FOIL UPDATE FOR AMERICAN MAGIC

The Americans rolled out the LEQ12 with a newly declared starboard foil that now features raised bars on the forward end of the lower foil arm connector that are there to promote flow, reduce ‘foil arm stall’ and improve further what we’ve seen as effective leeway reduction that makes the LEQ12 point to the moon relative to Magic, the OD AC40.

These are small enhancements but major steps for the American Magic team whose foil programme, since early on, has been innovative, consistent and constantly evolving. If we remember back to the team’s days in Pensacola and the first introduction of new starboard side foils on the LEQ12, their first iterations that simply weren’t producing the leeway gains that they had hoped, were rotated and updated on a 3-5 day cycle – that’s impressive work by the shore and design teams.

Now with real life, and highly positive initial data in two-boat testing against the AC40-OD ‘Magic’ once again the team haven’t rested on their laurels and the new upgrade, declared on the 10^th July is again very much in the ‘marginal gains’ category that has been the hallmark of the team and if we zoom out, the hallmark of Tom Slingsby campaigns. The marked asymmetry between the outboard straight-fronted foil and the elliptically fronted, almost beefed up leading edge of the inner foil is a thing of beauty and something that we have seen both Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Emirates Team New Zealand use effectively. American Magic are on the money on their foil design, and it will be interesting to see how the swell data from Barcelona affects their design office’s thinking going forward.

However, today was a day to forget for the LEQ12 sailors who had planned an intense two-boat session against the AC40 OD, desperate to get into the numbers on the new starboard foil arm. Tom Slingsby and Lucas Calabrese were the designated test drivers for the day with Riley Gibbs and Andrew Campbell providing the trim but in just a few hundred metres along the choppy, bouncy commercial port wall, whilst attempting to take flight on the new starboard foil in just 6-8 knots of breeze, the day was canned with an unspecified issue that needed the attention of the shore crew. The Chase Boat was quickly alongside and a slow tow back to their MB92 dockyard base ensued with ‘America’ listing heavily to starboard and indicating a foil cant arm issue either with the electronics or the hydraulics – or both.

Frustrating gremlins for the team but the super-positive air around the American Magic camp was once again personified by the peerless Andrew Campbell who fronted the recon interview and gave a realistic take on the issues that have plagued ‘America’ since being in Barcelona: “Yeah it was a short day for us on the ‘America’ today, it was one of those complicated days in the Americas Cup. You know the boats are sophisticated racing machines, they've got a lot of pieces and parts and when they're not quite running at 100% everything kind of shuts down and so, yeah, we didn't get very far off the end of the pier after we hoisted and started the process of getting taken off and getting running cause we had a big day of two boat sailing ready to go for us and yeah it just didn’t quite work out so you need to come back in, come back to the dock, sort everything out and  try and get the boat ready for the next day… these are complicated, there’s a lot of internal software, hardware, electronics, hydraulics, if one of those pieces is not working right it throws the whole system out of equilibrium…so if we're not running at 100%, we need to be back on shore making sure we are.”

Testing day for the LEQ12 team but fans can take heart that the AC40 programme was at full tilt offshore and the LEQ12 sailors fast-RIBed out to join them and carry on the training regime. NYYC American Magic’s LEQ12 ‘America’ will be back with a vengeance for sure later this week.

Recon Notes: A two boat sailing program for today turned out to be an unfortunately very short day for America (LEQ12). Roll out @8:45h and dock out @10:00h with Tom Slingsby plus Lucas Calabrese helming and Riley Gibbs plus Andrew Campbell trimming.

On Magic (AC40-OD) we had Paul Goodison, Michael Menninger, Harry Melges and Finn Jr.

A modified STB wing, version B as per Component Declaration and launched two days ago, was fitted but I could not appreciate any visual difference with previous version A. Both boats rigged mainsail #2 and Jib #2 too. The wind was blowing 7-9kt @100º with a sea state (Beaufort scale) of 4 with 0,7m wind chop and 1,3m swell from 80º.

Magic was up and foiling out of the Port of Barcelona @10:25h and America tried taking off @10:30h for roughly 400m without success. America stopped, dropped the jib and had the chase boat tied alongside while Magic kept on sailing further out.

By 10:55h America was towed back to port and back to dock @11:14 to finish the day without ever taking off. At the interview Andrew Campbell didn’t specify what specifically forced them back to port. Lea Sitjà

Dock-Out: 1000 Dock-In: 1114

Conditions: 10:15h 7-9kt @100º. Wind speed measured 8ft above sea level using a handheld anemometer.

Weather AM: Cloudy 90%.

Weather PM: Sunny

Sea State AM: N/A

Sea State PM: N/A

Onboard AC40 LEQ12 Today:

Helms: Lucas Calabrese / Tom Slingsby

Trimmers: Riley Gibbs / Andrew Campbell

Sails Used:

Mainsail LEQM2: 33 minutes

Jib (J2): 27 minutes

Total Tacks: 0 – 0 foil-to-foil, 0 touch & go, 0 touchdowns.

Total Gybes: 0 – 0 foil-to-foil, 0 touch & go, 0 touchdowns.