The scary time – Ken Read 35th America’s Cup


With less than 100 days to go, we are starting to get into the business end of this event. You can feel the wind of


change in the air and it’s super-exciting. We are also re-engaging with our old friends: the rumour mill, subterfuge and conspiracy theory. They are dear old friends and the America’s Cup is built on this stuff – I am enjoying every minute of all that is swirling around right now… The very interesting part of the modern-day America’s Cup, the futuristic America’s Cup if you like, is how the holders of the Cup have worked themselves into the Challenger Trials. Not just through the World Series or the first round of the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series but in general. Back in the day, as a challenger you were murdered by everyone (press, public, fellow challengers etc) if you everconsidered lining up with the Cup holders, never mind practise racing with them. Yes, all the teams have been sailing the ‘AC45 Turbos’, ie not their final boats, but a few weeks ago Artemis, SoftBank Team Japan, BMW Oracle and Land Rover BAR did 17 races together (off the books.) And this series was supposedly quite telling. The word on the street


infrastructure etc. But because of that, are they just going to throw caution to the wind and show up with something that blows everyone out of the water? Will they appear with an Australia II wing keel equivalent? Don’t count Frank Cammas out – I have been a victim of this (in the VOR) and sure enough he kicked all of us off the park! And then finally you have Emirates Team New Zealand. They are off on their own down the other end of the world and actually even continue to train in Auckland as Land Rover BAR move down to Bermuda. But Team New Zealand have been through lawsuits with the event authority and they don’t agree with signing the pact for the future America’s Cups. So while trying to work out the design and sailing side they are raging against a whole lot of other stuff too. But Emirates Team New Zealand are, and always have been,


Now speculation kicks off… Ben Ainslie heads down for a first sail on the BAR raceboat. No testing is allowed between teams on the AC raceboats so that ol’ grapevine’s now all set to hum


is that Artemis, SoftBank and Oracle USA are pretty similar in terms of performance and speed. That is not shocking as they have been sailing and testing together all winter. They were supposedly all pretty quick. I should add that I am going off what I have been told as I did not witness this personally, but what I got from the people I talked to down there was that there is some surprise around how far behind Land Rover BAR appeared to be. They actually only won one race and that was sailed in sub-4kt of wind on a shortened course. This comes back to a point I have made previously which is the debate about testing on your own versus working as part of a group. BAR have a very Formula 1 racecar approach. They are well funded and publicised; they have kept to themselves in testing (in the UK) but are pushing the science side and probably thinking way outside the box. They had a crazy test boat and from what I hear struggled to keep it on the water due to breakages. They have immense skill and talent but have they been spearing off on a tangent that ends up costing them? Are they worried, are they dogging it on purpose, are they happy doing their own thing, do they have tricks up their sleeve? So much to play for and so much up in the air right now. Artemis, SoftBank and Oracle USA have had the whole world watching, on the water in Bermuda training and testing all winter. Then you have Team France who are clearly struggling financially, and have been from day 1 so, although they actually have no short- age of talent in their camp, they just don’t have the same level of


30 SEAHORSE


very good at keeping the off-the-water antics completely separate from the sailing. The sailors and designers go off and do what they need to do to keep the on-the-water team going at full pelt while the management team take on the burden of the off-the-water fights. I also think Glenn Ashby is not recognised as much as he should be with regards to crossing over between being a fantastic sailor and a designer whisperer. I have been told that their sailing team is very good at communicating to the design team what the sailors are thinking and looking for. I can tell you that other teams are nervous that Team New Zealand have a few tricks up their sleeve. And, let’s face it, most Team New Zealands, since 1995 when they first won the Cup, have had a trick or two up their sleeve – they are really good at thinking outside the box. So I have put to a few key people in several programmes the question: how different will the last version of the Turbo 45-footers be from the AC Class 50-footer? Let’s be honest, that’s a loaded question as no one knows the answer. And if you think about the rule and what these guys can actually do ‘outside’ the one-design parts of the boat they have quite a lot of freedom – what’s under the water will be adjusted and designed completely differently from boat to boat. So they will look reasonably identical but there is still a lot of innovation going on. With regards to the wing, again they will look the same but the systems and shaping that go into it will be completely different. It’s like setting up your conventional rig totally differently from your competitor using an identical set of one- design sails. The speed outcome is likely to be very different. As for what we are seeing for ourselves in terms of the next iteration of boats… Man power to create hydraulic pressure is a struggle according to all involved – it is going to be hard to trim as aggressively and accurately as the teams want to. There may be times when boats won’t be able to tack or gybe as they don’t have enough power in the system. So that is where this America’s Cup is going to be very different and it is the reason that we have just seen Emirates Team New Zealand splashing their 50-footer with foot pedals instead of conventional coffee grinders (something done in 1977 on the 12 Metre Sverige, btw).


There will be more physical human specimens – high-oxygen intake athletes rather than just great sailors. It is going to be a change but these boats are absolute horror shows when it comes to the need for human power. Will the pedal power pay off or will the boathandling trade-off be too much of a flier to work? Will other teams take the same approach? Will it actually make no difference? Will it be the edge they need or the end of the campaign? And this is where it comes back to our old friends rumour, subterfuge and conspiracy. Now that the AC50s are being launched the inter-team sharing and training have to come to a halt. Testing and training can only be done with the training boats, not with the 50ft designs that will be used in the Cup trials and the Cup itself. The Cup might have moved on in terms of the hardware, but in terms of what goes on off the water it’s still so very much the same. The next 100 days will be taken up with all sorts of rumours, theories, predictions and hypo theses but the reality is that until that final boat and team hit the racecourse no one is going to know for sure. Ken Read is a two-time America’s Cup helmsman, the president of North Sails and will be commentating for AC TV in Bermuda q


ALEX PALMER


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