America's Cup, data and tech in Cagliari and Barcelona

There’s almost an end of term feeling around Barcelona at the moment with the AC40s and Support Boats being packed and readied for shipping to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia whilst summer quite definitely moves to autumn in the Mediterranean with a chill in the morning and evening air.

On Sunday, only Emirates Team New Zealand were on the water for a quick mast-less tow session as onboard, unseen, new tech was put through its paces at varying speeds from 15 to 40 knots with a very consistent ride height. Chris ‘Curly’ Salthouse, one of the true legends of what is now ten America’s Cup campaigns going back to the 1988 KZ-1 ‘Big Boat’ Challenge, described the day as: “Just a data gathering day really, the designers back home wanted some information and sometimes it's easier to tow-it than get it while sailing and so that was today yeah short and sweet, 25-30 minutes and we were done.”

The Defenders of the 37th America’s Cup still have a few days left of testing in Barcelona before ‘Te Rehutai’ is de-commissioned and packed away for the winter whilst the team will concentrate on AC40/LEQ12 sailing in Auckland ahead of taking delivery of their new AC75 later in the antipodean summer period. ‘Curly’ confirmed as much saying: “It'll get put in the shed here for a little while and we'll give it a bit of loving before we leave it and yeah it's there in case we need to do some more stuff with it but our priority once we get back to New Zealand will be a bit of AC40 sailing before Jeddah and then getting into the new boat when it's up and running, so plenty ahead that’s for sure.”

Whilst Barcelona was relatively quiet on Sunday, out in Cagliari it was a very different matter with a long session conducted by Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli with multiple sail changes, including mainsails, and a rather stop-start day. The team still managed to record over two hours of flight time but it’s clear that they are into another phase of developmental work.

One of the interesting observations made (and video recorded) by the recon team from the dockside was what appeared to be an ability to control the foil cant system by foot pedal. A technician could be seen looking down into the forward cockpit, pressing his foot and then the windward board raising. Up to now, foot pedals have never been confirmed but it makes complete sense for the trimmers or helms to be able to operate this function when required from a pedal thus keeping fingers free for vital trim control of the sails. With crew numbers reducing on the next gen AC75s to just eight sailors, this kind of tech could become more and more prevalent.

Also today, the Italians seem to be playing with extended cant but were having big difficulties going from port to starboard tack. Marco Gradoni, one of the key test sailors and perhaps a possibility for the Jeddah preliminary regatta at the end of November, confirmed as much afterwards saying: “We had some issue in the past but we're going to solve it quickly,” which may indicate a technical problem rather than a sailing style to get used to.

Overall, the team looked super-strong again on their LEQ12, a boat that the Italians have great affection for as an ultimate test platform, as Gradoni confirmed when asked what it’s like to sail: “Super balanced. It's like always in nice balance and from the AC40 it's really another speed but I think we're going in a good way.”

Summing up the session that saw the Chase Boat rush back into the team base to pick up a new mainsail, Marco added: “Today there was some wind from the south. We were expecting more waves but we had good building breeze with from 8 to 16 knots so we enjoy the day we were expecting more waves but at the end it was just choppy 0.3/0.5, but I think we had really a lot of hours of sailing and we enjoyed it…we wanted to try with different mainsails and we wanted to try another main, then the wind dropped when we all sailed again so we had to put the J2 jib back up, but at the end it was a good choice because the wind dropped.”

The recon team also believed that a new J1.5 jib may have been used and will be watching the declaration sheets with interest. In total the Italians executed some 17 tacks and 9 gybes with an unusually high number of full touchdown at 4 and 3 respectively. Inclement weather in Cagliari on Monday will keep the team ashore and the team are not scheduled to sail again in Sardinia until Monday 30th October. (Magnus Wheatley)