Update
Brittany-based British sailor Will Harris (right) helps Malizia skipper Boris Hermann repair a furler on leg 3 in The Ocean Race. Harris followed the Rod Davis school of how to have a successful big boat career: ‘learn as many skills as possible, electrical, mechanical, rigging… the more you can do the better your prospects’. Harris studied plenty, the flipside being he has been on call constantly on Malizia; when this shot was taken he had barely recovered from the epic topmast rebuild he completed with shipmate Rosalin Kuiper
LIFE INTENSIFIES – Jack Griffin By the time you are reading this we will probably have had two big announcements: the long-awaited release of the AC40 Class Rule and the dates of the first two Preliminary Regattas, to be raced in one-design AC40s. Stating the obvious, it would be hard to race a one-design class without having the class rule. The AC Technical Regulations apply to both the AC75 and the
AC40. The tech regs define an ‘in class’ supplied component as not having ‘been modified outside the scope of any modifications explicitly permitted by the class rules’. Without the class rule we can’t know, for example, if the partitions added to the cockpits of the Kiwis’ AC40 are ‘in class’ or not. Sources tell us that this will be cleared up together with the dates of the soon-to-be-announced Preliminary Regattas – one ‘in the region of’ Barcelona in September and one in Cagliari in October. All six America’s Cup teams have shifted into a higher gear in
their preparations. The Match in October 2024 is less than 18 months off. The lead time to build a new AC75 cannot be shrunk, so some crucial design decisions will be frozen in the coming weeks. Some may have already been frozen, especially structural engi-
neering issues. Even with the lessons learnt from the hole in American Magic’s hull after they slammed down in Auckland in 2021, it’s clear that the simulations and the real world often disagree, and some- times disagree dramatically. Emirates Team New Zealand needed to reinforce their structural design for the AC40 after almost tearing the bow off the first AC40 during sea trials. Their twisting nosedive exceeded by over 50 per cent the loads they had simulated – and the simulated loads were based on the highest forces sustained by their two AC75s and their test mule in 2021.
14 SEAHORSE Ineos Britannia have had to shift gears in two especially major ways.
First they sustained major damage to their LEQ12 test boat when it capsized, turtled and almost sank in February, as we reported last month. Then their design team leader, F1 guru James Allison, was recalled to the F1 team after the new car for Mercedes AMG Petronas failed to meet the hopes for improving on last year’s troubles. Meanwhile, this may be the first America’s Cup in which structural
engineering decisions depend on racing strategy – do we design for one helmsman or two? It seems likely that most or all teams will go with the dual helmsmen
set-up pioneered by Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in 2021. All of the teams have been sailing with two helmsmen: Luna Rossa and Ineos in their own-design LEQ12 test yachts; ETNZ in their AC40s; and New York Yacht Club American Magic and Alinghi Red Bull Racing in their AC75s. The French will follow suit when they receive their AC40. The AC40s and the Italian and British test boats are all set up
so that none of the crew cross the boat in manoeuvres. Granted, these boats have so much automation that each of them sails with a crew of only four – a helm and a flight controller/sail trimmer on each side. American Magic and Alinghi have trained with two helms in the first-generation AC75s they have sailed. Multiple helms have been used in the past. In ancient times the
America’s Cup was raced in displacement monohulls with multiple headsails that were changed mid-race (yes, that really did happen), and without automated control systems and battery-powered hydraulic pumps. Even in those times we sometimes saw a pre-start specialist steering during the dial-ups and circling before the start. In the 12 Metre days Dennis Conner famously handled the starts
for Ted Hood and others, then in Fremantle in 1987 Peter Gilmour would start Kookaburra before handing over to skipper Iain Murray.
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