through a massive shape range and power range,’ says Ashby. ‘Effectively you are going through a multitude of gear changes very quickly. It is like a truck with an 18-speed gearbox and you have to smash through the gears real fast.’
In this analogy the truck gets off lightly in that all its power is directed at turning wheels. On the AC75 it is more complicated. A multitude of vital elements demand power, usually at the same time: headsail trim, mainsail trim, mainsail camber, mainsail twist, mainsail cunningham, mast rotation – and those are only the aero requirements. Under the water the foil and rudder flaps will be working overtime as well. ‘There are so many functions the grinders have to power,’ Ashby says. ‘They will constantly be chopping and changing between mechanical and hydraulic systems, so there are a lot of buttons to press at the right time.
‘We have a certain amount of power and you can’t use it all at once, so you have to pick and choose pretty carefully what your next application will be. That choreography is fundamental. One bad gear change or one wrong button push is going to be the difference between winning the pre-start, or the race.’
All this frenetic action surely suggests that early predictions of a return to pre-start battles and tacking and gybing duels will come to nothing, with teams prefering to bang the corners and avoid engagement as much as they possibly can.
Ashby shakes his head. ‘In any boat race ultimate speed is about minimising manoeuvres, but in a match race environment it is a different programme. I don’t think it matters how many manoeuvres you do as long as your opponent does one more. These boats are going to be manoeuvrable, but they are big and powerful so the choreography within the sailing team is absolutely key.’ The visible parts of the package are all important and this America’s Cup cycle provides a welcome return of some of the design intrigue, allowing pundits and fans to analyse and speculate on subtle differences in shape and form. However, what lies beneath is probably more important.
Commentator Peter Lester and a former Cup afterguardsman nods agreement: ‘It is going to be a battle of systems. The teams that come up with the best and most efficient control systems will dominate.’ Naturally the internal sinews and muscles of the ETNZ boat were not on view at the launching, but one of the boatbuilders confirmed that the maze of hydraulic plumbing is ‘mind-boggling’. This is the first campaign where ETNZ has done the entire build in-house. Sean Regan, formerly from Cookson Boats, heads the programme at a team-owned site on Auckland’s North Shore. ‘About 56,000 man hours went into this boat,’ he says. ‘That is twice the hours that have gone into any previous Cup boat we have built. ‘Successive generations of America’s Cup boats get more and more technical. This one pushes the boundaries to another level.’ He glances over to the hull floating in its pen in front of the team base. ‘It looks pretty sedate,’ he says. ‘But if you went below you would be gobsmacked at the complexity of it.’
It has been an article of faith for ETNZ to push the envelope in all its campaigns. ‘We have pushed this one pretty hard,’ Ashby confirms. ‘Maybe too hard. Time will tell whether we have pushed too far and need to step back a bit, or if we can handle it. The learning curve will be nearly vertical for the next few weeks at least...’ Ivor Wilkins
SPAIN
Never before has the European fleet of TP52s offered such an uncertain outcome going into the final races as we saw at the Rolex World Championship, sailed for the second time in Puerto Portals. Since its first world championship in 2015 Portals has been the only fixed venue on the Super Series circuit, being a favourite of the teams and already confirmed for the last regatta of the 2020 season. In 2015 Azzurra was crowned champion, and this year she looked about to repeat the feat when overall leader Platoon threw open the doors of the title race on the last day… but although the goal was ‘wide open’ the Argentinean team were not able to score. On D-Day we talked to Guillermo Parada on Azzurra a few minutes before releasing moorings. ‘We go to the racecourse to make the best possible races and add the least possible points! On a day like today we must have one eye on the World Cup and another on the
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WWW.RECKMANN.COM SEAHORSE 25
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