Update
GIGO AND FEEDING THE BEAST – Jack Griffin GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. It’s an old truism in data processing and it applies in spades to the simulators upon which America’s Cup yacht design depends. How will the simulators be developed and how will the data be collected, first to validate the simulators and then to refine and use them? The five teams in this America’s Cup cycle have started from
different places in their quests to launch a fast AC75 in 2024 and each team will take a different path, with its own unique set of con- ditions. Defender Emirates Team New Zealand have already designed two AC winners and will continue working at home in Auckland with massive confidence in their well-developed set of simulation tools. Challenger of Record Ineos may still be scratching their heads
about what went wrong in the development programme during the build-up to their elimination in 2021. They’ve closed up their waterside headquarters in Portsmouth and moved their efforts inland to the Mercedes AMG Petronas facilities in Brackley, with 119 people listed on the website as members of the technical and performance teams. Alinghi Red Bull Racing are also aligned with an F1 powerhouse,
but their design team is integrated with their own sailing operations in Barcelona while partners Red Bull Advanced Technologies is a resource for design tools and services rather than the driving force for their yacht design. Luna Rossa remain at their base in Cagliari. Their innovations
from 2021 – the boomless rig and shared helming configuration – are showing up in the test boats launched by other teams this year. Design chief Martin Fischer was recruited away to Ineos. Fischer’s designs bedevilled both of Ben Ainslie’s prior challenges: Luna Rossa eliminated Ineos in Auckland in 2021 and Fischer’s design for Team France took races off BAR in Bermuda in 2017 – despite the Brits having a budget at least five times that of the French.
12 SEAHORSE
New York Yacht Club American Magic also lost their design chief
– Silvio Arrivabene now heads Alinghi’s design efforts and Marcelino Botín’s firm has gone with him. Alinghi are the only team operating in Barcelona, with both the
advantages and disadvantages of sailing in the wind and sea state conditions of the 2024 America’s Cup racecourse. The 100 per cent crew nationality rule means their sailors began
the campaign with no experience in the AC75, but they’ve since hired Dean Barker and Pietro Sibello to help coach the Swiss. No one has more experience of foiling America’s Cup yachts than
Barker, beginning with ETNZ’s first tow tests with their Waka and their stunning (and unwise) demonstration of foiling their AC72 in the lead-up to the 2013 match. Sibello was the mainsail trimmer and tactician onboard Luna Rossa’s AC75 in Auckland in 2021. American Magic are sailing their AC75 Patriot on Florida’s
Pensacola Bay. They will be the last team to receive an AC40, which they can modify for testing. So what data can each team collect and how will they use it? Both tow tanks and wind tunnels are forbidden by the Protocol.
Ineos have said they expect to do more (full-scale) tow testing than other teams. Their LEQ12 test mule seems to have a special mast for towing, which would allow towing the yacht while flying on only one foil, with force applied more nearly at the centre of effort of the sailplan. The Ineos test boat also has pitot tubes on the bulbs of their foil
wings. Obviously they feel they want more accurate, very localised flow speed measurements around the foils. Flow speed is one of the four key factors in generating lift (the
other three are angle of attack, fluid density and foil shape). The GPS will give speed over ground. A paddlewheel or other device for measuring speed over water would not be localised enough to eval- uate the flow over the flaps. Accurate flow speed data combined
NICO MARTINEZ
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