America's Cup, Sunday morning Jeddah delight for Alinghi RedBull

With an air temperature of some 29 degrees, and fabulous sailing conditions, there’s little complaint from the professional sailors of Alinghi Red Bull Racing who are absolutely revelling in their winter training base at the Obhur Creek in Jeddah – a far cry from the chilly European springtime, but incredibly valuable to their overall programme.

An early dock-out to avoid some incoming inclemency, saw both AC40’s at the max before 9am with a slight change to the crew as Dean Barker was replaced by Jason Waterhouse and partnered with Nicolas Charbonnier. Arnaud Psarofaghis welcomed Maxime Bachelin back onboard and through the session crew changes in rotation were made.

What we saw initially was some fairly long runs sail testing with the LEQ sail plans on both boats, presumably with instructions not to break any more battens from the sailmaking team. Lucien Cujean gave praise to the shore team saying: “I think we are very lucky to have a very good shore team, they worked all night to make them (the boats) ready for early this morning and yeah we were really happy about today to come home with the two boats in a perfect shape, perfect condition, and some stuff to analyse.”

An initial series of longer runs downwind and upwind on split gybes and tacks brought the boats into the starting area for a few pre-starts before the wind began its predicted left shift and both boats changed down to J3’s from J2’s despite there being just 6-9 knots of breeze but in anticipation of a rapidly descending forecast. However, the marks were shifting and the coaching staff decided quickly on a Plan B of lining the boats up and then using a Chase Boat as windward mark. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention and Alinghi Red Bull Racing are showing their experience now in adapting well.

The meteorology team certainly weren’t wrong on the forecast and as the boats streaked off on a long upwind it was straight into an ever-ramping breeze and building sea-state and by the end, it was a solid 15 knots and gusting higher. In racing mode, albeit without an official start, it was still gloves-off high-intensity as we come to expect from the Swiss and a nice move by the Waterhouse/Charbonnier team upon entering the Chase Boat windward mark saw Psarofaghis and Bachelin off their foils before both boats stopped and executed a crew swap ahead of a downwind gybing duel.

The day was called after the Black boat suffered what looked like a jib control issue but this was a good day with over four hours of sailing and an observed 127 manoeuvres – you read that correctly.

Speaking afterwards, Lucien Cujean, always a superb interviewee, summed up the day and was also asked about any conclusions with regards the different LEQ mainsails that the two boats were running: “I think the day was quite tricky for both boats because the wind was coming from offshore so pretty puffy and shifty but overall, I think both boats managed pretty well in the race area and then we just tried to do some line-ups and tried to figure out which boat was faster than the other and I think we ended up with some good data to analyse for tonight. Nothing bigger to see from the water or from inside the boat but I think we really enjoyed the day and it's been a while now in Jeddah and we’re feeling a bit tired, and the boats are starting to feeling a bit tired too.”

Talking about the breakages in recent days, Lucien commented: “I think it’s part of the game you know we push these boats, the AC40 to the limit and putting some LEQ stuff on it is quite intense for the boat too and I think yeah we just have to be relying on the sail guys, on the designers and on the on the shore crew to make sure everything is ready for the next day and they did a very incredible job.”

Interesting comment from Lucien on the tactics today as he commented: “It was all about the positioning on the race track and how do you protect their the right with this north wind along the coast. Yeah, I think I think it was very up and down on the data of the boats on the targets, but I think it was very good, both boats had very good moments downwind as well and I think both groups played very well today on the water.”

One last day to come in Jeddah tomorrow and then back to Barcelona for this hardest driving of teams at the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup. The Arabian odyssey continues.