Cup Spy Feb 9-10 : Kiwis and Italians train in very different circumstances
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-world.com/nz 11 Feb 2023 13:23 NZDT
11 February 2023
Emirates Team New Zealand - LEQ12 - February 10, 2023 - Waitemata Harbour, Auckland NZ © Adam Mustill
What happened in the Cup - Feb 9-10, 2023:
The Kiwis and Italian teams trained in very different circumstances in the past 24 hours. In Cagliari it was a top end breeze - more than 20kts. In Auckland the Kiwis waited for four hours for the wind. The Kiwis had two boats, the Italians just one.
The Italian boat was a custom design, the Kiwis sailed a pair of stock hull designs. In Auckland it is summer with long training days possible. In Cagliari, it is winter - with shorter training time available.
Trying to work out who is ahead, who is behind, who has got their strategy right, and who has not, is the intrigue of the 2024 America's Cup.
- Luna Rossa sailed in fresh winds on the Gulf of Cagliari on Thursday, and was off the water on Friday. In the sailing session the Italians tried a new mainsail, with reduced head girth in a nod to the fresh air "Batwing" mainsails of the 2021 Cup, but which are now not possible under the AC Class rules.
- Emirates Team New Zealand sailed their two AC40's on Friday, and continue with a mix of performance testing, two-boat speed testing and race training, in a hybrid sailing program
- After their capsize and inversion on Wednesday, INEOS Britannia is not expected back on the water for at least three weeks, while their support team effects repairs to damaged electronics and mechatronics as well as proceeding with the planned upgrade. They are expected to be sailing their new AC40, next week. There is an update, at the end of this report, from skipper Ben Ainslie, together with team chaseboat video that was not previously released.
- American Magic have decommissioned their AC75 and will not start training again until the beginning of March
- Alinghi Red Bull Racing last sailed out of Barcelona on February 1, on Friday their AC40 emerged from the shed for rigging.
- Orient Express Team (formerly French K-Challenge) - no update.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli - LEQ12 - Cagliari - February 9, 2023 - Day 30
From the AC37 Joint Recon Team [Michele Melis AC-Recon]:
The Italian LEQ12 rolled out of the shed at 8:00 and was craned in 20 minutes later.
Some slight differences on mainsheeting system were noticed with several tests on its functioning with mast rotation by shore crew.
Having docked out at 10:20, before hoisting the J4, the team focused on hoisting a new mainsail with reduced square head girth and missing clew patch being sewed on the main itself.
The LEQ12 hosted four crew out of which only the flight controller seemed to rotate using perhaps the autopilot mode considering the significant sea state.
With steady NW pressure between 13-15 kn the sailing session began on the easterly side of the Gulf with approx 1m swell filling in from East with 7-8 seconds period.
In the first part of the sailing session the LEQ12 foiled for approximately 14 minutes completing two tacks and one gybe, with boat speeds below 35kts flight seemed to be stable with intense adjusting of sheeting angle.
At 11:50 the NW pressure dropped completely and shifted to upper range ENE breeze with 16-20 kn filling in firstly in the westerly side of the Gulf in front of Poetto where the RIB towed the prototype.
The LEQ12 completed a self take off in significant swell, chop and gusts up to 25kts. It foiled for approximately 11 minutes completing one tack and one bearaway splashing down slightly afterwards. The team decided to bring down the sails and head back to the Molo Ichnusa.
After the session Michele Melis of the AC37 Joint Recon team spoke with Marco Donati, an electronics engineer with Luna Rossa.
Melis: What is your usual sailing day?
Donati: Our usual day begins in the early morning - one hour, more or less before the rollout.
We do all the checks on board and make sure that everything is, is working properly, and there is nothing left undone from the day before. After that, we roll out the boat, we step the mast, and put the boat in the water. We keep doing all the checks that we can do on shore. When we are in the water we do all the last minute checks to be sure that everything's is fine.
Then with the sailors, we repeat a few of those checks while everyone is standing at their crew position, to check his work area and make sure that everything's is as expected. Then we leave the dock and we go sailing.
Melis: In terms of the AC 75 and the LEQ12. How big are the differences in terms of electronic systems and so on?
Donati: There's not much difference. The LEQ12 is a smaller boat, but the systems are more or less the same. In addition, we don't have grinders, so we have extra parts to take the role of the grinders. Of course the LEQ12t is a smaller boat with less probably stuff on board, but it doesn't change much on the AC75.
Melis: In terms of battery changes, how often would you change battery?
Donati: At the moment, we never change the batteries on the water. We load enough batteries to be able to do a day. Obviously we are now in winter and the days are shorter. So we'll see when we get longer days in the summer. We usually do all the day without recharging and changing.
Melis: And how big do you think the gains could be, looking to the bigger boat, in terms of optimization of the electronic systems? What are you working on improving something specifically?
Donati: This is the same for all the Challengers - you try to find the right product to do the right job. We do our initial evaluation on stuff that was used in the previous Cup, and then trying to integrate new technology while staying inside the Rules.
Melis: Regarding the cyclers set up, have you been working already on the electronics for them?
Donati: No, not at the moment. The designers are looking at into it and evaluating the possibility.
Session Statistics - Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli - LEQ12 - Cagliari - February 9, 2023 - Day 30
- Wind Strength 12-16 (AM) 12-21kts (PM)
- Wind Direction: NW Maestrale (AM) ENE (PM)
- Weather: Sunny 13°C
- Sea State: 0.8 - 1.1m E 7-8secs
- Roll out: 0825hrs Dock Out: 1025hrs
- Dock In: 1230hrs Crane out: 1430hrs (est.)
- Total Tacks: 3 - Fully foiling: 2; Touch & Go: 1; Touch Down:
- Total Gybes: 1 - Fully foiling: ; Touch & Go: 1; Touch Down:
Crew: Francesco Bruni, Ruggero Tita, Andrea Tesei, Umberto Molineris swapping with Vittorio Bissaro
Emirates Team NZ - LEQ12 and AC-40 OD - Auckland - February 10, 2022 - Day 17
Notes from the AC37 Joint Recon Team [Alastair Moore AC-Recon]:
The AC40 was on the dock edge at 09.00 and rigged and in the pen by 09.20.
The LEQ12 was next to her stablemate in the water by 09.50.
The breeze started to fade as the yachts were towed out of the basin at 10.30. After several attempts at sailing in very fluky conditions, the yachts were towed out the Rangitoto channel, where they stopped, drifted in the company off Milford, and waited for the wind to fill in. The first attempts at towing up started at 13.28, but the wind came and went until 13.45.
Now ETNZ set a 1nm windward leeward course just south of the shipping channel between A buoy and Port#2 channel marker. The yachts now went into three back-to-back pre-starts, with the third going into a one-lap race.
Actual start times were unknown to us, but Josh Junior in the AC40 seemed to have the better of Peter Burling in the LEQ12 in all but one of today's practice starts. On one occasion, Josh held Peter out above the committee boat lay line, Josh bore away just in time to look to nail the start, with Peter having to circle back.
Due to the conditions, two of the three races were not close. The LEQ12 won two, and the AC40 stopped after rounding the top make for the last time.
The team chase boats removed the marks and the yachts set off on a longish upwind with only one tack. The LEQ12 was sailed in this session with more windward heal and slightly more bow down. On starboard, the LEQ12 is quicker but more twitchy than the AC40, on port, there is not much in it.
The yachts bore away off Administration Bay Motutapu, gybed off Rangitoto, and ran for home. In no more than 10 knots of wind, the yachts were regularly over 35 knots of boat speed!
Flat water and the beginning of the incoming tide had the yachts stopping to drop sails off by mechanics bay to be towed back to the base by 1625hrs. A frustrating day to begin with but some good sailing was achieved toward the end of the session.
The new yellow head on the LEQ12 main sail makes identifying the two yachts much easier.
Boat looked twitchy and powered up, When dialled in on Starboard it looks to have a speed and angle advantage on the AC40.
New main with yellow head on sail same as previous main [just for easy recognition]. Looked very full in shape today
Although on water for five hours ETNZ only got just over an hour of actual sailing time. With a combination of a severe weather system forecast to hit Auckland on Sunday, and with several of the ETNZ sailing team being involved with SailGP Sydney, next week, the team is likely to off the water for 7-10 days.
After the shorter than expected sailing session, AC37 Joint Recon team member, Alastair Moore, who is assigned to stalk Emirates Team NZ caught up with top sail designer, Burns Fallow who is with Emirates Team New Zealand.
With either the team, or through North Sails, he has been involved in sail design for every America’s Cup since 1987, except for 2017, when soft sails were all one-design by North Sails.
The session was a long five hours on the water with no wind, and only about one hour’s sailing time.
But Fallow says it was a good opportunity to get a look at some light weather sails.
Moore noted that there was “amazing shape control, obviously very deep and drafty today. Going back to yesterday, and fresh winds we saw some negative shape in the top of the sail, is that something you're looking to do?”
Fallow: “These boats have massive ranges of power requirements, from eight knots apparent wind speed (AWS) to 60kts . We're trying to try to get sails which have a lot of control. And just how we do that is our top secret.”
Fallow explains that they have been using negative draft at the upper part of the sail for ten years.
“It goes back to the big boats. In the AC72's that was definitely the game. But of course, they were a much taller rig. So that was a necessity. But when your apparent wind speed gets right up there, even on these short little [AC75] stubby rigs, that also comes into play.
“As far as the sails development programmes is going, are we're going to be seeing lots of new sails used on the LEQ12?” Moore asked.
“There's only so many we can use in the rules,” Fallows responds. “The rules were drafted to be quite restrictive, both and what we can do an LEQ12, or on legacy boats. I'd imagine most teams will end up using most of those available slots, even right through to when we get back into AC75 new race boats next year.
Fallow adds that because of rule changes it is unlikely that so-called Batwing mainsails will be used again – which were trialed by American Magic and Emirates Team New Zealand.
"Coming back to when we redrafted the rule, first thing we did was create a rule which limits how much kink you can have at each batten and what we can't do about when you connect them. But one positive thing we did do was to actually widen the area range - it used to 135m² to 145m² it's now 130m² to 145m² (1,560 sq ft). There is a big area range to explore," he explains.
Under the restriction in the Version 2 AC75 Class Rule, a team can only build a maximum of six new mainsails
“So the teams are going to have to think pretty hard about how you spend those six slots,” Fallow adds.
Session Statistics - Emirates Team NZ - LEQ12 - Auckland - February 10, 2022 - Day 17
- Wind Strength >8kts (AM) 10kts (PM)
- Wind Direction: E (in the afternoon)
- Sea State: Slight
- Crane In: 0949hrs Dock Out: 1030hrs
- Dock In: 1624hrs Crane out: 1705hrs
- Total Tacks: 21 - Fully foiling: 13; Touch & Go: 4; Touch Down: 3
- Total Gybes: 29 - Fully foiling: 26; Touch & Go: 2; Touch Down: 1
Crew: (LEQ12 Nathan Outteridge, Peter Burling) (AC40 Liv Mackay, Leonard Takahashi, Josh Junior)
(LEQ12 Andy Maloney, Blair Tuke) (AC40 Sam Meech, Marcus Hansen)
INEOS Britannia Update: