Opposite: sometimes a picture really can say it all… Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Peter Burling steps ashore after defending the America’s Cup for a second time in succession in flying monohulls after defeating Oracle USA in Bermuda in 2027 in a foiling cat. Above: obviously Seahorse is rooting for columnist Sam Goodchild in the Vendée Globe, but following Yoann Richomme’s generous words on live TV (page 11) soon after the start, plus more equally kind words from Macif skipper Charlie Dalin, we may be sharing our love out a little bit… Plus of course regular contributor Sam Davies for whom we maintain very high hopes onboard Initiatives Coeur
Match. But how and why did they pull off their threepeat? Performance of the yachts was relatively similar – no team had
a dominant speed advantage. This made the regatta a sailors’ race – they needed to sail well to win, and any mistake made it easy to lose. In the Match the Kiwis faced a strong challenger in Ineos
Britannia. This was the third America’s Cup for a team led by Sir Ben Ainslie. The Brits had made immense progress since Ainslie’s first challenge in Bermuda in 2017. They became the first English challenger to race in the Match since Tony Boyden’s Sovereign in 1964. They were also the first English challenger to win a race since Sir TOM Sopwith’s Endeavour in 1934. And, like Endeavour, they won two races. To put their achievement in historical perspective, before
Britannia’s two race wins, the victories of British challengers could be counted on the fingers of one hand: one for James Ashbury’s Livonia in 1871, two for Sir Thomas Lipton’s Shamrock IV in 1920 and two for Sopwith’s Endeavour in 1930. Performance in the fleet in Barcelona was surprisingly close, in
spite of significant differences in the boats. ETNZ’s performance analysts calculated that there would be about five seconds’ differ- ence among the yachts over a 30-minute race based upon the aerodynamic characteristics of the hull shapes. ETNZ, Orient Express Racing and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli had
their flight controllers in the forward-most cockpits. The Brits had them in the aft cockpits. New York Yacht Club American Magic had recumbent cyclors facing aft, with the flight controllers inboard of the helms. Alinghi Red Bull Racing put the helms in the forward cockpits with the flight controllers behind them and cyclors in the aft cockpits. The British flight controllers could see their foils; the other teams’ flight controllers had screens in their cockpits since they were too far forward to see the foils. Both seemed to work well.
All the boats were highly data driven. Nathan Outteridge said there
were approximately 60 data values on the screens in the ETNZ helmsmen’s cockpits. He compared that to his 49er days when the compass was the only instrument and all he had to do was remember the heading on each tack so he could work out the shifts. Sailing the New Zealand AC75 to 90 per cent of the target speed
was relatively easy; getting to the maximum of the polars was an almost unattainable goal. Each team used two helmsmen, meaning that the offside helm
could keep his head outside the boat. He also had time to reflect on his own steering and see what his co-helm did. Outteridge compared this to his experience driving Artemis’s AC50 in Bermuda: steer, run across the boat in each manoeuvre, steer from the other side, heart pounding. On training days with flat water the offside helm could get out
of his cockpit, walk around, adjust the jib leech line and maybe take some photos of the sails or the fairings – more interesting than being the active helmsman. AC75 design has progressed enough that the boats are quite
manoeuvrable, letting the sailors throw them around in prestarts, at mark roundings and in tactical situations. Set plays from old- school match racing came back into use, sometimes in dramatic situations. In the prestart of Race 3 of the Match, NZL on starboard aggressively dialled down port-tack GBR. The foils came within one metre of hitting, and GBR got a penalty. Prestarts were crucial in the Match. The Kiwis probably had a
slight boatspeed advantage, but the key to winning was either to win the start or to control the favoured side of the course. An important factor in the prestarts was the phenomenal amount
of turbulence the AC75s generate. Race 5 started in very light con- ditions. ETNZ mistimed their entry, then sailed through their own sail wash and fell off the foils. GBR sailed past them twice before
SEAHORSE 15
PIERRE BOURAS/DPPI
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