Update
Renaud Laplanche and an experienced multinational crew rip up the English Channel on their 105ft trimaran Lending Club on their way to a new Cowes-Dinard course record. Lending Club is the ex-Banque Pop IX, ex-Groupama 3, and one of the most successful offshore tris of the modern era. The boat won the last two editions of the Route du Rhum with Franck Cammas and then Loïck Peyron
INFORMED SOURCE – Andy Claughton, Ben Ainslie Racing
In last month’s article about the 35th America’s Cup I observed that two significant matters were still in play: the ‘Class Rule’ and the replacement of the ‘Challenger of Record’ with a ‘Challenger Committee’. Events in the last month have seen action on both fronts. The Defender and a majority of the Challenger Committee voted through a protocol amendment to adopt a new Class Rule for a 48ft boat, and Luna Rossa have since publicly stated that they will withdraw from the Cup because they disagree with the position taken by the Challengers.
What does this mean for the event, the designers, the sailors, the teams? From my point of view there are no downsides to this change. The size reduction will reduce the barriers to entry for start-up teams, and by mandating that the new class can fit into containers the logistics of moving the fleet around the world are massively simplified. This opens up the prospect in future Cups of having America’s Cup World Series events raced in ‘real’ Cup boats. These changes should result in more, competitive teams racing on a circuit around the world.
Yes, the new rule has more ‘one-design’ elements, but the fundamental challenges of making a fast hydro-foiling catamaran remain: what shape should the boards be; how do we control the foils and the wing; how do we configure the boat for race day; how do we optimise energy generation and deployment? That said, two things were paramount for BAR before agreeing to the new format. These were an absolute ban on ‘supplied’ equip- ment; no serious team can hand over structural design and build to a third party. And a refusal to accept a new rule that was a carbon copy of the 45ft sportsboats that Oracle and Artemis
10 SEAHORSE
had recently launched. Boats built to the new rule will be fast, and in truth much better suited to the confined racecourse in Bermuda.
For the sailing team the challenge remains much the same, picking wind shifts, choreographing manoeuvres, trying to outsmart your opponent, generating power to move the appendages and wing. The new boats will be more physical and the smaller boats will allow the TV viewers to see this human side of things. For the teams the picture is now clearer, and we can plan our campaign. The new class is very similar to both the AC45F (foiler) World Series boats, and the test boats that have been launched or are under construction. It means that all of a sudden we are working with systems and infrastructure that ‘fit’ the new class, and as a new team we no longer have to contemplate the shift from 45ft to 62ft. This frees up resources to focus on the science, research and testing that will hopefully give us a race- winning edge in 2017.
No one knows how this will play out, but whoever raises the Cup above his head in 2017 will feel just as proud and satisfied as the 34 previous winners. Alongside an Olympic gold medal, the Cup is the most coveted of all sailing trophies, and the new format has done nothing to diminish this.
CHANGES – Terry Hutchinson
Sitting in St Barths after two glamour days of training onboard Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente.
We have one more day of practice before the event – the Voiles de St Barths – starts; it is interesting to see this regatta develop- ing. It is slowly evolving into a gem of an event in the Caribbean,
MARK LLOYD
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