Clockwise from top left: once twin-helms became the obvious way forward Pete Burling wasted no time asking Grant Dalton to charm the socks off Nathan Outteridge for the other slot – their calm, authoritative onboard comms offered a masterclass in how it’s done; it was great to see the smile return to Ben Ainslie’s face when he slowly realised that it really was coming together and for the first time ever he had a challenger worthy of his hard work; helped all the way by chirpy foil controller Leigh McMillan; Jimmy Spithill, an America’s Cup great whose heartrate rarely exceeds 70bpm and who gave us the unforgettable line – ‘imagine if they lost it from here (1-8 down in 2013, they did); Pete Burling, ahead, behind, dominant, struggling, you’d never know from the body language – see Pete Sampras; funny, dedicated, loyal Max Sirena, now desperate to win yet Luna Rossa were less competitive than three years ago
One is played on an immaculately
mown pitch with a supplied oval ball. The other is played on the ever-changing ocean with each team required to build its own highly refined grand prix machines demanding the highest levels of design, engineering and technological expertise.
SOFTWARE For as much as America’s Cup cognoscenti spent days, weeks and months scrutinising, analysing and criticising every visible bump, curve and detail of this generation’s competing yachts, a large and quite poss - ibly decisive part of their development and refinement remained hidden in the belly of the beast… and indeed elsewhere too. Software wars were as intense as any
other element of these all-consuming 2024 campaigns and continued deeper into the contest, 24 hours a day right through to the end. Under the decks was a complex universe of electronics, hydraulics and mechatronics, all serving interlinking and multiple functions. ‘A huge part of the magic is in the software,’ says ETNZ per- formance engineer Elise Beavis. ‘When one of the sailors presses a
button, moves a toggle or cranks a twist- grip, that human signal goes through the software and moves a foil flap, a rudder elevator or a sail. It is critical to eliminate power losses through the system, because accuracy and instant responses directly translate into speed across the water.’ Although the AC75 rule forbids auto- matic flight control systems, as used in the
46 SEAHORSE
AC40s, there is allowance for a large number of automatic performance pre-sets, which can be activated from cockpit arrays in front of helmsmen, trimmers, flight con- trollers and, in some cases, even cyclors. Glenn Ashby was part of the expert com-
mentary team at the Barcelona America’s Cup, prior to which he was a senior member of the Emirates Team New Zealand cam- paigns in San Francisco, Bermuda and Auckland. Ashby says the sophistication of AC75 control systems has taken a major leap with the latest generation. The yachts can now be pre-programmed with the pre- sets, where a single button push can set in train a closely choreographed sequence of mechanical and hydraulic responses to adjust all the major sail trim functions – jib cunningham, outhaul and sheet, plus all the mainsail and traveller settings. ‘It is a lot more complicated than it used
to be,’ says Ashby, ‘but it is also much more efficient. Coming out of a tack, for example, instead of using five or six fingers to make the necessary adjustments, you can now just adjust a dial, or hold down a button to power up, or power down the rig to match boatspeed or True Wind Angle targets. You can do this to a much greater extent than we were allowed under the rules in AC36. ‘There are different situations where
you would use a mix of manual and semi- automatic control. In a pre-start for exam- ple, the boats might be manoeuvring more aggressively and you will want to sweep the traveller to set up a roll for a prestart
hook, or to put pressure on the opponent. In those situations the controls would be more manual.’ Even in semi-automatic mode the crew
always remain poised and ready to inter- vene when it starts to unravel. ‘You need to be able to save it when some of the manoeuvres go wobbly,’ he concedes, ‘as always happens at one time or another!’ The objective of the software and
systems is consistency, Ashby notes. ‘It is like driving a car round a racetrack. You want to be braking and accelerating at exactly the same spot every lap. ‘Setting the boat up with these highly
developed control systems creates the consistency you are after through every manoeuvre. You are dealing with such fine margins between gains or losses – a metre here, a couple of metres there. ‘It is about creating the accuracy and
consistency to hit absolutely every VPP target through the turn, the sail transfer, the heel, the trim. The closer you can keep the boat sailing to its optimum at all times, whether in the middle of a tack or an accel- eration, the quicker you get around the race track. ‘These pre-sets are calibrated for differ-
ent modes,’ Ashby continues. ‘So you might have modes, say for 10kt of wind- speed, 12kt and 14kt. You dial the wind- speed into the software and then it will adjust all the global settings accordingly. ‘Take a scenario of entering a tack at
36kt in 14kt of windspeed. The trimmer hits the downboard button and the boat
CARLO BORLENGHI
INGRID ABERY
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