Update
Nothing US scow sailors haven’t known forever… A good illustration (left) of how a seemingly draggy scow works well at the right heel angle – especially in flat water. Flexirub is a development of David Raison’s successful TeamWork. The Mousselon-designed Eight-Cubed (right) offers a less flattering image; such designs are extremely fast but very demanding of a high level of sailing skill
it, then raking the top of the board forward to create negative lift to pull the board down before we rake the top of the board back to generate lift. Finally, the old leeward board needs to be raised. Foiling tacks will have a different sequence in the playbook, and we need to know how much oil it costs. The same goes for foiling gybes. So how will the teams develop their playbooks and oil budgets? We’ve already seen video of Artemis doing a foiling tack in their ‘Turbo’ boat and we can assume that Oracle and Land Rover BAR are developing this technique too. Artemis’s Turbo and Oracle’s Sport both had only one pedestal per hull. Oracle has since added a second pedestal in each hull and BAR launched their T2 with two pedestals.
It’s a good bet that all three have electric pumps in these test boats. They can then experiment with sailing techniques and manoeuvres and measure how much oil pressure they get from the electric pumps, effectively determining the ‘cost’ of each manoeuvre. Then they can match those demands for oil with the output their grinders can produce and the pressure from the accumulators. In parallel their design teams will be developing sophisticated control systems and readouts so the crew can optimise their ‘spending’.
And what about the other three teams? SoftBank Team Japan will acquire Oracle’s first test boat in January. ETNZ have said their test boat is in build and will launch ‘early next year’. Groupama Team France have their C-Class but apparently no plans for building a test boat. Japan and New Zealand will start this process late. France may not start the process until their AC50 race boat launches at the end of 2016.
Oracle staged their comeback in the 2013 Match by developing the playbook for roll tacks and upwind foiling after they were deep in the hole. Having started to drill crew work as soon as they launched their first test boat in February 2015, they clearly want to be ready on day one of the 2017 Match.
The shifty conditions and tight course in Bermuda will place a premium on crew work. Better have your oil budget in place when it all begins.
See:
www.cupexperience.com PLAN B
‘We had the racecar, but there was a lack of money for fuel. We did not find anyone interested in our project, which was a solid reality and not a daydream.’ A disappointed Andrea Mura sums up the shipwreck of his Vendée Globe programme, an Italian skipper on a boat built in Italy by Persico Marine. We met Andrea at the Genoa Boat Show, where he’d travelled for a breath of ‘sailing friendship’ to help dispel some of his disappointment. ‘Italy is not ready for sailing sponsorship,’ declares Andrea. ‘The money could be there, but companies are rightly free to invest where they like and they do it in classic television advertising as well as in
10 SEAHORSE
football – yes, at enormous cost but with many, many more fans. ‘My boat cost €5million and for the Vendée we were looking for
€2million per year for two years, far less than the top French teams. And since our boat was built and set up, and on schedule, when it became time to move on it took no time at all to find a buyer. Now the whole package has gone: boat, equipment and technology, including my sails, which is maybe a small consolation.’ (Andrea had already spent more than 1,500 hours on his sail designs). Having already talked with more than 250 Italian companies in search of sponsorship, once they’d found the patron that enabled them to build the boat Andrea’s team had an unshakable faith that someone would come in to support the campaign. For a while they thought they had found that support from the Region Sardinia, where Andrea was born and still lives (his 50-footer was called Vento di Sardegna). Unfortunately, the promises of enthusiastic local politicians remained just that… promises. Now Andrea is trying to set up a more modest project on a more limited budget, a Class 40 to race The Transat and then the Quebec- St Malo. ‘For the Vendée project’, he continues, ‘we put together a wonderful support structure that does not deserve to be dismantled; I hope this new project means that all of that work will not go to waste...’ Giuliano Luzzatto
THE SOUTH RIDES AGAIN
Many will remember the glory days of offshore racing in the US, when in the IOR era boats from around the world came to Florida for a winter season of point-to-point racing around the peninsula. The Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC) opened with racing in St Petersburg on the Gulf Coast, there was then a long race down and around the Keys to hurtle up the Gulf Stream north to Ft Laud- erdale, inshore racing on this coast off Miami, then a race to Nassau where the series concluded with more inshore races. It was where all the hottest new designs and significant talent assembled to show their wares and get properly thrashed in real ocean sailing. It was in these pre-GPS days that navigators were often the unsung heroes as they guided their crews through every form of weather while ducking in and out of the unstoppable Gulf Stream. Even in the pre-internet era the media came to highlight the action, which in turn helped to create the legends that inspired many of us of a certain age to jump into this game. After a long hiatus while the sport realigned towards buoy racing formats held over long weekends, there is a trend now to go back to these ocean racing roots. A revived 2015-16 SORC will feature a three-race format, starting with the 82nd running of the Nassau Cup race from Miami to Nassau in November, followed in January by the Ft Lauderdale-Key West Race and a new race created for February: Miami to Havana. Yes, Havana, forbidden fruit for US boats until now.
CHRISTOPHE BRESCHI
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