SAILOR FEEL AND SCIENCE – NYYC AMERICAN MAGIC
NYYC American Magic cut a lonely figure out on the waterfront of Barcelona today (Friday) as the only team America’s Cup team conducting testing and analysis, but it was rewarding session on the tricked-up LEQ12 ‘America’ that Terry Hutchinson described as being: “from an efficiency point of view it was probably one of our best days.” And Terry, a shrewd observer from the Chase Boat today, wasn’t wrong.
Mother Nature played her part as the team docked-out into light airs at 10.05am, setting a new jib – the J0 – that we haven’t seen before but as the southerly breeze filled into the afternoon, they kept the Chase Team busy, launching just about every sail in their armoury: J1, J1.5, J2-CM2, J3-CM3, the trusty J2-1 and just for good measure the J3 One Design sail. The drone buzzing in the sky was more than busy on the sail capture - and that’s an understatement.
And if you ever wondered just how important, and how much focus all the teams are placing on the head of the mainsail, look up at the LEQ12 mainsail of ‘America’ and count the tell-tales. We got to eighty today on the headboard section and that’s in addition to the 56 tell-tales that are dotted strategically along the battens down the sail split between both skins – and more on the various jibs. Don’t let anyone tell you that foiling sailors aren’t absolutely dialled into those tell-tales for shape control.
Barcelona was lumpy today and a real test for Riley Gibbs, Michael Menninger, Paul Goodison and Andrew ‘Rookie’ Campbell. An easterly swell jarring with the southerly wind direction made port gybe an absolute nightmare for the Flight Controllers who needed uber co-ordination with the helms to keep the boat flying on the much-adapted latest foil variation that was declared today with adaptations to the wing (G) and version D flaps alongside its beefed-up sidewall profile on the starboard bulb.
Even with all the mods, sailing was really tough with plenty of ventilations in the 1.4m swell and after a session of splashdowns where the sailors just kept at it, they called it a 4.14pm – a long session and a fact not lost on Terry Hutchinson as he praised the team saying: “Watching the guys on board and watching how they handled the boat today, it was a really good day.”
NYYC American Magic have been a highly focussed and together team in Barcelona, translating the culture and commitment that they built so effectively in Pensacola, Florida over an outstanding winter training block. To date, they’ve been ramping up their two-boat programme in Barcelona and some of the racing action this week in close quarters has been electrifying to watch. The mark of this team seems to be steady, logical, methodical improvements day after day combined with a very busy design team that keeps the iterations ticking over and responds quickly to the feedback provided by the sailing team.
The sailing team itself is first class. The helming relationship and respect between Paul Goodison and Tom Slingsby is something to really watch but equally so, Riley Gibbs and Harry Melges have been performing brilliantly. The settled trim rotation of Michael Menninger, Andrew Campbell, Lucas Calabrese have been joined by the likes of Bora Gulari in Barcelona and these are all top, top, sailors approaching their peak. NYYC American Magic could well be the dark horse in this America’s Cup, quietly going about their business, and more than capable of winning the Challenger Selection Series.
Terry Hutchinson certainly has one eye on that regatta as the arch campaigner when he commented: “We are at the end of July, so we're still about eight weeks from the weather window of when the actual challenger series in the America’s Cup will be, but it's probably I would say one of our best days on the water so far here in Barcelona.”
No stranger to Barcelona having competed last year in a very mild TP52 summer circuit regatta, Terry summed up the conditions both today and overall saying: “We've gone from a perfectly flat water venue in Auckland to a sea state venue here in Barcelona and both present different challenges to the teams but I think the last run home down to the racecourse was nice, a really good test for the guys on the boat, and really good tests for the systems of the boat and a good test for the foil so I look forward to looking at the data and seeing what we get but…it was lumpy.”
And that sea-state will perhaps play havoc on the data collection as Terry alluded saying: “The science will tell you one thing, and the sailor feel will tell you another thing, and so as always you have to blend them together and try to come up with a good conclusion.”
Good conclusions are gold-dust in this crucial training block for NYYC American Magic who have all the ingredients to put on a fine display both in Vilanova i La Geltrú in September and on to the America’s Cup itself. The only question lingering is: will we see Patriot, the team’s highly modified AC75, sailing in Barcelona soon? After today, the sailors would probably welcome it with open arms. Watch this space.
On-Water Recon Unit Notes – NYYC American Magic: Very intense jib sails test today for American Magic on LEQ12 America.
Roll out was @8:51h with a new version G port foil wing and a version D flap (see updated component declaration). Dock out was @10:55h with Lucas, Michael, Paul and Andrew onboard while Riley and Harry stayed on stand-by all suited-up on the Chase Boat.
The wind was blowing 6-8kt @210º with some interesting waves that grew up throughout the day (wind chop of 0.7m, 3.6” @ 190º with swell of 1.4m, 6.6” @ 000º) making almost impossible to keep the boat under control for more than 30” at the end of the day.
They rigged up main #3 with a brand-new jib #0 and by 12:02h they were sailing upwind followed by a long downwind on starboard tack. Overall, they used 7 different jibs today, 5 of them new, as the wind kept on increasing up to 14 kt @15:23h.
Most of the day was spent on straight line sailing, either upwind or downwind, to “feel” the new jibs and get some data out of them so not many manoeuvrers executed today, with too many complete touch downs. The last bit of the day required a battery change @15:14h and a jib #3 hoist, used one. From then on, they sailed 4 imaginary 1 lap upwind-downwind courses with no marks where they were losing control of the boat constantly. I counted 21 times where they either ventilated the leeward foil wing or they dropped the boat hard to windward, either upwind or downwind, always requiring a complete restart.
Tired of crashing into the waves every 200m, they called it a day @16:16h and went back to port on tow with a dock in @16:37h. Lea Sitjà.