solution once – then it’s sailing at a differ- ent speed or angle or ride height or what- ever. It is constantly in a state of accelera- tion or deceleration and very little in a steady state mode. So there’s a constant imbalance in the aero and hydro forces, and it’s not if ever at the optimum. That may lead to trying different things,
sail shapes or trims or flap and foil arrangements, things that you can control. That’s where the feedback, measuring a lot of information and data analysis can help you decipher things, assuming you can find the needle in the haystack. But those are the crucial dynamics that get under- stood when you’re sailing the boat – and not running simulations. You generate a lot of data, but deter-
mining what makes the boat better is hard. There is data transmitted off the boat as we are racing. Then there is more data to look through for all the other boats racing. There is no feedback to the boat while
you are racing. But when you are training you look at the feedback and it’s a differ- ent story. But it is too easy to drown in all the data that is available. When you have two races during the
day all of that data can help understand what they could have changed to improve for race 2. From the first race you know some key points, but there is not a lot of time so again you don’t want to overload them. You do try to decipher all of that data but, honestly, I’m not sure how good we ever got at deciphering it in time. But if out of each day you could have
50 SEAHORSE
one real takeaway that actually worked, well, that would be pretty good and you would probably win the America’s Cup. It could be how to do a light-air gybe better, or tack or mark rounding, or improving straightline boat speed or a high mode, low mode, VMG mode. Plus the data coming off the Ineos boat
was being analysed back at Mercedes in Brackley, as well as on-site. I don’t know whether other teams did the same, I think Prada probably had off-site analysis too. But it doesn’t really matter where the
information’s analysed unless you collabo- rate with people directly; a lot can be done virtually but it’s still really better to have people together if you can. Of course most people at Mercedes F1
had no idea about sailing at this level, so that was a growing pain. You need to spend extra time explaining your focus or goal. It’s more time and manpower, because they didn’t initially understand the problems, but they ultimately came to good solutions. If you have enough people and power it works, but it’s not the most efficient. The F1 group still did a great job. The
positive is there’s a huge opportunity there with that structure. But for the America’s Cup I think a slimmed-down, more refined model should be the next step. But we opened the door, we identified things that worked and could be improved. Continuity played a big part in AC37.
We had it, the Italians had it, and the Kiwis of course had it. But Alinghi, for example, was just starting out down this new road and it punished them. And as Team NZ keeps showing us, you need that rapport, especially when you’re trying to do some- thing at the top end of the pyramid where it gets very narrow and you’re trying to do something better than the next guy. That’s the problem that I think all the
teams will have going forward. If they don’t keep a core group that works well together, and reinforce, nurture and grow it, then you’re starting over. It is a new learning process for everyone, both in terms of the team coming together
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