2023-12-12 07:39:59
The activity of the six competing teams of the 37th America’s Cup has slowed down in Barcelona after the preliminary regatta in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and with the arrival of the Christmas holidays only the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing and the American Magic American, training both with their first generation AC75.
With Emirates Team New Zealand training in Auckland (New Zealand), Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in Cagliari, with its LEQ12 (test boat) out of action after a breakage in training, INEOS Great Britain also with rudder problems of its LEQ12 in Barcelona, and the French Orient Express, idle while awaiting the return of its AC40 from Jeddah, all activity in Barcelona’s Port Vell is at a very low level.
Although the temperatures are not very low in Barcelona, the wind remains at 9 to 16 knots (16 to 30 km/h) on the city’s seafront and the ‘BoatZero’ (the AC75 ex ‘Te Aihe’ (The Delfín) of Team New Zealand) of Alinghi Red Bull Racing, with Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin as helmsmen and Yves Detrey and Bryan Mettraux as trimmers, had a very active week and paid a lot of interest to the mast rotation system.
The new mainsail sheet system is also being tested and hydraulic engineer Elliot Pilcher commented that, «It is working very well. “We were switching between the two systems during the start-up phase, but now we are very happy with how it is working.”
Now, they are going through the to-do list to get the ship back into service after the time in the hangar although when some of the team was in Jeddah, in Barcelona that time was used to repair things and do all kinds of maintenance on the ship.
Pilcher went on to indicate that, “We are going to continue with the development of our systems and controls, which are one of the key things in this Cup cycle, so the main focus of our team is to make the systems work as best as possible and that development is continuous”.
American Magic also has as its main priority the development of systems that will be implemented in its new AC75, ‘Boat 3’, which is being built in Rhode Island (United States) and is expected to be in Barcelona in the spring of 2024.
Their first generation AC75, the ‘Patriot’ proves very fast, particularly upwind (upwind), where the scalpel-shaped hull with its downward bow profile appears very stable.
Terry Hutchinson, general director of operations of the American team, is following the evolution of the boat from the race field in the support boat and noted that, “I just listen and observe and when we finish training we have 30 minutes to catch up on what we highlighted about the day.”
«I think that for us each training session is another day to continue evolving the systems within the ‘Patriot’ to use them in the Boat3»he added.
He also indicated that, “We spent the entire month of November sailing on the ‘Patriot’, we didn’t have a good performance in Jeddah, but the crew held up well in the end and had last week off so that the mechatronic engineering part of the team could work on the ship”.
«This year has been long, we moved from our house in Pensacola to Barcelona and the move was really good. It’s probably one of the best transitions I think I’ve experienced in the America’s Cups, but I’m sure everyone is looking forward to a couple of weeks of rest and a good breather.”he stressed
Hutchinson confirmed that «The only focus until the end of this year will be to carry out some training with the ‘Patriot’ and we will continue with them when we return at the beginning of 2024. Many things are coming to us and I think that as long as we assume them our strategy is to be as stable and consistent as possible ; “This will be our key objective during the first seven months of 2024.”.
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