"Gybing angles are probably the most difficult aspect of sailing on the AC72. There is a big difference between a foiling gybe and a non foiling gybe." - Francesco Bruni.
time. There is no need to look over your shoulder for where the wind is coming from, you have got to look ahead and to leeward at times to see where the next lot of breeze is coming from." Barring disasters, winning or losing races in this edition of the Cup is likely to come down to each team's ability to keep the boat on the foils for as long as possible downwind - especially during the gybes. Flying AC72 gybes have been nicknamed 'flybes' by AC fans online, but Davies says the Emirates Team New Zealand crew just call the maneuver a good old fashioned 'gybe'. A flybe is what they call it on Sailing Anarchy - we just call it a gybe," he said with a smile. "It's a very efficient way of gybing because you are not having to drag one of the hulls through the water during that maneuver. Multihulls are very, very efficient in a straight line when the hulls are in the water, but you know what it is like when you try to turn an eight man rowing skiff - it's just very difficult to turn anything long and skinny - but if you can be up on the foils it's a very efficient way of turning a long skinny object. "So yes there is a big, big gain to be made if you can be up and foiling through the entire downwind run. It would be nice if you could do that upwind too but no one has been able to pull that off yet. I'm sure that would end up being the future one day in this class - with a couple of minor rule changes you could end up with a boat that could foil all the time from start to finish. That would be pretty hard to beat."
22 Image credit: ACEA / Giles Martin Raget.
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