Update
of the West River Sailing Club. Kevin and my dad would play pool until the wee hours of the morning and I would go to bed hearing him say, ‘Phil, can I grab another Heineken while you rack ’em?’ Kevin was famous for his success in the 470 with Morgan (silver
in 1992) and Paul Foerster (gold 2004) and the back-flip off the 470 after winning . But Kevin was also famous for his smile and, like his 2004 medal, he has a heart of gold. They broke the mould on Kevin! In closing the 2020 chapter I feel incredibly lucky to have the
opportunity to compete in the 36th America’s Cup. It is the dream of a lifetime to work for the great people that we do and to represent the United States of America and the New York Yacht Club. As a team American Magic has worked relentlessly in a very difficult period of time. I know when we all look back on 2020 we can see a lot of hardship, sacrifice and truly saddening world environments that always bring into question why? On top of Covid-19 Geoff’s and Kevin’s passing falls firmly in the ‘why’ category. Be it on the eve of our challenger series and America’s Cup or
getting up to make the world a better place, we need to just follow Kevin’s lead and ‘go get ’em, tiger!’ Standing by, 12 December 2020, Auckland, New Zealand!
RACING LEARNINGS – Jack Griffin The America’s Cup World Series and Christmas Race begin just a few days after this is being written. We will learn a lot. We’ve
come-from-behind win, and he masters the psychology as well as the techniques of racing high-performance America’s Cup yachts. The Kiwis’ deck layout is interesting: did their aero design work
lead them to a low deck and cockpits? Or were ergonomic consid- erations the independent variable? They certainly understand ergonomics, as we saw in their cyclors and the flight control system user-interface in Bermuda. On the AC75 we’ve seen them send men around the front of the mast in manoeuvres but we’ve also occasionally seen crew cross aft of the mainsail. They now have the luxury of lots of training days to refine their already sharp tacks and gybes. The winning combination from Bermuda is back – Pete Burling helming, Blair Tuke as flight controller and Glenn Ashby trimming the main. ETNZ have once again recruited Kiwi athletes with no sailing experience to provide the muscles. Instead of cycling, this time they have swimming and kayaking experience. Unlike all the other teams, Ineos Team UK are sailing with grinding
pedestals mounted transversely. The grinders are positioned for- ward in the cockpit and face outboard, each man turning his handles alone. This layout may give helmsman Ben Ainslie better visibility. Giles Scott is tactician. Paul Goodison trims the main. Iain Jensen is the flight controller. With the likes of Chris Brittle and Freddie Carr on the handles, they have a boatload of experienced sailors. Except for the grinding layout, New York Yacht Club American
Magic operates similarly to Ineos. Dean Barker brings his AC and foiling experience to the helm. Skipper Terry Hutchinson is tactician and has grinding duty. Paul Goodison trims the main, and Andrew Campbell is the flight controller. They were the first to launch a test boat, the first to launch an AC75 and the first to launch their second boat. They have more hours on the water than any other team. Regatta director Iain Murray now has his race management
system. The TV production should be a highlight with onboard audio and all those cameras! Chief umpire Richard Slater has the final version of the RRS AC Edition and his umpiring system. The racing rules and sailing instructions have a few interesting tweaks. Boats can remain on the tow until the warning signal, so they should always be able to enter the box on their foils for the two-minute pre-start sequence. As in the last two editions, penalties are slow-and-go, to lose 50m on the other boat. Within 90m of a boundary, an outside overlapped or clear astern
So far as they have disclosed at the time of writing Prada were the only America’s Cup team to have avoided a major capsize ‘episode’. Not so much their skipper Max Sirena who is seen struggling during a charity regatta in Palermo last summer…
already learnt quite a bit recently. The teams were given permission to practise together but mostly didn’t. Practice racing showed that Emirates Team New Zealand look sharp, as expected. The chal- lengers appear to have their work cut out for them, but of course it’s still several weeks until we get down to the Challenger Selection Series final in late February and then the Match itself in March. The ACWS and Christmas Race will give us a good idea of the
pecking order. By the time you read this the teams will have raced each other quite a few times. The key thing to remember is whatever we see in that racing will not be what wins in March. All the teams have more developments in the pipeline – hardware and software. We will see the new foils but not the systems that control them. All teams will continue to refine their playbooks. They have each
bet differently on deck layout, and it will be difficult to impossible to change that. We should have had a good look at crew work during the ACWS – there are 10 cameras on each boat! Presumably the flight controller does not change sides during
manoeuvres, but the mainsail trimmer and helmsman do, with one exception. Luna Rossa is the only team with two primary helmsmen – Francesco Bruni on port and Jimmy Spithill on starboard. They reportedly also had to change their headsail trimming arrangement when it was found to run afoul of the rule requiring a sailor to cast off a sheet on one side and another sailor to load the new active sheet on the winch on the other. They have Philippe Presti coaching them. Philippe played a key behind-the-scenes role in Oracle’s 2013
16 SEAHORSE
yacht must give the other yacht room to sail her proper course including room to tack or gybe. At marks the zone is 70m from the mast on the mark. If there is an overlap when the first yacht reaches the zone the inside yacht has rights to room regardless of who got to the zone first; regardless of who is on starboard; and regardless of whether one of them needs to tack. Interestingly, Rule 31 Touching a Mark has been deleted. The
rule writers seem to have decided that touching a mark in these yachts is penalty enough. To get an idea of that thinking, search for ‘Red Bull pylon strike’ on YouTube. Let’s hope the race com- mittee has a few spare marks. Unlike in other America’s Cups going back to the 1970s, there
is not a weak team among the challengers. They are all well-funded and filled with talent. Nevertheless, the Kiwis’ advantage is daunting, thanks to their head start from conceiving the AC75 months before the others got a whiff of it. And that’s before you even consider their talent and tenacity. The racing in December will be the first time these yachts line up, so there will be rough spots. But by the time the Challenger is crowned we should be treated to an incredible spectacle come March.
www.cupexperience.com
TIME FOR A RETHINK – Robert Lainé The Vendée Globe is a very interesting test for boat structures and I would like to share with the readers of Seahorse the following analysis and suggestions. It appears that the new boats built almost completely in modern
carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) are suffering more than old boats. The increase of speed is a significant contributing factor as 10 per cent more speed means 20 per cent more potential energy
STUDIO BORLENGHI/ALEA
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 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110
