America’s Cup: busy friday in Barcelona

With the last of the easterly swell still playing out across the Barcelona America’s Cup racecourse, it was a busy waterway with the New Zealanders, Italians, Americans and British all testing and training throughout the afternoon as the breeze built steadily from 6-8 knots around midday to 12 knots by 3pm. Perfect conditions for the teams who are all revelling in the near-perfect conditions that Barcelona has been serving up lately.

d recon on the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli AC40 one-design programme with Jimmy Spithill onboard and he gave a terrific interview after sailing, commenting on the swell and sea-state, saying: “I think it's really just getting used to the conditions. I mean the thing I've noticed, and I haven't done a lot of time here, is just how affected it is by ocean swell and waves. I mean today is a classic example if you go quite a bit further north up the coast there’s a really big mistral blowing and Barcelona just sort of gets the remnants from either what's happening north or what's happening to the south, so you get a lot of cross axis waves, and it makes it really interesting. It seems like no day is the same every time you come out…and it changes quickly.”

Out on the water, Jimmy Spithill joined up with AC36 co-helm Francesco Bruni and the two put on an effortless display of super-low riding and a fabulous technique through the tacks where they induce windward heel on the new windward side immediately post turn. It’s a flat tack that keeps the boat low and the power-on and was devastatingly effective in anything above 10 knots. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli arguably had the best winter testing of all the challengers and the consistent and highly experienced Flight Control team of Umberto Molineris and Andrea Tesei continue to impress either on the LEQ12 or the AC40. One to watch in Vilanova.

For the Italian team it’s clear though that their focus is on designing and building a super-fast AC75 capable of really taking the fight to Emirates Team New Zealand should they be successful in the Challenger Selection Series and Jimmy is fully dialled into that process saying: “At the end of the day it really is about designing a fast AC75 so that that's been the focus for us… I think, look, at this stage it's showing that it's not sort of one condition, you can get a lot of anything you know you can have the waves with wind, or you have it quite light with an off-axis sea-way so yeah look at this stage it's just about getting some time in on the track.”

The Italians have been training hard in the AC40 recently but Jimmy, a seasoned America’s Cup winner, is interestingly positioning the programme in catch-up mode ahead of the first Preliminary Regatta in Vilanova i La Geltru from the 14th-17th September, saying: “We're looking forward to the session coming up in the LEQ12 (in Cagliari) and I mean right now the focus is just trying to get some time on the one design 40 and you know quite a lot of the other teams have spent quite a bit of time on those boats so I guess between ourselves and the French we’ve got a bit of catching up to do.” We shall see. On today’s form, they will be right in the hunt for the podium.

The Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia, opted for a short, mast-less tow-test session on T6 this afternoon with the team revealing an interesting new piece of technology on their rudder. Training off the aft edge is a slender bulb arrangement, presumably to aid flow and attachment, and the team took T6 out of the harbour after a delay to connect with the Mission Control centres at their Barcelona base and back in Brackley at Mercedes Applied Science.

This is an interesting direction as elsewhere we’ve seen the rudders getting slenderer and more refined with gull-like forms, so for the British, who are heavily into data and analysis, could this be something that translates up to the boat they have codenamed ‘RB3’ – their AC75? The team undertook a controlled tow lasting some 50 minutes today at varying speeds and in different mode states. Valuable day for the British who will now next sail on Monday, weather permitting.

NYYC American Magic meanwhile brought both of their modified AC40s out for what was looking like being a perfect day for two-boat testing, but undisclosed systems/gear failure saw breakdowns on both ‘America’ and ‘Magic’ that meant the team could only complete around 40 minutes of two-boating out of a five-hour on-water session. However, the silver-lining for the Americans was some absolutely thrilling pre-start and short course action when they did get to the racing with ‘Magic’ winning two out of three starts but ‘America’ showing superb straight-line speed and flight control coming through to win.

Paul Goodison, the most informative Cup interviewee, saw huge positives from the day saying: “Yeah, we had a few issues with both boats. It felt like the one boat was going fine and then the other boat had a little problem getting something fixed and then as soon as that boat got fixed we got up and going and then obviously that wasn't quite right the other so a little bit of a stop/start kind of day but we got some good pre-starts in, a bit of action and some really nice sailing towards the end of the day.”

Paul also commented on the new custom J2 jibs that both boats were running today saying: “So we have two custom jibs, one on each boat today and obviously looking at some different shapes, some different sheeting angles and just how the sails set up slightly different. They went through a full range, we probably changed onto the J2's a little bit early, they were a little bit under range with the lighter breeze than the wind speeds recorded so it was a bit of a struggle but interesting to see how different designs are setting up. And then as we went later on in the day, the breeze came up, and we should probably been on the J3 but good to see the same sails up-range to see if we preferred one in the strong breeze and one in a lighter range so good day really for the aero stuff.”

And talking through the ventilations that occurred on ‘Magic’ today, Paul gave a positive explanation saying: “We've got two different foils and we're testing them on a bit more race testing at the moment, trying different settings, and if you push the limits of it too far some of them are a bit more tolerant, other boards are a bit less forgiving so we were finding the edge a couple of times today but again just great learning. So, we had a good day hydro wise learning this stuff.”

NYYC American Magic finally had windows in their one-design mainsails today and Paul very much saw the opportunity saying: “Really interesting sailing with the windows today especially with the pre-start it means you can see the other boat at times but again at times it feels like the windows aren't quite low enough so there's a lot of blind spots but it's really good to work on the communication knowing that when one guy’s communicating where the other boat is, changing over helmsmen at different points of the pre-start depending on how close the boats are and who can see so really good learning.”

Emirates Team New Zealand continued their relentless race-training schedule in Te Rehutai, the Cup-winning AC75, with another stellar performance from the team executing pre-starts and short upwind/downwind courses before repeating. These sessions are getting more intense and today we even saw port tack starts alongside plenty of stalling techniques with the windward board and fast accelerations off the line.

Marius Van Der Pol, one of the super-fit cyclors who transferred over from competitive rowing described the day and gave an insight into the cyclor’s regimen, saying: “Yes so, we got out there today, good breeze with like 9-13 knots and just hooked into a bit of race laps. For myself I jumped on for the second-half of the day and we got a few good pre-starts in and a few race laps…we're typically going about 30 minutes have a break for about 5 minutes just to cool down a little bit, get the body temperature under control, a bit of a water onboard, and then jump back on for another half hour before doing a complete swap with the remainder of the cyclors.”

And with regards the efforts required in the pre-start manoeuvring, especially in the heat that topped out at 27 degrees today on the water, Marius commented: “It just varies how the boys are sailing. It really depends on what the wind’s doing as well but yes, typically the pre-starts are always a pretty taxing effort.”

Emirates Team New Zealand executed some 48 tacks and gybes on the racecourses today plus many more in the pre-starts with a 94% foil-to-foil accuracy that will have the coaches more than happy. A great end to a week that has been a very solid and at times, testing, block and the team will now be switching into the One-Design AC40 next week to dial in their preparation for the Vilanova i La Geltrú Preliminary Regatta that is looming large on the immediate horizon.