America´s Cup: Magical Barcelona shines for the Americans and Swiss

Eager to get stuck into their new blocks of winter training, NYYC American Magic and Alinghi Red Bull Racing waited until the afternoon for a building southerly to filter in up and across the Balearic Sea whilst still bearing the westerly rollers that build up off the La Barceloneta beachfront and make foiling sailing so tricky.

Operating quite different strategies – NYYC American Magic starting their two-boat training whilst Alinghi Red Bull Racing go for development at full scale with their AC75 ‘BoatZero’ – this was an engrossing afternoon of watching the very best in the world ply their trade at what’s becoming the business end of both fascinating campaigns.

For the Americans it was the day that they were looking forward to with both of the AC40’s ‘America’ and ‘Magic’ converted over the weekend into LEQ12’s with the addition of upgraded starboard foils that they tested so solidly and extensively throughout the summer in Barcelona. Perhaps more for validation than anything else, the team were looking again at decisions that had been derived but in the 12-15 knots of breeze when the racing commenced, it was perhaps outright skill and racecraft that won the day. Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison sailed ‘America’ like they stole it and were that ‘click’ ahead in all races, able to eke out strong positions and then defend like crazy with the added advantage of dirty air aiding their cause.

Flight Control and wave management was the name of the game today – oh how they probably wish they had the extra length of the AC75 – and the numerous splashdowns amidst clouds of cold winter spray were par for the course. Lucas Calabrese and Harry Melges took the wheels of ‘Magic’ today and ended up calling it a day as the breeze came to its peak.

Tough day on the water and as Riley Gibbs alluded to in interview afterwards there was a lot going on: “The majority of it came down to stability around the track. We kind of saw that it was a pretty asymmetric day as far as the breeze direction and the sea state and yeah just stability and starting...fortunately we likely won't have a mistral hopefully at least during the summer you know kind of developing these long westerly swells that come in, they're pretty challenging, it poses quite an issue for the flight controllers to tackle tack to tack, very asymmetric in set up possibly but yeah difficult.”

Talking about the asymmetric set up on the foils, with America running the silver Wing 03 and Magic running the all-black Wing 04 (we think), Riley responded: “We're coming into the tail end of foil design and always trying to eke out the most in our performance so we're just looking back and confirming our suspicions on what we learned over the summer.”

Whilst American Magic blasted around short upwind/downwind tracks on the America’s Cup course, the magnificent sight of Alinghi Red Bull Racing at full bore, joined them having docked out just behind and plied their early session out towards the airport waiting for the breeze to fill in. As it came in from the south west, the Swiss came down with it towards the racecourse and out further east towards the Forum district.

With slightly less swell than yesterday, what was interesting to note was the overall trim of the boat being far more upright and ‘standing’ on the immersed foil – perhaps a nod to what we’re seeing down in Auckland with Emirates Team New Zealand on their LEQ12 moded AC40. Hardly any windward heel was observable upwind even as the breeze came in – interesting.

Once a course had been laid by the Alinghi Red Bull Racing support crew, ‘BoatZero’ was released for some fast laps where upwind the trim was low to the deck whilst downwind flight looked far more assured and powerful. A caught-on-camera moment at a top mark though showed that there will be plenty to debrief afterwards as the team went for a bear-away and immediate gybe, heading up high and then broaching on the bear-away and never getting it quite back under control again. AC75s bite and when they do, they bite hard. The Swiss did a good job to bail out, head up and stop the motion.

Speaking afterwards, Nicolas Rolaz, former Optimist World Champion and a real find of this Cup cycle spoke to the recon and gave his usual terrific interview. Asked about the communication loop on a busy day like today, he said: “Communication onboard is a is a tricky subject. Even when it's a flat sea state it's something we're always working on and making sure it’s going well, trying to improve it, because it's going to be crucial for racing and we have a really strong base, like a good communication playbook, and still working on it so I wouldn't say it differs much from a flat day to a wavy day, everybody has defined roles and knows what to say and when to say it...keywords are being used and everybody knows what's going on and the helmsmen are putting words on their actions which we need to be able to sail the boat.”

One observable from the on-water recon was the team’s use of the double boards through the gybes at times and something quite unique to the Swiss in their continual raising and lowering of the windward board downwind. Nico commented on this, saying: “So, like people know in this last period we're working on our systems, on the systems on the boat, and it's part of the work we're doing trying to make our systems work better and trying new board drops, sailing with two boards, especially for the start, it's going to be needed, so just practice.”

The mighty Bulls called it time at just after 4pm with almost four hours completed – valuable training, vital time-on-the-water from this most hard-driving of all the teams in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup.