wore very thin over 14 months. Team manager Tom Ehman’s logic was,


as usual, irrefutable: ‘There was no point in going anywhere until we knew where we were going.’ The venue for AC 33 was up in the air until GGYC’s appeal was finally decided by the New York courts in December 2009. Also in September 2008, Mike Drum-


mond quietly made a move that would have great impact on the campaign. He asked Dave Hubbard to do some thinking about a hard wingsail for USA 17. An engineer from MIT, Hubbard has


been designing and sailing C-Class cata - marans since the 1960s. He designed his first successful C-Class wingsail in 1971, and in 1973 designed a two-element wing that was the essence of his wingsail for Conner’s Cup-winning Stars & Stripes cat in 1988. Meanwhile, modifying the big trimaran


for light air was the number-one priority. The bow was lengthened – a massive job – to accommodate larger headsails. The bowsprit was lengthened for bigger gen- nakers – the challenge was supporting the sprit in the absence of a deep enough stem to provide a wide angle for a bobstay. ‘The whole bowsprit saga is quite a story,’ Tim Smyth says. ‘We botched it thoroughly…


60 SEAHORSE


‘Alinghi thought we never used it


because our system was so good we were keeping it a secret. The reality was that it was so useless and such a screw-up that we couldn’t use it. I don’t think the sailors gybed the boat four times during the 14 months we were in San Diego.’ Mark Turner says he lost count of how


many bowsprits were built. ‘I think actu- ally the first time we succeeded in keeping it attached to the boat for any amount of time was in Valencia, a week before the Cup,’ he says. ‘We even lost one at the dock while pre-tensioning the rig,’ rig designer Scott Ferguson adds with a rueful chuckle. Once in San Diego, Jimmy Spithill


personally took on the removal of the big rudder from the main hull of the boat. ‘Mike and Russell were against removing it,’ Spith- ill says, ‘and Franck and the French guys never thought we could get rid of it and still have control bearing away. But I figured you have to get rid of some of the luxuries to make a gain in boat speed. You’ll somehow just figure out how to sail the boat. ‘We’d still be able to tack. It wouldn’t


be as easy, but we could do it. You have to remember when the boat is upright the float rudders are half out of the water.’ One day in San Diego Spithill asked one of the shore crew to cut the rudder in half.


‘We had two of them,’ Spithill says, ‘so I fig- ured even if I buggered it up we have a spare. We went sailing and it wasn’t bad, so we cut more off it. Finally I said we should just take it off. Mike and Russell came back and saw what we had done, and that it was working OK. A lot of us had that attitude of just pushing as hard as we could without being stupid and ruining the campaign.’ As it turned out, not having the rudder


on the main hull would haunt Spithill in Race 1… but only for a minute or so. The mast also kept getting longer. Again


the original design was for a conservative, all-around boat that was initially expected to race three months after it was launched. With the venue unknown, and to be chosen by Alinghi, that could possibly be in heavy wind and seas. The mast was super safe and heavy compared to what evolved. With more knowledge, more time, more


experience sailing the boat and a good bet that Alinghi was tuning for light air, the mast grew faster than bamboo. ‘I remember one meeting early on when


we were talking mast heights,’ Spithill says, ‘and it was a big, heavily debated decision to go to 50m. Franck’s French guys were really worried. So someone mentioned a 60m mast as a joke, and everyone just laughed. You wouldn’t even consider it.’


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