Both contestants in the 2010 Deed of Gift Match were adding new fairings right up until the first race to reduce aero drag; on Oracle’s USA 17 this had the bonus of providing a little more security (left) to stop helm Jimmy Spithill disappearing off the back. The heavier displacement of these two giants also meant that neither boat accelerated at anything like the rate of the AC50s in Bermuda on which such a helm position would have been untenable
brashly wasted no time, almost immedi- ately flying the main hull. The new wing was the same 60m height
as the final soft rig. At least initially… While the wing was being packed up
and shipped to Valencia Oracle design co-ordinator Mike Drummond felt it needed even more power and ordered another, ninth element to be added in Valencia. When the mast was stepped in Spain it now towered 68m above the water, fully 10m taller than Alinghi’s spar. Before they sailed with it, the top element, unsupported by any staying, gave rig designer Ferguson lots to think about. Ulti- mately, the addition lived up to design and never caused a problem. But before the Cup the drama was
otherwise never-ending for the Oracle team. Breakages were par for the course on a daily basis, some the result of just plain bad luck. In one particularly bad moment in Valencia a line broke while lowering the wing and the trailing edge crashed onto a seawall, necessitating five days of repairs. At the same time the wing tilt hydraulics started leaking badly just before the first race and a fix was made barely in time. Then on the eve of the Cup a storm blew
the firm decision to move ahead with the wing sail. A big bonus: mainsheet loads would now be exponentially less on a wing sail than with the soft rigs. It was a quintessential risk-reward deci-
sion – the type that every America’s Cup winner in history has been unusually good at. At that point few had any idea how to design and build such a wing, let alone even imagine it. If they couldn’t build it on time or if it didn’t work they’d be sunk. In what was one of the most impressive
efforts I’ve ever seen, and in almost any industry, the Oracle team led by Mike Drummond went to work and built the wing in just three months during the autumn of 2009. At the same time the Alinghi team were
considering similar wing masts but started too late and were forced to conclude that time and resources weren’t enough to have a working wing by the February Match. In addition, Alinghi team head Ernesto
Bertarelli was now growing weary of Larry Ellison’s ‘whatever it costs and whatever it takes’ stance on winning the Cup this time after his string of previous failures. ‘If he wants it that desperately he can have it’ was one of Bertarelli’s disparaging observations at the time.
40 SEAHORSE But Oracle’s own challenge was daunt-
ing. No part of it was simple: aerodynam- ics, structural design and manufacture were all uncharted waters. Hall were asked to build the eight leading-edge elements of the wing’s flap system; to give an idea of the size of these ‘small’ items, if you stood in one of the moulds you could not see over the top edges. At Hall we made eight separate elements, each with its own tool- ing supplied by Oracle, taking just under eight weeks before the last element was shipped in early September 2009. But our job was easy compared with the rest of it. The main wing, with all its parts and
countless connections, followed by its assembly and covering, was a monumental undertaking. It is truly incredible that the Oracle team stepped the wing in early November, barely three months after start- ing. The stepping operation alone is worthy of a separate article; the first time it took 12 hours to step with its crane come gin pole set-up. And all filmed on a webcam for the world to watch. If something went wrong it would be seen by millions. Flitting around tight San Diego Harbor
at 20kt on the first sail, skipper Jimmy Spithill – with Oracle wing structural design boss Scott Ferguson’s blessing –
through Valencia. The crew assigned to stay onboard thought the circumstances were so threatening to the boat and wing that they strongly considered leaving the harbour and taking their chances out in the bay. During the whole life of the Oracle tri-
maran before the Cup the boat never got through a full course-length test without a major breakage. When asked if there were any breakages during the actual Cup event Glenn Ashby said, ‘No. Lady Luck was definitely with us. It really was the only two times the boat sailed a Cup-length course without a race-ending type of breakage…’ Oracle of course went on to win the
Cup 2-0. The team’s courage to take incredible risks right up to the first race of the Cup itself, to get a leg up in perfor- mance, stands in my opinion as one of the greatest achievements in America’s Cup history – if not the greatest. It’s hard to imagine that the five-ton heavier USA 17 could have won with its soft rig against the much lighter, similarly rigged Alinghi 5. But risk taking and fighting right up to
and during the Cup have always been the essence of the event and the next two Cups once again provided impressive examples.
Aloft – 2013 As the new Defender, Team Oracle wrote the new Protocol. It was no surprise that they created a new America’s Cup class
w
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
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