To boldly go


The flying gecko grabbed everyone’s attention, more so even than the flying AC50s (at least until some extraordinarily high-performing boats began racing). By the time that the foiling AC45F cats debuted in the America’s Cup World Series in 2014, followed by the still-born AC62 and the AC50s used in Bermuda, well, by then we had seen wings and we had seen foiling – but following the 2013 Cup in San Francisco and the C-Class Worlds the idea of seeing them all in the same frame was still only just becoming familiar. The AC75 will be taking high-performance sailing into another entirely new world, one where no one has been before… not even close. Franck Cammas, Dean Barker and Grant Simmer share their views on the new America’s Cup ‘yacht’ with James Boyd


48 SEAHORSE


Even within the America’s Cup community the AC75 has caused much surprise. Many assumed that ‘going back to a monohull’, as had been requested by the Italian Challenger of Record, would result in a more conven- tional boat in which to contest the 36th America’s Cup – perhaps something like a lightweight turboed Maxi72, perhaps with a canting keel… something that might look elegant in an advertisement for Prada, for example. Instead, the AC75 is a hybrid of an Imoca


60, an AC50 and a Moth – an alien craft that is technically a monohull by virtue of having one hull, but in almost every other aspect, such as mimicking the catamaran’s wide beam through the span of its foils, might as well be a multihull. On the plus side, it is clearly a groundbreaking boat and, with the unique fast-track that the America’s Cup provides, will help monohull foiling evolve, just as the AC72s and AC50s managed in multihulls. We also like very much that it is self-righting, implying that it


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