News Around the World


For old times’ sake. With the Fastnet finish moved to Cherbourg Ned Collier-Wakefield and the Powerplay MOD 70 team spotted an unusually favourable weather window and grabbed the opportunity for a last crack at the course record. A one-off record attempt cannot be compared with a course record set during the race itself, but for every sailor with a Fastnet race on their CV the sheer thought of finishing the old 605nm track ‘in a day’, even in 2021, feels unimaginable. Down the Channel, turn right, up to Ireland and back, left to Plymouth along the south coast of England. Twenty-five hours and four minutes… seriously?!?


the Spanish Olympic team to join the Italians! MSL: In part because I wanted a change of scene. I had spoken to US Sailing but they changed bosses. The Spanish federation was living through ‘unstable times’, with a lot of uncertainty about positions in the Olympic team. A nice proposal arrived from the Ital- ians at just the right time, so I accepted it! There was no problem with the Spanish, no special or hidden reason. But it is also true that at Luna Rossa I learned to appreciate very good Italian food… Carlos Pich


AUSTRALIA And now… The trio of Pete Burling, Blair Tuke and Glenn Ashby were just the tip of the spear when it came to fighting to retain the silverware in the 36th America’s Cup. Blue Robinson spoke to Ashby on the broader team and its unsung heroes. Seahorse Magazine: How is the team after retaining the Cup? Glenn Ashby: That four-year cycle with everything building and building, with all that entails, and then it suddenly ends… Fortunately we were on the right side of it, which makes life a whole lot easier, but the drain of it all means that everyone is pretty much running on empty at the moment. We all need a bit of a break. SH: Tom Whidden told me that you expend the same energy if you win or lose the America’s Cup… GA: Totally agree. From the big trimaran win with Oracle, to the loss in San Francisco on the AC72, then with the AC50s in Bermuda and now to defend the Cup in Auckland… mate, it is draining – win lose or draw! For sure you come out of it pretty spent. SH: When you published the AC75 rule it was a jaw-dropping moment for many seasoned observers, who feared such an extreme design might not work in the hard-driven environment of the America’s Cup and that you had possibly gone a step too far. Did you ever have moments you thought they might be right? GA: To be brutally honest, not really. From the initial sketch on a piece of paper it was plainly obvious to us it was either hard in the displacement corner, or hard in the fully high-performance corner; anything in the middle was a bit of a lemon, to be honest. That just wouldn’t work well with all the parameters that we set, ending up a poor compromise. So when we plugged the final design into the simulator it was


quite a ‘wow’ moment, as we learned it had huge potential as a class. So once you got your head around the concept and then


30 SEAHORSE


carefully pieced together the engineering, the structures and foil-cant system into the operation in a racing perspective, quite quickly you could envisage just what these boats would be capable of. It is incredible to realise just how realistic the team’s concept for this was, in terms of manoeuvres with two boards down, pre- start activity and mark rounding – it was just remarkable. Right from the early CAD concepts, when we sat down with the


boatbuilders, just how quickly the designs developed through design and construction techniques. The speed of the evolution. Mate, it was incredible! There were times when people looked at me side- ways when we started talking about sailing upwind at 40kt – well, it happened! SH: Let’s talk about some of the less well-known names who operate quietly behind the scenes. What about Clouds, your meteorologist, for example… GA: Many of us have worked with Clouds over several campaigns, not just the Cup stuff. And Clouds has seen the movie many, many times before… And so his experience and enthusiasm are massive, and this twinned with a super-dry sense of humour means that we get along really well! His role is pretty much 24/7 for the campaigns that he has worked on, and how he packages it up, breaking it down into simple terms for us sailors – because we are all simple folk really compared to the smart designers and engineers. How he does that means we can all talk and have a robust


discussion about what is critical to expect. In the last two matches he has been a massive factor in winning or losing the America’s Cup… and in two very different classes of boat. SH: And your coach, Ray Davies. GA: Ray has been one of the key unsung heroes in Emirates Team New Zealand – and has been for many, many years. The effort he puts in is vast. I often ask him, ‘Have you got your rattle-gun with you?’ as he keeps the wheel-nuts on the whole campaign tight. Not just with the sailing programme, but he keeps an eye on the


other departments. Ray has an exceptional technical understanding of these boats; he was very much at the forefront of the initial concept and early development phase, and this was the same when we had the AC72 programme. His role is overseeing and developing the sailing programme, working with the sailors, with Clouds, the designers and engineers, packaging the whole lot to go out and achieve the joblist of development items that need to be done. That means Ray needs to be across multiple departments, ticking the boxes for the whole programme. He has a really wide brief. Then 


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