America's Cup: Swiss back in Arabia as training continues in Barcelona

An interesting start to the new week with the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team heading off for another ten-day training camp in the warm waters of the Red Sea at their Obhur Creek base in Jeddah. The team started sailing on Sunday with a shake-down sail of their two AC40s ahead of full recon on Monday. Dean Barker, the legendary America’s Cup skipper, was back in action joining Maxime Bachelin for some sail testing and then into some hard-nosed race flights.

With the wind gradually building, the team docked-out at 2.30pm and after some initial warm-ups with the team’s bespoke J1 jib that is exquisitely finished, it was soon out of range and the call to drop down to the equally stunning bespoke LEQ J2’s was made ahead with Arnaud Psarofaghis and Nicholas Charbonnier getting first sight of the brand new J2-4LE. A few line-ups were observed before the crews all swapped around to take out any human bias in this important sail testing programme.

Pretty soon it was down to racing and with Dean Barker bringing a fresh perspective to the pre-start, the first two starts were amped up and saw the Kiwi gain an OCS in the second start after a push from Psarofaghis. The next start saw both boats hit the line hard before Psarofaghis and Charbonnier showed superb race-craft to roll over the ‘Black’ boat upwind – those two sure know how to sail AC40s at their optimum and the precision was impressive. The next start showed how far Psarofaghis has come as a foiling match-racer with a run back to the line that called for maximum stalling. The Swiss nailed it, Barker was forced off at the pin end of the line – another great win for the Psarofaghis/Charbonnier combo.

There then followed two races with a single windward mark and again it was the time-in-the-boat practise of Psarofaghis and Charbonnier that won them the races. A smart right-hand lane off the start line in race five saw the ‘Red’ boat click into some nice lifting pressure and then once ahead made no mistake to bring the boat home for a win. The next, and final race, saw a mis-communication between Barker and Bachelin at the windward mark that allowed the ‘Red’ boat to roll over downwind, seize the lead and never look back. Hugely impressive sailing from this pairing with Bryan Mettraux and Nicolas Rolaz on trim – plenty for the coaches to think about, Alinghi Red Bull Racing have serious strength in depth now.

Speaking afterward, Maxime Bachelin spoke about having Dean Barker onboard saying: “It’s very good to have him onboard, it's changed a lot compare to Phil (Robertson) so it's making a new situation on the pre-start and then on the races and so I think it's a big plus for us to have him here.” And speaking about the mix up on the final windward mark, Max was admirably honest as he said: “Yeah it was a bit of a misunderstanding between Dean and me and it's more about communication side and yeah we still need to improve, me with my English and him hearing maybe a bit better on that and yeah so it’s good...I think Dean did not know really that the boat was coming on port because I was not explaining it and so it's more about me explaining him and taking the wheel to do the best manoeuvre as possible.” The Arabian odyssey continues for Alinghi Red Bull Racing.

Back in Barcelona, INEOS Britannia was back into action and enjoying a building breeze that started around 6 knots and then built quickly on the back of a big veer to a solid 17 knots by mid-afternoon for the team’s two boat testing and race practice. Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott were back on their familiar ‘Athena' whilst Ben Cornish and Dylan Fletcher-Scott helmed the Athena Pathway boat ‘Sienna’ with one of the Youth Team members onboard getting valuable trim lessons from the hugely experienced Luke Parkinson.

Some opening warm-up preceded two races that ultimately were abandoned with the Ainslie/Scott combination sailing extremely accurately and reading the conditions well. The first race saw ‘Sienna’ fall off the foils and agonisingly unable to get back up and flying, gifting a huge lead that was never going to be bridged. The second race saw the beginning of the day’s big windshift and on the final approaches to the line, left the pin end favoured and ‘Sienna’ stuffed out in ‘coffin corner’ unable to make the line. Ainslie tacked over onto port and crossed but the race was abandoned soon after.

With the wind now really pulsing, Ainslie and Scott stopped for over thirty minutes with an issue whilst Fletcher-Scott and Cornish were having a high old time, ventilating and nosediving as they rocketed around the harbour entrance where a virtual course had been laid. Eventually the two lined-up for a final speed test on the J3 jib but a nosedive on ‘Sienna’ saw that come to a halt and both boats returned to base.

Leigh McMillan who was onboard ‘Athena’ with Bleddyn Mon, Ainslie and Scott, spoke to the recon team after sailing and gave an honest appraisal of the sail testing and the differences between the J2-4 LEQ sail that was onboard Athena as opposed to the one-design J2 on ‘Sienna’ saying: “They are very subtle to be honest, they are both targeting the same wind ranges...but like not huge differences between the two...It was a day of a lot of trimming and a lot of mode changing and so it was really difficult to get a true picture of how it was performing.”

Leigh also gave a very good walk through of a gybe from a trimmers perspective saying: “As a trimmer it depends whether you are trimming into the gybe, it’s just trying to keep the heel right so that you get the board nicely into the water and transitioning the load onto that board and then basically you hand the trim over to the opposite side and go straight into your jib trim so you getting a good landing position for the jib  on the exit for the other side of the gybe. And then in reverse when you're landing , you’re just looking to pick up the traveller and seeing where it's got to into the manoeuvre and transitioning it to a good landing position for the conditions and making sure that you get a good stable roll control on the exit of the gybe.”

Plenty more to come from INEOS Britannia and Alinghi Red Bull Racing this week. NYYC American Magic were back on the water today but in full one-design mode so no recon. (Magnus Wheatley)