned into the water at 11:55 with no unusual occurrences. Just normal routine activities well performed.

The team docked out at 13:00, as it was scheduled, with the M1 and J4 sails onboard, that were used during most of the day. Sails were hoisted at 13:15.

It looked like they divided the day in two. The first part consisted more of sailing in a straight line focusing on target speeds and angles, while the second part of the day was a bit more manoeuvre intensive. A total of 41 tacks and 32 gybes were performed, during the entire day, approximately, with almost all of them on their foils. No marks were used.

It is very clear that for ETNZ doing all manoeuvres on their foils is normal or it´s their standard performance. On some tacks/gybes they may slow down a bit more than in others, but the boat looks very stable with considerable margins from falling.

At 15:10 when the wind dropped and the tendency of the wind to continue to drop was clear, as forecasted, ETNZ changed the J4 for the J2. It took not more than ten minutes to change jib, get someone up and down on the mast, and continue training again.

Conditions: Southerly breeze, very stable in direction oscillating between 180 and 190, intensity building at the beginning getting up to 13.2 knots and then dropping all the way down to slightly over 6 knots of TWS. Generally speaking, flat water 0,4 – 0,3m swell. No chop.

At 16:20 ETNZ returned to the dock, the boat was craned out at 16.50 and put back in the shed at 17.20 after washing, cleaning, and bringing the mast down.

No breakdowns and no failures. Just solid performance.

The Team plans to take a day-off tomorrow and then sail two- or three more-days next week.