News Around the World
both the question and answer multiple times. That may sound excessive, but remember that he was deeply involved in the design of the Artemis AC50 programme, and deftly stepped between system design and helming – plus he spent a lot of time in Auckland as the test pilot, fine-tuning these F50 platforms. If you pause and consider just what is happening to every square
centimetre of over two tonnes of foiling beast, now turbo-charged to fleet-race at 50kt, with all the systems, interactions and lift/drag equations involved, that is a serious amount of complex mental gymnastics that Nathan and the key people here possess in spades – and which I think many of the new America’s Cup teams standing on the side of the mat dusting their hands with chalk are just beginning to grasp. Listening to Outteridge I am convinced there is an inverse
correlation between the speed you sail at and the cadence of your speech. He is one of the athletes here with the ability to process all the functions and capabilities of a foiling F50, multiplied by the fleet size, divided by the breeze lanes and halved by the boundary line just 25 seconds away, as he calmly chats to his wing trimmer telling him he’s doing a great job, while launching the boat into a 3G turn and pondering what is for lunch. The faster his world accel- erates the slower he talks, communicating in a monotone while all around him is an accelerating blur of light and motion and so he seems to live within his own branch of fast/slow physics; gravita- tional time dilation in action, which resets back to normal the moment he sets foot on the dock. If Einstein were still alive and on a spectator boat on Sydney Harbour he would be rapidly scribbling notes with eyebrows twitching to check the details later. When Outteridge was asked if he regarded himself as the favourite
to win the first event he paused to allow a slow smile to broaden across his face. Nathan speaks highly of his teammates from Artemis, Iain Jensen and Luke Parkinson, and the Japanese sailors working and learning together, but dismisses the favoured status politely. But what you have to remember is that Tom Slingsby has perhaps 20 days’ helming 50ft foiling cats; USA skipper Rome Kirby who crewed on the Oracle AC72 may have seven. Yes, the Japanese team have only had five days’ training together… but Outteridge logged 380 days helming an AC50 in Bermuda. American skipper Rome Kirby, French skipper Billy Besson, British
helm Dylan Fletcher and China’s Phil Robertson are under no illusion about the need to learn and learn fast. Russell Coutts knows this, which is why the data rule imposed here is probably unique in inter- national sport. All teams have access to all the other teams’ data. This allows the coaches, crews and analysts to comb through the performance indicators coming off the leading boats, and apply that knowledge to their fast-learning crews. Phil Robertson also pointed
24 SEAHORSE
out that, with very few spares on the dock and no spare boat here, if there is contact you are out of the running for the million-dollar purse from the final match race in Marseille. And the racing? It was spectacular. Day one saw a light breeze
of 8-10kt, which gave teams a gentle start to proceedings. The massive spectator fleet were cheering for local boy Slingsby, but after a clean start the green and gold boat gybed early then hit a slow lane. All of the boats were foiling, some more that others… Outteridge already looking the smoothest. There was not enough breeze in race one for a dry tack or gybe – and if you parked it was painful. Japan took the first race with Australia coming in fourth place – not what the home crowd expected. I asked Slingsby before racing what sort of input his coach Philippe
Presti provides just before and during a regatta. Philippe knows Tom extremely well, having coached him at Oracle since 2012, and the response from Slingsby was that Presti often uses certain phrases to calm him down; that seems to have worked in race two and three as the Australians quickly reset to win both races. A fourth place in race one was painful, though, and at the day’s end it was Japan on top, followed by Australia – who claimed the top speed of the day, 34kt in 9kt of breeze. Great Britain’s Dylan Fletcher had a good day, finishing in third place. Day two saw more breeze and more confidence in the teams,
all of whom had a serious debrief the previous evening on pushing harder and sailing smoother. Race four saw the Australian boat claim the inside lane to the first turning mark – the short sprint that put them in front with clear air and open lanes to choose from. Slingsby must have had the required amount of caffeine in his system because he controlled the race from start to finish, winning well from Japan and Great Britain to take the top spot on the board. Race five saw the two key moves of this event. The first was from
Outteridge, who luffed the fleet in the pre-start, forcing the Australians to slow down and peel off behind everyone’s stern, to crawl across the line then gain speed but still hit the first turning mark at the back of the pack. That seemed to light a fuse in Slingsby and the Australian boat
took off, up and foiling to peel away from the fleet for move number two of the day, when he gybed early in the middle of the course, then picked the next two manoeuvres perfectly to be first through the bottom gate just ahead of Great Britain. It was beautiful stuff and that confidence in his team’s ability to throw the boat around when needed was telling, allowing them to hold the lead from China to win the final fleet race of the weekend. Now it was match race time, with the top two boats, Japan and
Australia, squaring off in the steady 12kt sea breeze. There was a bit of searching each other out in the pre-start but soon the bows
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
