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You can’t make this stuff up: Kiwi grinder Joe Spooner had US Marshalls “arrest” OTUSA’s AC45x development boat after claiming he was unjustly terminated. The boat was already in containers, ready for shipment from San Francisico to Bermuda. Read more.
The team’s base at Dockyard in Bermuda is under construction. The team plans to begin training on the Great Sound in May.
Emirates Team New Zealand suffered almost two weeks of media frenzy after leaks that 24 year old Peter Burling would replace Dean Barker as helmsman.
Ten days after the initial reports, ETNZ confirmed Burling as helmsman and Australian Glen Ashby as Sailing Director. Barker was offered the position of Performance Coach but turned it down. He has since left the team.
At the beginning of March, 50 staff began work at ETNZ. One of their first tasks is to modify their AC45 to the one design foiling version that they will race in the AC World Series, beginning in June. The team will then convert a second AC45 into a development boat for testing AC62 design ideas.
The ETNZ design team has likely been working during the past few months, but the team is clearly in catch up mode, given that OTUSA, Artemis Racing, Luna Rossa and Ben Ainslie Racing have all been sailing in their AC45 development boats. Read more.
Artemis Racing and Oracle Team USA sailed their AC45 test boats and are already training the maneuvers they will use on their AC62’s. These boats are strictly for development – they will not race in the AC World Series, as I explained here.
In this video, watch Artemis Racing foiling upwind. At about 30 seconds into the video you’ll see them do a roll tack, and another one at about 60 seconds. This is the maneuver that Oracle Team USA did not master until half way through the America’s Cup Match in 2013. See my explanation of the roll tack here.
Video: John Navas
Oracle Team USA has also been working on maneuvers. This video shows them on San Francisco Bay in late February. At about 25 seconds into the video you will see a foiling gybe. At 45 seconds you’ll see them foiling upwind. At 1:15 watch them do a roll tack. At 2:42 you’ll see them foiling downwind and then turn upwind going right into a tack. In match racing in the AC62’s this will be an important maneuver to be able to chose at the last moment which mark to round at the leeward gate. Remember that we will not see match racing until the AC Qualifiers in 2017 – all of the AC45 one design racing in 2015 and 2016 will be fleet races, as I explain here.
Within a week of launching their development AC45, America’s Cup defender Oracle Team USA was foil gybing on San Francisco Bay and hitting speeds over 45 knots. Tom Slingsby has been on the helm while Jimmy Spithill recovers from elbow surgery. Slingsby reported enthusiastically, “Pretty awesome day steering this beast of a boat. Training with my mates in SF. Top speed of 45.8knots today…. In a 45ft cat…”
As I explained here and here, this boat will not race in the America’s Cup World Series – it is purely a development boat for testing design ideas for the AC62 catamaran that will race in the America’s Cup in 2017.
Thanks to John Navas for this video. Watch the foiling gybe at 0:15. See more of John’s videos here.
Remember that Ben Ainslie Racing showed a foil gybe in this video, shot last November, on their sixth day sailing their test AC45. BAR and Luna Rossa have so far kept the standard AC45 hulls and crossbeams and tiller steering, while adding foiling packages. Oracle and Artemis Racing have launched almost completely new boats – scaled down AC62’s – with wider crossbeams, cockpits, grinding pedestals and wheel steering. Oracle has also installed dramatically more sophisticated control systems for the boards, rudders and the wing. We’ll see a lot more development between now and the launch of the AC62’s in September 2016 and the America’s Cup in June 2017.
America’s Cup aficionados were treated to photos and video of the exciting new development boats launched by Artemis Racing and Oracle on San Francisco Bay in mid February.
At 0:54 into the video, watch Kyle Langford aggressively trimming the wing, just as he did on the AC72.
As your editor explained here and here, the Protocol for the 35th America’s Cup allows virtually unlimited development on boats with the same lower hull shape as an AC45 catamaran. The new boats are dramatically different than the foiling AC45’s we have seen to date. The hulls have been flared to make room for cockpits with grinding pedestals and wheel steering. Hydraulic controls raise and lower the foils and control foil and rudder rake for stable foiling. A “pod” below the wing extends the wingspan, like the pod on Oracle’s America’s Cup winning AC72. The pod is required by the AC62 design rule.
Boys will be boys of course … The two teams had an informal brush on the first day they were both sailing. Some observers thought Oracle looked faster and more stable, but we are a long way from racing AC62’s in the America’s Cup in Bermuda.
(More photos and sailing news at Pressure Drop.)
Luna Rossa and Ben Ainslie Racing have been sailing slightly modified AC45’s. They changed the daggerboard cages to allow rake control on the foils, but they kept the platform unchanged – original tubular beams, tiller steering and no cockpits. We can’t see what powers the daggerboard rake controls – nothing would prevent them from testing with a powered system.
Luna Rossa converted both of their AC45’s for foiling. Rumor has it that one design version of the AC45’s that will race in the America’s Cup World Series will be based on the Luna Rossa foil control system.
Artemis Racing and Oracle have gone well beyond the modifications made by Luna Rossa and Ben Ainslie Racing. In the image below, we see at the bottom Oracle’s standard AC45. Compare this to Artemis’s early modifications to an AC45: the “platform” is virtually unchanged, with the daggerboards and main crossbeam in the same location. The two upper images show Oracle’s and Artemis’s highly modified AC45x boats, with the main beams and daggerboards located further forward. Note also that the wing is stepped further aft.
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