Rod Davis
Hold the line
Let’s take a mental journey together that will make you see the upcoming America’s Cup regatta in a different light, as the team decision makers see it. We are going into the ‘war room’ of an America’s Cup team! There are only four teams in the next America’s
Cup so, for our journey, you can pick any team’s war room you want. In this exercise all the teams
are faced with the same problems. We are not going to simply observe – we are going to take part in the plotting strategy for the upcoming racing of the AC75s. Two regattas, and the first one happens in just a few weeks. April will be the first time the three challengers and defender
sail against each other. No one knows whose design is fast or off the mark. This racing will reveal some good, bad and, perhaps, ugly truths. All you need for this meeting is an analytical, focused yet open
mind. Before we sit down and get to work there are a few things to keep in the forefront of our collective minds. In fact, we are going to write these things in BIG letters at the top of the whiteboard. First:WIN THE AMERICA’S CUP (don’t care the battles we lose if we win the Cup) Second: OUT-THINK THE PROBLEMS AND OUR COMPETITION Third: DON’T LET EGOS TAINT OUR DECISIONS
Just a little background to how the 2021 America’s Cup game
works. Each team has designed and developed their package using the best tools they can produce or find. A package equals hulls, foils, sails, sailing style, really everything.
The team’s tools have told them what is fastest – foil, hull shape, sails, in fact all facets of the package. Thus they controlled what we have built so far. Much of the team’s early work was spent refining and validating
that what the computer and simulators told us was in fact what was going to happen in real life. We trust our tools because we have to.
30 SEAHORSE But we (that means you, me and the war room decision makers)
are not stupid. We can see there are other ‘solutions’ out there that don’t look like our boat. How can that be?
Two possible reasons 1) We never tested their hull shape solution on our simulator, or 2)Their computer/simulator gave them a different answer from ours, or at least different crossovers in performance. So they came to different solutions. If so, I wonder who is right? The first possibility is an easy fix: we can run their different package
shapes on our simulator as soon as we get good spy photos to give us the exact lines of these different boats. If bits of their package are better, then we can just copy them. The second scenario is a bit more scary. But never mind, keep
the faith because we can only act on what we think is right. Besides, all the teams are building the second boat by now. When it comes to hull design ‘it’s too late to worry, and too early to cry’. What we in the war room need to assess is where we can improve
on speed. Hulls are a given now. Besides, if the hull is in the water we lose anyway. Sails, foils and technique of using them, they’re our areas of focus from now on. Here is another tip, more of a trap really, that teams often fall into:
the reason EGO is written at the top of the whiteboard is that teams tend to believe what they want to believe, both of themselves and others. Not what reality is saying – this can really taint your decision making. Objective: clear thinking is mandatory here. I would like to propose a definition of winning: the team that gives
away the least information and at the same time learns and uses the maximum information gained from other teams. Sounds good? Notice I did not talk about winning as a scoreboard thing. I know
the public and press will make a big deal about who wins on their scoreboard scale. We don’t care. We are fully funded (just as all the teams are) so if we keep the backers informed of the method to the madness we are all good. Please refer to points 1, 2, and 3 at the top of the whiteboard.
MAX RANCHI
INGRID ABERY
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