The British America’s Cup team has become the fourth challengers to unveil their new AC75. INEOS Britannia revealed their AC75 in the early hours of morning, as the foiling monohull – which is code-named RB3 – emerged from the INEOS Britannia base in Barcelona in preparation for having the rig stepped in readiness for its first ever sail. 

Team Principal and Skipper of the Challenger of Record,  Sir Ben Ainslie said RB3 would be “on the water very soon”.

COO David Endean confirmed the team will first perform some initial tow testing and systems checks before hoisting sails.

The British America’s Cup team’s AC75, code named RB3, came out of the shed for pre-sail preparation on Saturday 20 April.

The British America’s Cup boat was built by Carrington Boats in Hythe, on the south coast of England, before being transported to Brackley, in Northamptonshire, which is the centre for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, where the F1 Team’s Applied Science division partnered with INEOS Britannia for the design and build. On 2 April, RB3 left Turweston for its journey to Spain, arriving at the INEOS Britannia Barcelona base on 6 April, delivered by GAC Pindar.

The build has been a two-and-a-half year project, and the team now has less than four months in order to get to grips with the new sailing yacht ahead of the first Preliminary Regatta races for the AC75s on 22 August.

The INEOS Britannia shore team working on the AC75 race boat ahead of first test sails. Image: 37th America’s Cup recon

Ainslie said: “This is a big day for the team. We have been keeping RB3 under wraps for such a long time that it’s almost surreal to see her out of the shed and in public view here in Barcelona. 

“Thousands of hours of work have gone into this boat and so it’s great to finally reveal her to the world. Things are really stepping up in the campaign now, and we are looking forward to launching RB3 and getting out on the water very soon.”

British AC75 unveiled

Not all of RB3 has been unveiled – the foils appear to have ‘socks’ concealing the lower arms (teams are allowed to conceal their foils until the boats are first launched in water) – and there was no rudder in place. The eye-catching livery also has something of a ‘dazzle ship’ effect in the dark. However, the early shots suggest a flared bow, and a fairly bulbous ‘bustle’ under the hull, with a finer skeg running underneath it, which stops forward of the expected rudder position.

Bow on view of INEOS Britannia’s new AC75 showing the boat’s ‘bustle’

AC75 ‘bustles’ are designed to achieve an end plating effect between the boat and the sea, effectively sealing the boat to the water’s surface for aero and hydrodynamic efficiency – but balanced against additional drag during take-off and touch-downs. Of the four boats so far, RB3 initially looks to be among the most substantial, with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s appearing to be a finer, slimmed down design.

Each of the AC75s unveiled so far has also removed volume aft – in part a response to rule changes which mean that runners are no longer required – with RB3 showing radically sloping topsides from what we assume are the top of the cyclor pods down to the transom, meeting with a very flat under section.

The boat’s unveiling also showed the suspended aerial gantry which the team has built above the deck of RB3, a learning from its partnership with INEOS Mercedes to make key maintenance work more efficient in order to reduce time required in the shed.

INEOS Britannia has built an aerial gantry suspended above the race boat pit lane area, inspired by their partnership with Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, to improve efficiency in repairs and maintenance

We’ll have a fuller analysis of the different AC75s’ hull shapes, and what the teams are aiming to achieve in the challenging waters off Barcelona, coming soon, plus more images of RB3 once the boat has been made public in daylight.

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The British team is seeking to win the first ever Women’s America’s Cup. It will also be aiming to defend its title as Youth America’s Cup winners, having won with the Land Rover BAR Academy at the previous Youth event in Bermuda in 2017 (no Youth America’s Cup event was held in New Zealand in 2020).

The Athena Pathway is headed up by Hannah Mills, the most successful female Olympic sailing medallist in sailing history. Mills has been an active part of the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team in the strategist role on the F50 whilst also leading the British Youth and America’s Cup campaign.

Photo: C. Gregory / INEOS Britannia

Olympic talent for British Women’s America’s Cup team

While Mills will take one wheel of the AC40, the other named female helms are Freya Black, aged just 22, who’ll be representing GBR at the Paris 2024 Olympics in the 49er FX class in the months before the Cup, and Ellie Aldridge, who’s also competing in the Olympics in the Women’s Formula Kite class, having previously competed at a high level in the 49er FX.

For the Women’s America’s Cup Mills will be reunited with Saskia Clark, with whom she won Olympic Gold in Rio 2016 in the 470. Clark will be on the AC40 as a trimmer.

Clark commented: “Very excited is an understatement. Hannah and I had a great Olympic career together and I’m looking forward to reuniting, taking all the learnings from our Olympic experiences and applying them into a broader team environment in a new class of boat”.

Hannah Mills will head u the British Women’s America’s Cup challenge. Photo: C. Gregory / INEOS Britannia

They are joined by Saskia Tidey, who’ll be competing at Paris in the 49er FX with Black, and Tokyo Olympic Silver medallist Anna Burnet, who is also set to represent Britain at Paris 2024 in the Nacra 17 mixed multihull class.

Hannah Diamond, who races with Mills on the Emirates GBR SailGP F50 and is also an experienced offshore sailor, also joins the Women’s America’s Cup Squad.

British Youth America’s Cup sailors

The Youth America’s Squad must be between 18 and 25 years of age. Nick Robins is an under-25 helm for the Youth team, having campaigned a 49er and also worked with INEOS Britannia as a data analyst, along with James Grummett, who’s also been campaigning for Olympic selection in the 49er.

Hattie Rogers, the current Waszp National, European female World Champion and International Moth female World Champion, joins the squad as a trimmer. Fellow Waszp sailor and former European champion Mat Beck and former 470/49er sailor Alex Hughes are also named as trimmers for the Youth AC40.

Nick Robins. Photo: C. Gregory / INEOS Britania

INEOS Britannia Skipper and CEO Ben Ainslie commented: “We couldn’t be prouder of what Athena Pathway stands for – giving youth and female sailors more opportunity in our sport. We have selected a high calibre squad and to have someone like Hannah leading them on and off the water is incredibly inspiring. We will certainly be setting our expectation high as we look ahead to the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup.”

The British squad a deep pool of talent to draw on – between the 12-strong squad they have won 6 Olympic medals and 22 World Championship medals. The Athena Pathway received over 300 applications for the squad, with selections held over an intensive 18-month trials period, including both on-water and simulator-based analysis.

The selection process was led by Olympian Penny Clark, who has worked extensively with the British Sailing Team as a coach from youth to international level, and Olympic 49er bronze medallist Chris Draper, an America’s Cup veteran who’s worked with many new teams in both the America’s Cup and SailGP arenas to accelerate foiling skills. The Athena Pathway trialled crew in a 26-foot ‘Easy to Fly’ foiling catamaran and the programme also has a fleet of Waszp dinghies.

Along with today’s team announcement, the Athena Pathway also announced a sponsorship partnership with UK/US engineering firm Cobham-Ultra, which operates in defence, aerospace and electronics sectors.

The AC40 will be used for both the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups. Photo: C. Gregory / INEOS Britannia

Women’s and Youth America’s Cup racing in 2024

The Women’s and Youth America’s Cup events will both be held in one-design AC40s, with the teams competing in Barcelona concurrently with the main Cup racing.

The British America’s Cup team took delivery of its second AC40 at the end of 2023, with the boats sharing duties as a test-platform for the AC75 as well as being the one-design class for the Youth and America’s Cup racing.

The Youth America’s Cup begins with practice racing from 19 September and official racing from 26 September until the final on 2 October. The AC40s then get immediately handed over to the women’s squads, with the Puig Women’s America’s Cup practice racing beginning on October 4 28, and racing running from 10 October until the grand final on 16 October (also the third day of the Louis Vuitton Match Race Final).

There are 12 teams entered in the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups. Besides the America’s Cup entrants – Emirates Team New Zealand, Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI), Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (ITA), American Magic (USA), the French Orient Express Racing and British Athena Pathway – six further teams have entered from Spain, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia.

For both events the fleet will be split into two groups of six boats for an eight race opening series. The top six teams will then advance to a four-race series of fleet races to decide the top two boats, with the winner decided by a single winner-takes-all match race.

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There is now just 1 year to go until the America’s Cup proper kicks off in Barcelona, where Emirates Team New Zealand will take on the winner of the challengers selection series to fight for the ultimate prize in sailing, the America’s Cup. It has been a long time since we last saw cup teams racing, but the Preliminary Regatta last month has served as something of a line in the sand for fans, who can now start to get excited about the build up to the competition.

With this in mind, the sight of America’s Cup sailors out of their aerodynamically sleek cockpits hanging off shrouds and standing on the bow of their AC40s trying to get boats moving in displacement mode was probably not the image that the organisers had hoped for after racing in the first America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta came to a close over the weekend of 14-16th September. But it is the image many viewers will remember as the racing was marred by poor conditions.

Although racing was cancelled on day one due to no wind, was adversely affected on day two for the same reason and was forced to finish early on day three, there was still some thrilling action on the race course for those patient enough to keep watching through the lulls (both figuratively and literally).

What did we learn from the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta?

The simplest answer to this question is ‘not very much at all’. How teams perform in their one-design AC40 foilers bears very little resemblance to how they might perform at the America’s Cup proper in late 2024, when they will be racing their AC75 America’s Cup yachts which have a much more open class rule and which teams are developing behind the scenes right now.

But there is a little more nuance than that. American Magic, with two of the best foiling sailors in Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison won the event.

They have spent plenty of time sailing their AC40 – of which they now have two. Even if the team felt they came into the race a bit “underprepared” as Goodison put it as the sailors had been focussed on sailing against, not with, each other.

It may be a small surprise that Emirates Team New Zealand with the three generational talents of Peter Burling, Nathan Outteridge and Blair Tuke onboard did not win the regatta. They have also been sailing plenty in their two AC40s, but at least the Preliminary Regatta showed the all-powerful Kiwi team can be beaten.

A much bigger surprise, however, was the performance of the French Orient Express Racing Team who picked up third place having only launched their single AC40 in August this year, weeks before the event began.

However, it is interesting to note that with no other test platform on the water and no AC75 either, this team spent a significant amount of time working on an AC40 simulator, so they are not quite as unfamiliar with the platform as their launch date might suggest.

This move to simulator time is a theme we have seen in recent America’s Cup as teams develop computer platforms to help with the design process, but we’ve not often seen them used for upskilling in pure sailing skills terms.

Elsewhere, the two teams that have focussed on technical development of their own test platforms (called LEQ12s) in Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia were fourth and sixth respectively.

For their part INEOS stated their disappointment with the team’s Giles Scott admitting they should have done better despite their limited time sailing an AC40.

Sandwiched between these two were Alinghi Red Bull Racing, who have put a great deal of time and effort into updating and sailing the AC75 they purchased from Emirates Team New Zealand to better understand the platform while they design another boat for the 2024 America’s Cup.

America’s Cup weather worries?

One thing that can be learned from the first America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta are the conditions likely to be experienced at the start of the next America’s Cup – or at least the challenger series, which will take place at a similar time 50 miles up the coast in Barcelona.

The timing of this event firmly puts it just ahead of the windiest winter season, with the lightest wind month being August and the windiest month typically around January. As such the spectacle of foiling boats struggling to make it round a race course might well be something we see some of in the early parts of the challenger series – and the Youth and Women’s AC both set to use AC40s and both scheduled ahead of the AC itself.

With the America’s Cup itself taking place in October, winds should in theory be a little stronger. It is worth noting that as Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand will not need to compete in any of the racing ahead of the Cup itself, and so could well see a significant advantage from not needing to focus so hard on very-light wind performance.

Of course, this is sailing and everyone is at the mercy of the elements to some extent.

American Magic out two-boat testing. Photo: Paul Todd/America’s Cup

Test platforms and training

Every team entered into the 2024 America’s Cup needs to purchase a one-design foiling AC40 for racing in the Preliminary Regattas and to ensure they can enter teams into both the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups (both of which will use AC40s).

All teams set to take part in the 37th America’s Cup now have AC40s on the water, however, some have had them on the water longer than others, and some have two out on the water sailing.

Although the AC40 is a one-design class and must adhere to strict rules for the Preliminary Regattas and the Youth and Women’s AC, outside of these events they are allowed to be modified in order to conduct testing ahead of the launch of team’s single allowed AC75 America’s Cup boat – though they must be able to be returned to their one-design configuration for racing.

Photo: Martin Keruzore/OERT

The French Orient Express Racing Team were the last team to enter this America’s Cup and were also the last to get an AC40 – only launching it in mid-August. And as such hold the difficult duel position as both last team to enter the Cup and the team with the least time on the water. But an impressive showing in the America’s Cup Preliminary regatta at least shows they have the sailing chops to mix it with the rest of the field.

By contrast, Defenders of the America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand were the first to launch an AC40 back in 2022 and were the first to conduct two-boat testing once their second AC40 was launched. Neither of these outcomes are a surprise, with a single builder of AC40s, teams were allocated a build slot based on their order of entry to the 37th America’s Cup.

In terms of boat launches, teams have taken a number of different approaches. With a wait for AC40 delivery and time of the essence (as ever in the AC), some teams chose to build their own training boats.

Boat terminology has become a little confusing, but test platforms are generally referred to as LEQ12s (short for ‘Less or Equal to 12m’ the parameters for a test platform as defined by the America’s Cup rules, to limit teams building platforms too similar in size to an AC75).

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli training in their LEQ12.

The two teams which have chosen this route are Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli. To add a little more confusion to the nomenclature, Luna Rossa refer to their boat as simply LEQ12 while the Brits have named their ‘LEQ12’ T6. Both of these were launched in late 2022.

For both of these teams, their LEQ12 has been the primary test platform, with both also adding AC40s to their roster of boats following the launch of their LEQ12 test platforms.

To further confuse the issue, if teams take an AC40 out of one-design configuration that too becomes (officially) an LEQ12. This is because there are limits on the number of parts any team can design and own. So an LEQ12 can have a certain number of test foil shapes (for example) and this same rule applies to foils on a non-one-design AC40.

INOES Britannia launched their LEQ12 bristling with sensors. You can make out one camera here, above and aft of the foil arm buried in the hull, surrounded by carbon there are hundreds more load, speed etc. sensors. Photo: C.GREGORY / INEOS BRITANNIA

In addition to AC40s and LEQ12 test boats, teams are also able to sail their AC75s from the 36th America’s Cup, though with limitations on when they can be sailed. These limitations vary somewhat with teams that took part in the last America’s Cup, who already have AC75s, more restricted than new entries, who were able to purchase an AC75 and sail it earlier in the cycle.

Alinghi Red Bull Racing are a new entrant in this Cup cycle and they purchased Emirates Team New Zealand’s first AC75 from the 2021 Cup cycle and relaunched it in August 2022 immediately getting some time on the foiling monohull under their belts. They have since relaunched once again after adding some further developments.

They have split their time between AC75 sailing and AC40 sailing, once their own one-design was delivered, and have recently been two-boat tuning with the delivery of their second AC40.

Sailing ‘legacy’ AC75s will be a key part of the build up to the next America’s Cup, with teams only allowed to build one new AC75 this time around (two were permitted for the 2021 Cup).

Emirates Team New Zealand training on an AC75 with cyclors now returned to Cup sailing . Photo: Job Vermeulen / America’s Cup

“The rule that you can only build one AC75 this campaign is to save cost, but it’s a big change from the America’s Cup that I grew up with, in the old IACC class monohulls,” explained Jeff Causey, INEOS Britannia’s boat operations manager. “Back then, it was all about two-boat testing. Every team that could afford to designed and built two boats, and then lined them up against each other for countless hours of side-by-side tuning out on the water. We don’t have that available to us this time.”

The USA flagged team, American Magic has taken a similar approach to Alinghi Red Bull Racing, getting plenty of time out on the water onboard their AC75 from their base in Pensacola and sailing their first AC40 there too, before moving out to Barcelona earlier this year where they got their hands on their second AC40 allowing them to get some two boat testing and training under their belts.

It should be noted that the AC75 rules have been slightly tweaked for this edition with ‘cyclors‘ once again allowed and some changes to the foil arms and sail control systems – among other tweaks, such as reduced crew numbers. And we have seen teams making changes to their legacy AC75s to reflect this, with many teams opting for cyclors at this early stage.

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The second day of racing for the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta was something of a mixed bag. Three solid fleet races in full foiling conditions were followed by an attempted two-boat match race, which started as the wind died.

With a 10-minute time limit for the two competing boats, American Magic and Emirates Team New Zealand, to reach the top mark the final match race was looking unlikely from the start. After a painful exhibition of the two teams nursing their AC40s upwind – crew on the bow, hanging from the shrouds, doing everything they could to dampen the pitch and roll of the AC40s hulls as they wallowed in the water – the race was abandoned. Swiftly afterwards race organisers confirmed that all racing had been abandoned for the day.

Teams tried everything to get the most from their boats in the extremely light winds

This awarded American Magic the Preliminary Regatta win by just one point.

But the day had started very differently. With around 10-12 knots of south-easterly breeze and a rolling swell at 1500hrs, the AC40s were fully powered up and flying under their J2s (headsail choice is mandated by race committee). The first race start was a stormer – the fleet all hitting the line at speed, French Orient Express Racing Team looking to repeat yesterday’s success with another port start.

Emirates Team New Zealand and American Magic took up the early battle for the front, each slam-dunking tacks on their opponents, until New Zealand team’s height and speed took gave them a direct line to the port top mark, building a lead that was never under threat. American Magic took second, with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli taking third from the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing.

The second race was another showcase start, the French team again showing their willingness to get their AC40 fully in the mix despite their limited time in the boat with a heart-stopping approach at full speed at the committee boat end.

The American team dominated the race, coming off the line at pace to pull away. Behind them were place changes and tacking battles – Luna Rossa and Alinghi evenly matched, while the French made it hard work for Emirates Team New Zealand to get past them. With Emirates Team New Zealand finishing 4th, the third fleet race of the day would determine who would go through to the final match race of the Preliminary Regatta.

The points calculations were further complicated when it became apparent that Alinghi Red Bull Racing wouldn’t be racing, as they parked up with hydraulic issues while the other five boats lined up to start.

Yet again American Magic delivered another super-smooth performance. Meanwhile, though Emirates Team New Zealand had evident pace, they also showed a few chinks in their boat handling with a major splashdown that let several boats past. The Kiwis had to hunt hard to overhaul Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Orient Express Racing Team, who were duking it out for second. At the finish it was American Magic 1st, from Emirates Team New Zealand, with Orient Express Racing Team rounding off a superb first event with a 3rd.

The deciding race may have been abandoned, but there was plenty to glean from the day’s fleet races about the team’s relative performances.

A day of learning for the America’s Cup teams

American Magic and Emirates Team New Zealand were, without question, a notch above – unsurprisingly given both teams have been training using two-boat AC40 programmes.

Paul Goodison, American Magic helm, told Yachting World after racing: “We’re over the moon, obviously. We weren’t shy about saying this was a performance regatta and we needed to put our best foot forward to get the team on a roll, and to deliver it is a really good feeling.

“It’s interesting but we missed some of the fleet practice races that all the other teams did a few weeks ago, to focus on our development side because we had a couple of key milestones to make. So we were actually a little bit worried that we hadn’t done the time [in the AC40s] coming into this event – mainly because the four of us onboard usually sail on two different boats so we’re going against each other more than sailing with each other.

“So one of the biggest things we’ve had to work on the last week is basically the communications, because when you can’t see half the race track you need to communicate what you want to do with the other guy and be sure you’re on the same page. And I felt like we did a pretty good job of getting further down the path with that, and today I feel like we gelled really well as a four.

“I think the biggest thing for us winning here is that’s it a whole team thing, it just lifts the spirits. Some people in the shed have been working very very long hours to get us out on the water in the smaller boats, but also at the same time getting the AC75 ready to sail at the end of this month. So they were all working their balls off to give us the opportunity to go sailing every day! And being able to pay them back by showing them were good enough to take it the best guys was important.”

Another team that was delighted with their performance – and who will no doubt have ruffled a few feathers among the longer standing teams, were the newest entry. The French Orient Express Racing Team finished 3rd overall and were in the mix from the very start despite only taking delivery of their AC40 in mid-August. Helm Kevin Pepponet told Yachting World afterwards:

“There were some close calls today – we got a penalty with Luna Rossa, the second start was pretty intense for us, but we are handling the boat better day after day, and we are getting much more confident on the boat and in the team. Of course we have a lot of work to do to catch the top two. American Magic and Emirates Team New Zealand were a way ahead and today there were pretty impressive, but we have another event in just one month – and the Cup itself will be totally different. It gave us a lot of confidence launching this America’s Cup campaign and there is a really good dynamic in the team.”

Others will have been disappointed. INEOS Britannia made little secret of the fact they were under prepared in the AC40s, having instead been focusing on their LEQ12 development boat, but they were consistently off the pace, scoring three 6th places and two 4ths over the weekend.

Helmsman Giles Scott admitted: “We’re licking wounds, as expected after the day we had. We know we were a little bit unprepared but let’s be honest, we should have done better that we did this weekend, we can’t shy away from that.

“So yeah, we’ve got to have a good look at ourselves and, with regards to the AC40, use Jeddah as a bit of a milestone. And also just go back and review where we’re at in terms of the bigger picture, and looking forward to racing in the big boat. Because there’s been good lessons here – really, really good lessons. We’ve come away bitterly disappointed and with our tails between our legs for sure, but we’ve been in some pretty dark places before and the key is how you rebound from it.”

The second America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from 29th November to 2nd December 2023, again in the AC40s.

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It was a day of firsts in Villanova, some 30 miles along the coast from Barcelona today: the first races in the 37th America’s Cup cycle, the first ‘proper’ races in the new AC40 one-design class, and the first chance to see how the new teams – and new crew combinations – compare with one year to go until the Cup proper.

This first America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta event has a slightly different feel to the usual Cup events – something of a matinee performance. The practice races earlier this week were a chance for teams and organisers to iron out a few teething problems, while the event also had a pleasing air of informality – there are no paid for spectator stands, instead racing is free to view from the beach, and the team bases are equally matched marquees without any glossy hospitality quarters.

Although today began hot and still, by lunchtime the flags were fluttering well and the 200-plus Pati Catala dinghies (a classic local design that has no tiller or rudder, but is instead steered by trimming the mainsail and shifting bodyweight) were racing off the beach for a special celebration regatta in moderate breezes.

Coming off the foils can see an AC40’s boat speed halved compared to a boat in flight mode.

At the pre-start for Race 1, all teams were burning around on their AC40s with ease. The on the water view from a team chase RIB was a frankly eye-opening indication of the closing speeds that can occur with six foiling AC40s in confined water. They may be just 40ft, but with some teams reporting hitting over 50 knots in practice sails (see Matt Sheahan’s column in the current issue of Yachting World for more), these are not toothless mini-models, but a genuinely impressive class in their own right.

When there’s breeze, that is…

America’s Cup AC40s first race

Sadly by the start of Race 1 the wind had dropped, and with around 7-8 knots at the gun few teams were positioned for a clean foiling start. With just 1 minute 40 seconds to go the French Orient Express Racing Team had dropped off their foils and were sluggish in the water, but recovered impressively to cross the line at speed on port, and keep going, maintaining flight and pace to round the top mark in first.

Close behind them was Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, who traded places for 1st place as the breeze began to fade and the AC40s came off their foils onto a low-riding displacement mode. The remainder of the race was characterised by the curious sight of crews climbing out of their stream-lined, aero-efficient cockpits to stand on the bow to lift the AC40 transoms out of the water.

With a shortened course the leading French and Italian pair crawled down to the finish line, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli with right of way on starboard. But as the boats made their final gybes the Italians picked up a penalty for their foil coming too close to the French. This gave the French Orient Express Racing Team the first ever event win in the AC40s. In a final twist, it turned out that Luna Rossa had started incorrectly and were DNS. [In a final, final twist, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli was then reinstated 2nd place later that evening]

The French team went into this race as the outsiders, having only taken delivery of their AC40 in mid-August. They were, unsurprisingly, delighted with taking the first win.

Orient Express Racing Team trimmer Jason Saunders commented after racing: “Yeah, we’re surprised. The training hadn’t been going as well as that.

“We’d actually been struggling a lot in those [light] conditions and we’ve spent a lot of time analysing the data, analysing the footage that we’ve got, and we’re just super happy for the whole team, because it’s a massive team effort to be able to help us to progress. And today we were able to put that into place and we showed that we certainly improved. Once we’re up and foiling, we’re able to match with the best. That’s pretty positive for day one.”

Low riding mode

With a fading breeze racing the start of Race 2 was delayed, and it looked very likely that racing would be abandoned for the day. However, by 5pm some boats had headed to the top of the course and were foiling unassisted, with other teams using their chase RIBs to tow their AC40s to get them up to speed before casting off in flight mode, and the race committee quickly followed suit by setting off Race 2.

The start area, however, was still in a patch of much lighter wind, and one by one the AC40s fell off the foils in the pre-start. All but one, in fact, with Alinghi holding flight mode to cross the line on foils and pull away in a completely different race. Behind them the French made another good start with INEOS Britannia behind, both firmly stuck in low-rider mode.

Halfway up the first beat, however, Emirates Team New Zealand got back up on foils and, racing at twice the boat speed of all the other teams (Alinghi also having dropped back down), essentially sailed rings around them, approaching the top mark for the final time while other had barely rounded it for the first.

Emirates Team New Zealand was noticeably able to get their AC40 foiling earlier when other teams were in low-rider displacement mode at the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta in Villanova.

Getting back on the foils

One observation I heard in Villanova, which seemed confirmed by today’s races, is that Emirates Team New Zealand are often seen to foil first, in 5-6 knots of breeze, with other teams needing 1, 2 or more knots extra to get back up onto the foils mid-race.

For teams struggling to foil, the alternative is to sail in VMG displacement mode, sailing the most direct route to the mark. With shortened races, such as today, this also gives the advantage of protecting their position on the course as teams are scored according to their placing on the water if they do not finish the race.

There seemed to have been some confusion over how these points were awarded for those watching the TV commentary, but there was no doubt the teams were racing for rankings on the water no matter how they would be finished (a bit like a Whiskey flag to award tail enders in a dinghy fleet with a result).

The AC40 crews using body weight to get their boats moving when not in foiling mode. Photo: ACEM

Ben Ainslie, skipper and Principal of INEOS Britannia, explained that it’s a balancing act between knowing when to best sail as fast as you can in displacement mode, and when to try and get back onto foils:

“We were actually not in that bad shape sailing around in displacement mode [in the second race]. We were in second place, saw New Zealand had go back on foils, decided to try and pop up, but we didn’t make it and got overtaken.”

“You got to make sure you’ve got some runway, you’re not too close to the boundary going into it. Then you’re trying to figure out is there enough wind, you’re looking at the wind speed on the boat, also looking at the wind on the water and what the other boats are doing, have they got up or not?

“And of course, there’s a lot of technique in it. The Kiwis are very good at it – kind of not surprisingly, they got great sailors and they spend a lot of time in the boat. So, yeah, we’re certainly in catch up mode on that.

“It’s a lot of things. It’s to do with the setup of the boat, of course, the aero side of things, but also the foils. And then, like any other boat, really, it’s just very subtle. We all know how difficult sailing any boat in light airs is. It’s a very subtle technique: when to trim on the sails, when to try and accelerate and when to try and lift the boat out of the water, drive, the pitch of the boat. It’s really dynamic and takes a lot of choreography.”

Does that stance look similar to the one above? The local Pati Catala vintage catamaran dinghies are sailed with body weight rather than a rudder. Photos: ACEM

Today might not have showcased the AC40s’ real potential on their debut, but it did prove that the Kiwis are not actually invincible, and that no team – even the least experienced – can be discounted.

Tomorrow there’s a more solid breeze forecast, and bigger sea state forecast, which is likely to deliver the teams a whole new set of boat handling challenges.

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The six competing teams in the 37th America’s Cup are set to get their first chance to line up competitively against one another at the first America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta, from 14-17 September 2023.

The event, which sees the America’s Cup teams move 50km up the coast to Vilanova i La Geltrú from the main event base in Barcelona, includes four days of racing in the AC40 one-design foiling monohull.

Racing begins with official practise on Thursday 14 September, followed by three fleet races on 15 and 16 September, and then two further fleet races on the Sunday before a single match race final. Coverage will be live-streamed via americascup.com as well on The America’s Cup YouTube channel.

The AC40s lined up to test the tech ahead of the Preliminary Regatta, but are yet to officially race. Photo: Ugo Fonollá/America’s Cup

As it is held in the supplied AC40s, rather than the America’s Cup final designs of the AC75, the Preliminary Regatta will have little direct bearing on the Cup match proper, which takes place 11 months later. However, it is a good opportunity for the teams to bank some foiling race practice, and perhaps glean some indications of whose preparation schedules have been the most fruitful so far.

As with any one-design fleet, the AC40s will put a premium on boat handling, so the one thing the Preliminary Regatta will give some indication of is clues to the sailing teams’ preparation level.

“All the teams are looking forward to lining up in the AC40 against other teams because it’ll give us a good read and a good yardstick on just how our sailors are doing in terms of their technique and the sharpness of their racing skills. It’ll also give us some good feedback on some of the things that we think are fast about the way you sail an AC40; everything from bustle clearance to sail trim. We’ll get a chance to measure those things when AC40s line up against other AC40s,” explains Jeff Causey, INEOS Britannia’s boat operations manager.

Jimmy Spithill explained that even within the one-design there will be variations in set up: “The hardware is exactly the same as the others, and it really comes down to the teams using the controls: cant, ride height, the trim of the boat. Obviously sails and technique, there’s a lot of little things there.”

However, INEOS Britannia’s Leigh McMillan cautioned: “We’re certainly going to put some more time in the AC40s. But the Cup itself, and designing and having a fast boat for the America’s Cup, has got to be our absolute goal. It’s not all about the AC40 for now!”

How do the America’s Cup teams stack up?

Photo: Job Vermeulen/America’s Cup

Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL)

The Defenders moved their team from New Zealand to Barcelona this July. Nathan Outteridge and Pete Burling have been taking the dual helms of their AC75 and two AC40s. The Kiwis have performed consistently in the Practice Racing in Barcelona with a tight-knit team that trust in their process.

Photo: Ugo Fonollá/America’s Cup

INEOS Britannia (GBR)

The British squad moved from their winter training base in Palma, and have been trialing a T6 test boat and AC40. Giles Scott is sailing team manager for skipper Ben Ainslie. But it has not been the strongest display from the team in practise racing so far, with execution of manouvers in the AC40 looking less than polished.

Photo: Alex Carabi/America’s Cup

Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI)

Vilanova Preliminary Regatta will be the first time Ernesto Bertarelli’s famous Swiss team takes part in an America’s Cup race since 2010, now skippered by Hans- Peter Steinacher. Combined helms, Arnaud Psarofaghis and Maxime Bachelin have formed a dynamic partnership, rooted in steady progression, and Alinghi Red Bull Racing have surprised to the upside in the practice regattas.

Photo: Paul Todd/America’s Cup

American Magic (USA)

Australian Tom Slingsby and Brit Paul Goodison are among the sailing squad headliners. The US team has secured some of the highest number of hours in the AC40s thanks to a two-boat programme. They chose to sit out the first few days of the recent practice regatta, preferring to complete their aero and foil testing schedule, but when they came to the racecourse, they were sensational and already look ones to beat in the one-design class.

Photo: Ivo Rovira/America’s Cup

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (ITA)

Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni return on the twin wheels of the Italian AC40, though Spithill cautioned they have had less time racing against other boats than some other teams. However, Luna Rossa have been unafraid to ride very different modes to the others and at times have shown unbelievable boatspeed.

Photo: Martin Keruzore/OERT

Orient Express Team (FRA)

The newest team on the block, the French squad were flying on their first AC40 test sail after launching mid-August, skipper Quentin Delapierre crediting the time they put in on the simulator. Whether they can challenge for the title in Vilanova is a tall ask with so little time in the AC40 compared to the more established teams but they should put up a good fight.

America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta schedule

The format of the Regatta will consist of up to 8 fleet races followed by a single Match Race Final between the two highest scoring Competitors in the fleet racing.

Racing will take place on:

• Thursday 14 September Official Practice
• Friday 15 September Race Day 1 – 3 Fleet Races
• Saturday 16 September Race Day 2 – 3 Fleet Races
• Sunday 17 September Race Day 3 – 2 Fleet Races, Match Race Final (1 race).

Racing is scheduled to be between 1530 and 1730 hours each day, though this can be changed if conditions so require.

In preparation for the first preliminary regatta Vilanova i la Geltrú in just 1 month’s time, four teams lined up for the first AC40 races to help test the new RMS and broadcast systems. Photo: Ugo Fonollá / America’s Cup

How to watch the America’s Cup preliminary regatta

The America’s Cup races will be live-streamed across the official America’s Cup website: www.americascup.com as well as available to watch on YouTube in most territories.

This may not be available in territories where broadcast rights have been sold, but as yet there is no information available about broadcast deals, so it is safe to assume most territories will have Youtube access to racing.

The America’s Cup Social Media channels on Instagram, Facebook, and X (Twitter) will also be fully activated and updated throughout the racing with a mix of multi-media. Daily race reports will be available on the America’s Cup website after racing.

You can also follow all of our coverage on Yachting World’s America’s Cup mini site.

For those wishing to watch in Barcelona, the America’s Cup Race Village will offer spectators the chance to experience the unique buzz and atmosphere of the regattas off the water.

The Race Villages free throughout all America’s Cup events, with large maxi screens to view the racing action live with commentary plus event and team activations alongside an array of food and beverage stations.

The Race Village in Vilanova i La Geltrú, will open at 11:00 daily and run through to 20:00 with live racing between 15:00 to 17:30 and sailor presentations and interviews after the racing each day.

When is the next America’s Cup preliminary regatta?

After this first America’s Cup Preliminary regatta, teams head to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a second regatta between 29th November to 2nd December 2023. The third and last preliminary regatta will be held in August 2024 in Barcelona.

As with the first event, the regatta in Saudi Arabia will have racing in AC40s, but the final preliminary event in 2024 will see all the America’s Cup teams race in their new AC75s for the very first time.

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Several years after Emirates Team New Zealand successfully defended the America’s Cup back in 2021, we are about to see racing in this cycle for the first time. But what have teams been up in the last couple of years as they look ahead to the 2024 America’s Cup?

The first official event of the 37th America’s Cup will take place from 15th September 2023 as the five America’s Cup teams gather in the Catalonian port of Vilanova i la Geltrú for the first America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta.  The racing itself will take place in the One-Design AC40 class, which might make for entertaining racing, but will show us very little about where each team is in their technical development path towards the ultimate goal of winning the 2024 America’s Cup.

So what have the teams been up to since the last America’s Cup in 2021?

INEOS Britannia and Orient Express Racing Team training in their AC40s

America’s Cup test boats and AC40s

Every team entered into the 2024 America’s Cup needs to purchase a one-design foiling AC40 for racing in the Preliminary Regattas and to ensure they can enter teams into both the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups (both of which will use AC40s).

All teams set to take part in the 37th America’s Cup now have AC40s on the water in preparation for the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta. However, some have had them on the water longer than others, and some have two out on the water sailing.

Although the AC40 is a one-design class and must adhere to strict rules for the Preliminary Regattas and the Youth and Women’s AC, outside of these events they are allowed to be modified in order to conduct testing ahead of the launch of team’s AC75 America’s Cup boats – though they must be able to be returned to their one-design configuration for racing.

Oreient Express Racing Team were the last to launch an AC40

The French Orient Express Racing Team were the last team to enter this America’s Cup and were also the last to get an AC40 – only launching it in mid-August. And as such hold the difficult duel position as both last team to enter the Cup and the team with the least time on the water.

By contrast, Defenders of the America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand were the first to launch an AC40 back in 2022 and were the first to conduct two-boat testing once their second AC40 was launched.

Neither of these outcomes are a surprise, with a single builder of AC40s, teams were allocated a build slot based on their order of entry to the 37th America’s Cup.

In terms of boat launches, teams have taken a number of different approaches. With a wait for AC40 delivery and time of the essence (as ever in the AC), some teams chose to build their own training boats.

Boat terminology has become a little confusing, but test platforms are generally referred to as LEQ12s (short for ‘Less or Equal to 12m’ the parameters for a test platform as defined by the America’s Cup rules, to limit teams building platforms too similar in size to an AC75).

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli training in their LEQ12 in Cagliari

The two teams which have chosen this route are Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli. To add a little more confusion to the nomenclature, Luna Rossa refer to their boat as simply LEQ12 while the Brits have named their ‘LEQ12’ T6. Both of these were launched in late 2022.

For both of these teams, their LEQ12 has been the primary test platform, with both also adding AC40s to their roster of boats following the launch of their LEQ12 test platforms.

To further confuse the issue, if teams take an AC40 out of one-design configuration that too becomes (officially) an LEQ12. This is because there are limits on the number of parts any team can design and own. So an LEQ12 can have a certain number of test foil shapes (for example) and this same rule applies to foils on a non-one-design AC40.

Emirates Team New Zealand training on one AC40 and one modified AC40 (officially a LEQ12). Photo: Ugo Fonollá / America’s Cup

In addition to AC40s and LEQ12 test boats, teams are also able to sail their AC75s from the 36th America’s Cup, though with limitations on when they can be sailed. These limitations vary somewhat with teams that took part in the last America’s Cup, who already have AC75s, more restricted than new entries, who were able to purchase an AC75 and sail it earlier in the cycle.

Alinghi Red Bull Racing are a new entrant in this Cup cycle and they purchased Emirates Team New Zealand’s first AC75 from the 2021 Cup cycle and relaunched it in August 2022 immediately getting some time on the foiling monohull under their belts. They have since relaunched once again after adding some further developments.

They have split their time between AC75 sailing and AC40 sailing, once their own one-design was delivered, and have recently been two-boat tuning with the delivery of their second AC40.

Sailing ‘legacy’ AC75s will be a key part of the build up to the next America’s Cup, with teams only allowed to build one new AC75 this time around (two were permitted for the 2021 Cup).

“The rule that you can only build one AC75 this campaign is to save cost, but it’s a big change from the America’s Cup that I grew up with, in the old IACC class monohulls,” explained Jeff Causey, INEOS Britannia’s boat operations manager. “Back then, it was all about two-boat testing. Every team that could afford to designed and built two boats, and then lined them up against each other for countless hours of side-by-side tuning out on the water. We don’t have that available to us this time.” 

American Magic out two-boat testing. Photo: Paul Todd/America’s Cup

The USA flagged team, American Magic has taken a similar approach to Alinghi Red Bull Racing, getting plenty of time out on the water onboard their AC75 from their base in Pensacola and sailing their first AC40 there too, before moving out to Barcelona earlier this year where they got their hands on their second AC40 allowing them to get some two boat testing and training under their belts.

It should be noted that the AC75 rules have been slightly tweaked for this edition with ‘cyclors‘ once again allowed and some changes to the foil arms and sail control systems – among other tweaks. And we have seen teams making changes to their legacy AC75s to reflect this, with many teams opting for cyclors at this early stage.

Emirates Team New Zealand training on an AC75 with cyclors now returned to Cup sailing . Photo: Job Vermeulen / America’s Cup

Testing, data collection and simulators

Two boat testing provides a clearly defined development path for those who choose to do it and can be used to either validate technical data (e.g. how well different foils perform) or team performance using identical kit to race each other.

This type of A/B testing has been key to producing a fast boat and a well oiled sailing team since time immemorial. However, the America’s Cup is at the very forefront of technology and gone are the days of relying purely on such simple tools.

It’s widely accepted that one of Emirates Team New Zealand’s key advantages back in 2017 when they wrested the America’s Cup from the hands of then Defender, Oracle Team USA was the Kiwis’ reliance on simulation tools. And an accurate simulator has remained the holy grail of the AC world ever since.

INOES Britannia’s LEQ12 is bristling with sensors. You can make out one camera here, above and aft of the foil arm buried in the hull, surrounded by carbon there are hundreds more load, speed etc. sensors. Note also the two differing foil shapes. Photo: C.GREGORY / INEOS BRITANNIA

It is here where we are likely to see the key benefits for those teams who have got together with F1 teams – Alinghi Red Bull Racing (Red Bull) and INEOS Britannia (Mercedes).

The key thing here is that teams will want to capture as much data as possible from their test platforms in order to validate their simulator findings. Put simply the closer to real-world sailing you can make your simulations the better and this relies on adjusting the simulation output based on how well it corresponds to real world scenarios.

As such we have seen boats bristling with sensors and cameras all sending high quality data back to huge data banks largely in order to calibrate simulators.

Foil mounted aft with a bulb protruding forward as we saw in the last Cup.

Foils and sail controls

The upshot of a good simulator is that it significantly reduces the need for real world testing of ideas. In short, why design and build a foil to put through two-boat testing when you can build thousands of simulated permutations of different foil types?

But we have seen teams testing different foil shapes in the real world too, with some teams electing to A/B test foils on a single boat by running different foil configurations on port and starboard – something we saw a lot of in the last Cup cycle.

From what can be observed from the testing to date, there seems to be a consensus around the foil wings themselves sitting as far aft as possible on the foil arms, usually with some kind of bulb projecting forward. This is the style of foil Emirates Team New Zealand used in their successful defence of the AC last time out.

Sail controls will once again be a significant development area.

Once again, though foil shapes are a key area of development with flat elliptical foils a popular option, Y foils on display as well as curved foils (somewhere between a flat and Y-shaped foil) and the recent return of a W foil by the Brits (trialled and eventually dropped by them before the last Cup).

While foils were a key visual difference between the boats last time around, sail control setups were also a marked area of differentiation. Some teams had boomless setups, some had a boom, Luna Rossa had a sort-of-boom hidden underneath the deck and INEOS used (and then abandoned) an articulating boom.

There was a lot more experimentation beyond the booms and a significant amount of development was hidden within the boat and between the sails.

All of these differences were in order to get the twin-skin mainsail to be as powerful as possible to provide drive for the AC75 to get up on it’s foils and then allow rapid depowering and aero efficiency once foiling and contenting with apparent wind speeds of around 50 knots.

It looks as though sail controls are once again going to be a significant area of development. More so than the foils, sail controls and systems are very well hidden but we have already seen a mixture of boom and boomless setups on test boats and there are rumours that this is a rich seam of development once again this time around.

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Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a huge backer of major sports teams, inducing the British bid for the America’s Cup, INEOS Britannia.

Formerly a chemical engineer, Sir Jim Ratcliffe became an investment specialist before founding the Anglo-Swiss petrochemicals giant INEOS in 1998. Over two decades Ratcliffe grew INEOS into an enormous multinational, the fourth largest chemicals company in the world, with a reported a profit of €3.5bn in 2021.

Ratcliffe’s previously worked with oil giant Esso, but in 1998 he formed INEOS to buy out BP’s chemicals division Inspec.

INEOS has rapidly built to become a giant in the chemicals industry and has helped Ratcliffe to become one of the richest men in the UK. He was listed as the richest man in the UK in 2018 Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of £21.05 billion.

Jim Ratcliffe and sports

Jim Ratcliffe was relatively unknown beyond the financial pages, despite his impressive wealth, until he and INEOS began to sponsor a variety of major sports teams and British sporting endeavours. Speaking in 2021 he said, “There are three of us who own INEOS, and we’re all from the North of England, just three normal blokes who like sport.”

Ratcliffe’s first major investment was in football, when he bought the Swiss club FC Lausanne-Sport in 2017.

This was swiftly followed by one of his most ambitious partnerships, when Jim Ratcliffe – who is founder, chairman and majority shareholder of INEOS – and the company partnered with the most successful Olympic sailor of all time, Sir Ben Ainslie, to try to win the America’s Cup.

In 2018 it was announced that INEOS would fund Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup team in what was the biggest – and possibly the fastest – sponsorship investment in British sailing.

The £110m deal, aimed at winning back the Cup for the first time in its 167-year history, was signed a mere four weeks after Ratcliffe met Ainslie in a London pub and chatted over a drink. Ratcliffe later joked that it was “the most expensive gin and tonic in history!”.

The partnership was met with some controversy as INEOS is a major producer of plastics which sits at odds to sailing’s many clean ocean campaigns. Ratcliffe is also a proponent of fracking, was a prominent Brexit supporter, and moved to Monaco in 2020.

Photo: C. GREGORY/INEOS Team UK

Ratcliffe the team owner

Shortly after the announcement was made in 2018, Yachting World sat down with Ratcliffe and Ainslie at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes, the club the British challenge represents, to find out more about their partnership – and how Ratcliffe sees his role as a major investor in sports.

“The America’s Cup sits in the ‘intriguing challenge’ box,” he told Yachting World. “It’s not a big INEOS thing, because INEOS is not a consumer brand so we’re not dependent on doing these kind of things – or F1 or anything else – for our business to be successful. It’s not going to help us sell petrochemicals or oil or gas.

“But it’s a sensational challenge really to bring the America’s Cup back to the UK. It’s just a British thing really, we’re Brits and it would be marvellous to see the Cup come back here – finally.”

“The America’s Cup is different, but it’s the equivalent to some of the business challenges we’ve had. Our approach is similar. 

“With Ben and the team we hover a bit like a shareholder. We like to have a sense of what’s going on and who’s doing what, and whether the money’s being spent sensibly, but it is a very light touch really.

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And as for his approach to backing a sports team? “It’s not that different to working in business really – it has to be fun, and you have to get on with people, otherwise why do it? Because we don’t need to do it. But there’s all those parallels with business: the journey, the challenge.

“If we buy a business we would hope to double the profits within five years, it’s a journey. This is no different really. The people are just as committed and intense in both.”

Ainslie added: “It’s been really fascinating learning how the INEOS business is run and how to relate that to a sports team with the core goal of winning the Cup. How everything comes back to that one core goal, those decisions and not getting distracted by other factors.”

Although the British team did not win the America’s Cup in 2021, the partnership was renewed and the team, now named INEOS Britannia, are currently building up towards the 2024 America’s Cup.

This time the team is also Challenger of Record, which means that Ratcliffe and Ainslie have increased influence over the event’s format.

INEOS cycling, Formula 1 and marathons

Shortly after this massive deal, in 2019, Ratcliffe – who is a keen cyclist as well as a passionate mountaineer – purchased the Team Sky cycling franchise, subsequently rebranded Team INEOS and then INEOS Grenadiers. They since won the 2019 Tour de France and 2021 Giro d’Italia.

With the use of cyclors, or pedal-powered grinders, on the America’s Cup AC75s there have been plenty of cross-overs between the cycling and sailing teams, with some of the America’s Cup team grinders training with Grenadiers in Palma.

Ratcliffe set out to make history in 2019 when he backed the INEOS 1.59 Challenge, a no-stones-unturned bid to smash the 2-hour marathon time. Eliud Kipchoge broke the two-hour barrier at a special event in Austria, setting a new time of 1hr 59m 40s.

INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe also went into Formula 1 when, in February 2020, INEOS became principal partners of Mercedes AMG F1, signing a five-year agreement with the team.

The America’s Cup has often been called the Formula 1 of sailing, and it was no surprise when Ainslie’s INEOS Britannia team partnered with Mercedes AMG F1 in 2021.

The linking of one of the world’s most successful motorsport teams, with the British squad sailing squad, and the potential to share key personnel and design resources, was seen as a major advantage to Ainslie in his bid to win the America’s Cup. Other America’s Cup teams followed suit with similar partnerships.

Jim Ratcliffe and football

Ratcliffe has long been linked to a number of football clubs. He has owned of FC Lausanne-Sport, a Swiss Super League football club, since 2017 but he has also been linked to a number of Premier League football clubs.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, sanctions on Roman Abramovich forced him to put Premier League side Chelsea F.C. up for sale. Ratcliffe made £4.25 billion bid to buy the club but this was rejected.

Most recently, in January 2023 INEOS announced publicly that it had entered into the formal process of bidding for Manchester United after the current owners announced it was looking for new investors.

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INEOS Britannia has launched its first America’s Cup test boat. Code-named T6, the test boat is known as an ‘LEQ12’ , a scaled down foiling monohull which may be used for testing design developments, in addition to the one-design AC40 which all Cup teams have to purchase.

T6 was built at Carrington Boats in Hythe, then transported to Brackley, UK, the home of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team for its fit out – the biggest design and engineering project so far for the partnership with the motorsports team. It was launched at the team’s new winter training base in Palma, Mallorca.

As Challenger of Record, one of the British team’s key inputs into the Protocol for AC37 was that teams retained the option of building their own scaled down development boats in addition to the AC40s. It was agreed that these America’s Cup test boat (or towing platforms), must be between 6-12m in length (hence LEQ12, for ‘less or equal to 12’).

Team skipper and CEO Ben Ainslie explained one of the key reasons why the team invested in an additional boat: “We came out of AC36 lacking confidence in our design tools. Ultimately, we made key design decisions in the last Cup using our design tools and our simulation, and they weren’t accurate enough. This was borne out in the end result, across our hull, foil designs and performance.

“T6 is a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to validate our design tools and have more confidence in them, as we go into designing the key components for the race boat for Barcelona.”

The new INEOS Britannia LEQ12 America’s Cup test boat, T6, launched in Palma, Mallorca in October 2022

The new boat is also a test-run for working with Mercedes-AMG before building their new AC75. “It’s a big deal trying to bring two design groups together and define common working practices and everything else that goes into designing a successful America’s Cup boat,” Ainslie explained.

“We had the opportunity to do a dry run with T6 before we design and build the race boat for the Cup, and it was really important to us to take that opportunity. It’s highlighted a number of areas where we’ve been able to modify our approach and the overall structure of the team for the better.”

“Lastly, while it’s fantastic to see Emirates Team New Zealand put out the AC40 – and that boat will undoubtedly get a huge amount of use both as a testing platform and a racing platform – we wanted to control our own destiny.

“We wanted full control over our own testing platform and not be reliant on a third party to provide that platform, so we had control over our testing strategy.”

T6 will start to be used for an extensive testing period aimed at validating the team’s design tools and testing key components before the deadline to start the build of the team’s AC75 race boat. Initially, that will involve more tow-testing than sailing.

“We have a long list of tow tests that we want to do to validate the information from our design tools,” said Ainslie. ” The best way to do that is without the variability in the wind, we don’t want unknown aerodynamic influence on what we are measuring.

Ben Ainslie, team principal of INEOS Britannia, at the team’s winter training base in Palma

“As we all know, the wind at different heights in the rig is very hard to measure accurately, and therefore hard to model accurately. So we want to take that uncertainty out of our initial testing program with T6, so we can be more accurate in the  performance data that we will collect, and in the validation of the design tools with that data.

“The validation of these tools is really key at this stage. We’ve seen a big step in America’s Cup simulation tools, they enable us to try so many more variations of design philosophy and options than ever before, which is fantastic. However, you have to have really strong confidence in those simulation tools, and trust that they’re actually giving you accurate feedback. All of the teams know this and try and do the best job they can to create the most accurate tools, which will then help them design the fastest boat.”

While T6 will send the winter at the team’s new base in Palma de Mallorca – which is being headed up by Giles Scott – all the live test data and results will be streamed back to the design, engineering and performance teams at the team’s UK headquarters in Brackley.

The British boat will be battery powered and, when sailed, will have a crew of four.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli LEQ12

Meanwhile momentum is building among all the Challengers, with activity increasing among every team. The new official ‘recon’ programme means all the teams’ launches and sailing days are observed and recorded.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli was first to launch an ‘LEQ12’ America’s Cup test boat, splashing theirs a couple of days before INEOS in October. Despite its ‘dazzle ship’ livery, it bears closest resemblance to the ETNZ winning AC75 from last year.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli were first to launch an LEQ12 America’s Cup test boat. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi/Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli

American Magic relaunch Patriot

As an alternative test boat strategy, the New York Yacht Club Challengers American Magic have ordered two AC40 one-designs.

This could give the team an opportunity to not only speed trial, but potentially match race train with multiple helmsmen – both Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison are signed with the American AC team.

American Magic has also relaunched Patriot, the AC75 which suffered a dramatic crash landing during the Prada Cup Round Robin last January, sailing on their home waters of Pensacola, Florida. A recent sponsorship deal announced with Sram, ‘the world’s most innovative bicycle component manufacturer’, makes it clear cyclors will be returning to the American entry. Under Version 2 of the AC75 rule pedal-power is once again allowed.

American Magic has updated and relaunched their AC75 Patriot in Florida

British INEOS sailors also seem to be spending a large amount of time pedalling around Mallorca – a mecca for road cyclists.

The Alinghi team has been training on its AC75 off Barcelona – after last month’s capsize under tow the team has experienced more tough conditions, with a nose dive in waves causing them to blow out the clew of a headsail.

Women’s and Youth America’s Cup dates confirmed

More dates have been confirmed for the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup. The Youth event will start on 19 September 2024 and the Women’s America’s Cup on 3 October 2024. They conclude with the Youth America’s Cup Single Match Race on 2 October – the same day as the America’s Cup Challenger Final – whilst the Women’s America’s Cup Single Match Race will be held on 16 October, a date also scheduled for two America’s Cup Match races. 

At least one home team will line up against the four Cup contenders for these events, with Sail Team BCN, representing the Real Club Náutico de Barcelona, competing in both the Youth and Women’s America’s Cup 2024. The team will be led by Spanish pro sailor Guillermo Altadill and managed by Stewart Hosford, formerly of Alex Thomson Racing and now with Origin Sports.

No announcement so far of who’ll be racing the sixth AC40 that’s rostered into the event though…

Meanwhile, Iain Murray has been reappointed as Regatta Director and Richard Slater continues in the role as Chief Umpire, both reprising their roles from AC36.

The post INEOS Britannia reveal new T6 America’s Cup test boat appeared first on Yachting World.

Barcelona has been selected as the venue to host the 37th America’s Cup in 2024, it has been announced today, Tuesday 29th March 2022 by the Cup Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand and Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia.

The process for selecting a venue has been a long and fraught one, with many options coming and going. Initially, the venue decision was delayed from its original scheduled announcement in September 2021. It then seemed likely the venue would be formally agreed in time for the 37th America’s Cup protocol announcement in November 2021. But both dates came and went with a commitment to a venue being announced by the end of March 2022.

The final selection of Barcelona makes this the first time a New Zealand team has chosen to defend a Cup win overseas and will likely cause some upset from sections of the New Zealand public.

Auckland had an exclusive period in which to tender for the 37th America’s Cup, but the sums on offer were not enough, and Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, Grant Dalton cast the net wider internationally after rejecting a NZ$99 million (£50 million) offer from the New Zealand government.

Since that time a number of different venues have been rumoured including: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Cork, Ireland; Malaga, Spain and a few others.

In the last couple of weeks, however, the rumours surrounding Barcelona as an option have grown stronger with Dalton having flown to Spain to meet with representatives of the hosting bid.

Spanish news outlet Cronica claimed recently that the city of Barcelona had been chosen to host the Cup and suggested that the city reached the agreement with a bid of 70 million Euro to secure the America’s Cup hosting deal.

The Barcelona money is believed to have come from a number of different sources, led by the Government of Catalonia.

(L to R) Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona. Pere Aragonés, President of the Government of Catalonia.
Grant Dalton

“Barcelona really is one of the most recognised cities in the world so to have the ability to host the most recognised sailing event in the world is hugely exciting,” Dalton said. “As Defender of the America’s Cup, we have always felt the responsibility to grow the event, the audience, and the sport of sailing on a global scale and certainly having the event hosted in a significant city such as Barcelona will allow us to propel the growth trajectory on the global sporting stage.

When thinking ahead to the 37th America’s Cup and the AC75’s racing within a few hundred metres of the Barcelona beach, waterfront, and race village fan engagement zones it will be nothing less than spectacular.”

Barcelona, the venue for the 37th America’s Cup

INEOS Britannia Team Principal Sir Ben Ainslie said, “We are delighted the iconic city of Barcelona has been chosen to host the 37th America’s Cup. The historic weather data for Barcelona shows what a fantastic sailing venue it will be. The marina development and race area in Barcelona will offer excellent shore side facilities for the competing teams, alongside a great event village for fans of sports oldest international trophy to enjoy this iconic sporting event.”

Further details on the venue and 37th America’s Cup will be announced in due course. “Obviously all of this news is announced in the shadow of the unfathomable war in the Ukraine we are witnessing right now, which clearly puts everything in perspective for us”, said Dalton “We sincerely hope there is a rapid improvement in the situation, and we would like to send our strong message of support to the people in Ukraine during this period. We look forward to working in partnership with our Host Venue of Barcelona and announcing further details in due course.”

What the 37th America’s Cup Protocol means

The publication of the 37th America’s Cup Protocol has delivered an eagerly awaited blueprint for the next edition of the…

America’s Cup boats: How they work and why they’re unique

The AC75s, the America’s Cup boats currently racing in the Prada Cup and that will be used for next month’s…

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The publication of the 37th America’s Cup Protocol has delivered an eagerly awaited blueprint for the next edition of the America’s Cup.

From the next generation of AC75s that will be a tonne lighter and carry three fewer crew and result in higher top end speeds and earlier flight in the light, to the new AC40 one-design class that will be used for testing and training as well as the preliminary regattas, the overall mission was clear – to take the last Cup and tweak it to make it better, more accessible and more appealing to stakeholders and spectators alike.

37th America’s Cup Protocol in detail

The Protocol announcement, held jointly between Emirates Team New Zealand and INEOS Britannia this week, unveiled some key details.

Teams will only be allowed to build one AC75 and nationality rules are strict this time around requiring 100% of the race crew for each competitor to either be a passport holder of the country of the team’s yacht club or to have been physically present in that country for 18 months of the previous three years prior to 17th March 2021. Having said that, there will be dispensations for ‘Emerging Nations’.

Emirares Team New Zealand saw success in Bermuda with their Cyclors. These may well return for the 37th America’s Cup

Generating power with cyclists, as the Kiwis did to great effect in Bermuda, was outlawed for the last America’s Cup but with this America’s Cup protocol it seems they will make a return for this edition.

While the focus of debate may be on the additional power that legs provide over arms, it’s important to remember that the Kiwis’ advantage in 2017 was also that their crews’ hands were freed up to perform other functions.

With a reduced crew on board the new AC75s perhaps it’s not that surprising that both the Defender and Challenger of Record see this as something worth putting back into the mix, especially for the Brits who have strong links with the INEOS cycling team.

When it comes to the events, there will be up to three Preliminary Regattas, the first two raced in AC40s, the last one at the Match venue in AC75s. The Challenger Selection Series and the America’s Cup Match will be held in 2024.

There will also be a Youth America’s Cup as there was in Bermuda in 2017, but in addition there will be a Women’s America’s Cup in the same boats. (If the online chatter is any guide, this has already triggered some lively debate.)

Each team will be required to purchase a hydrogen fuel cell powered chase boat

It’s not all about the racing. Teams will be required to build a minimum of two hydrogen fuel cell powered chase boats capable of sustaining a minimum speed of 25 knots for no less than 75 nautical miles and hit a top speed of 50 knots, something that Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton describes as ‘a game changer for the industry.’

What next for the America’s Cup?

But this is also a bold Protocol in that it seeks to influence further than just the next Cup, something that few – if any – have made stick before.

By entering the 37th Cup, a team undertakes that if it is successful in winning it will continue with the AC75 class for any Challenger series and the 38th America’s Cup. And while the Brits and Kiwis announced this as a goal some months back, the reality is that it changes fundamentally one of the cornerstones of the America’s Cup in that the winner doesn’t get to make the rules.

Article continues below…

America’s Cup: Protocol released for 37th AC

America’s Cup Defender, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (Emirates Team New Zealand) and the Challenger of Record the Royal Yacht…

America’s Cup: Ainslie goes all-in with Mercedes F1

Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup Challenge – now INEOS Britannia, formerly INEOS Team UK – launched the first stage of its…

I have no doubt that their intentions are well meaning in trying to achieve consistency for the good of teams, hosts, sponsors, spectators and the whole sport in a way that has eluded most over the last 170 years.

The very thing that has kept the Cup at the leading edge is also the very thing that holds it back at times – by creating huge leaps of faith and radical changes that costs huge sums of money and frequently dilutes the number of teams and the level of racing.

INEOS Britannia’s AC75 in the 36th America’s Cup World Series

The Cup often suffers when it has big gear changes. For my money, creating a way of ensuring the development of these extraordinary machines provides an opportunity for the wider sport to benefit.

But I’m also sure that trying to bag the next Cup before this one’s been won will attract plenty of criticism from some quarters for seeking to effectively modify the Deed of Gift.

And where next…?

And while considering the criticisms, the lack of a venue is another that is fuelling a debate. Unusually for a Cup Protocol there was no mention of where the next Cup would take place. Instead, a new deadline of 31 March 2022 for the announcement.

The venue debate has been swirling around for months already, get set for some more, especially after Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton said in an interview that Auckland was ‘unlikely’ as a venue ‘but not ruled out’.

Whatever your view, like political debate, an America’s Cup cycle without controversy wouldn’t feel right.

For me, aside from the unknows the 37th Cup Protocol has plenty to be excited about.

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America’s Cup Defender, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (Emirates Team New Zealand) and the Challenger of Record the Royal Yacht Squadron (INEOS Britannia) have today, Tuesday 16 November, released the Protocol for the next America’s Cup.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to where the 37th edition of the America’s Cup would be held, but this information (and a number of other specifics) is missing from the protocol.

Traditionally the Defender defends the trophy in their home country but wrangling over hosting costs and funding for the home team may potentially see Emirates Team New Zealand take their defence overseas.

It was widely rumoured ahead of this Protocol announcement that a venue was unlikely to be released so few will be surprised this has yet to be confirmed. However, there is now a timeline to that crucial information being shared, with 31 March, 2022 now the official date by which this will be announced.

The 31 March deadline is also when the date of the next America’s Cup will be made public.

Grant Dalton, Defender Emirates Team New Zealand’s CEO, admitted that the original deadline for a venue announcement of September 17, 2021 was “too ambitious, I’ll put my hands up there. But what it has done is focussed the mind.

“We haven’t got a venue as of today, but it’s certainly my major focus – especially now we have a Protocol.” Dalton pointed out the fact that his team is working 24-7 on the venue agreement, with a dual pronged approach led by New Zealand and Team Origin in the UK operating on opposing time zones.

In the Protocol announcement, Dalton said: “As we saw with AC36, after 170 years, as the oldest trophy in international sport, the America’s Cup maintains its unique position of balancing the traditions of the Deed of Gift while continuing to push the boundaries of innovation, technology and design in the boats, the event, the broadcast and the commercial aspects of the event.

Maintaining this balance is the ongoing challenge and responsibility of the Defender and Challenger of Record as we aim to progress into the 37th edition of the America’s Cup in the ever-changing environment and demands of global sports as well as a determination to drive sustainability through innovation via hydrogen technology for the marine sector which we both believe is reflected in this Protocol.”

INEOS Britannia CEO and Team Principal Sir Ben Ainslie said: “As Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia has sought with the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, to make the next America’s Cup less expensive and more inclusive.

“The Protocol this time around will see reduced team operating costs without compromising any of the technical development which the Cup is so famous for. There is an opportunity for change, so for AC37 we will see the first Women’s America’s Cup Regatta and we also welcome back the Youth America’s Cup.”

AC75 retained

The AC75 from the last round of America’s Cup racing will be retained, though with a slightly modified ruleset. These changes should be small enough to allow for new challengers to buy an old generation AC75 and make it class legal.

Dalton explained, “It’s about building a fleet. If you want to encourage more teams, you have to create a fleet that people can buy to get going.”

In a nod to trying to get new teams signed up via this route – which would likely prove cheaper than starting from scratch – existing teams are not permitted to sail their AC75s’ before the 17th September 2022, however new Challengers entering AC37 that have purchased a second hand AC75 are permitted to sail their AC75 for 20 days from 17th June 2022.

Emirates Team New Zealand sailing their AC75 in the last America’s Cup

Significant changes for the AC75 include the reduction in crew from 11 to 8 sailors. “There’s a couple of benefits from that [crew reduction],” explained Ainslie, “obviously it reduces the weight of the boat. Together with some other changes, subtle changes to be made to the class rule, means I think we’re saving about a tonne of weight out of the boat, which coupled with the increase in wingspan, will drastically improve the light air performance, which I think we all agreed on the back of the last event, is important. 

“Also, it reduces the budget having less sailors,” Ainslie added. “I mean, there’s a limit until at what point you take more and more sailors off the boat. But that was something which actually was discussed with most of the teams, if not all of the teams from the last cycle, in quite a collaborative meeting not long after the last Cup.”

With fewer sailors the question of how to generate enough power whilst also maintaining full control will be top of each sailing team’s mind, and – love them or loathe them – the door is open for ‘cyclors’ or leg-powered grinding to return.

Dalton explained: “The rule is silent. You don’t have to go there, but I guess we will because we’ve got a bit of knowledge in that area too, but I just thought it was bloody cool and why not bring it back?  Or give teams the option to bring it back.”

Love it or loathe it, ‘cyclor power’ could be back for the next America’s Cup.

Although the New Zealand team innovated the original cyclor configuration, for INEOS Britannia this rule change could be a potential benefit.

“If you take the viewpoint that we’re going to go down the cyclor route, will you bring in athletes from other sports who potentially are better suited?,” Ainslie told Yachting World. “Cycling is an obvious link there. And we’re fortunate with the INEOS sports group and the Grenadiers that we’re partnered with arguably the world’s leading cycling team. So that will have an impact on the sailor selection, athlete selection and their training. 

“But it’s still going to require input to get these boats around the track. As in the last Cup, we saw close to pretty much all of the sailors having an input at one time or another with the manoeuvres of these boats. And I’d expect that to be similar again in this next cycle.”

Those crew must also be passport-holders for the country they represent, or have spent “548 days between (but excluding) 17 March 2018 and 18 March 2021” in that country.

Other innovations on the AC75 include a closed-loop system which is designed to reduce power loss. Winches, for example, have been replaced by hydraulics, so settings can be more accurately replicated without spilling power. Runners and the bowsprit have also been removed.

Second generation AC75s

Cost reductions

Other efforts to rein in costs include rules that:

• Teams are only permitted to build one new AC75.
• Limitations on the quantity of foils and components that can be built for the AC75’s.
• The introduction of the multipurpose One Design AC40 class for a Youth America’s Cup, Women’s America’s Cup class which teams will be able to convert and use for testing, component development and Match Race training.
• This AC40 class will then be converted back to the measured One Design AC40 class for use in the new America’s Cup Women’s Regatta and America’s Cup Youth events. These events have been developed to create new accelerated inclusive pathways into the America’s Cup for the growing global talent pool of female and youth sailors.
• Further One design elements.
• Supplied starting software.
• The AC75 class of boat will be maintained for the next two events, and entering teams will be expected to subscribe to that agreement.
• Whilst not a cost-saving exercise, teams are also required to develop hydrogen powered chase boats to reduce the event’s environmental impact.

Hydrogen powered America’s Cup chase boat in development in New Zealand

Drive to Survive on the water

Finally there had been a rumour that America’s Cup organisers where considering a behind the scenes show to accompany the racing – widely seen as a reaction to the success of Netflix’s Formula 1 behind the scenes show, Drive to Survive.

This concept is confirmed in the Protocol, though only loosely stating that: With a view to opening the doors and the continued drive to increase the global audience of the America’s Cup and the sport of sailing, a condition of entry to competitors is they agree to be part of a potential behind-the-scenes documentary series. The intention of this is to bring the secrecy, the drama and all the teams’ personalities into the limelight.

No more America’s Cup spying

The trade-off for this degree of openness is that reconnaissance – or spying – between teams will be banned. Instead there will transparent publication of data, open to both teams and fans, including details of which team is sailing with new foils, number of sailing days they have spent on the water, days lost to repairs etc

The approach has two aims – to reduce costs to the teams, and also to help grow the America’s Cup audience by feeding information to the public in the build up to competition. 

The big question will be whether the new Protocol – and the new open approach – overcomes the Defender’s traditional advantage? Speaking after the announcement, Ainslie said: 

“​​I wouldn’t say they [Emirates Team New Zeaalnd] have given up all the advantages of being the Defender, but they’ve certainly given up a few, and I think we’ve got to applaud that.”

37th America’s Cup timeline

Timeline for the 37th America’s Cup

​​2021
17th November 2021: AC37 Protocol and AC75 Class Rule V2 Published.
1st December 2021: Entries for Challengers Open.

2022
31st March 2022: Defender to announce Match Venue and approximate event dates.
17th June 2022: New competitors may sail Version 1 AC75’s for 20 sailing days.
31st July 2022: Entry Period Closes.
17th September 2022: Competitors may sail an AC75 Yacht.
30th November 2022: ACE to announce race schedule for the Match.
30th November 2022: ACE to announce racing area for CSS and Match.
31st December 2022: ACE to publish Brand Manual.

2023
31st May 2023: Final cut off for late Challenger entries.
30th June 2023: ACE to publish Youth and Women’s AC Agreement.
30th June 2023: COR/D to publish Match Conditions.
30th November 2023: COR/D to publish CSS Conditions.

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Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup Challenge – now INEOS Britannia, formerly INEOS Team UK – launched the first stage of its tilt at the 37th America’s Cup today. INEOS Britannia revealed a number of key new personnel as well as just how closely the Cup team will be working alongside the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team at their base in Brackley.

The leadership team was unveiled in a video presentation hosted by Georgie Ainslie, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Sir Ben Ainslie, David Endean, Toto Wolff and James Allison all present. It was broadcast from the Mercedes F1 base in Brackley. The location and presence of Wolff and Allison all provided an early clear direction of the team’s setup ahead of the next America’s Cup.

It’s clear that within the six months that have elapsed since the end of the 36th America’s Cup – which culminated in a successful defence for Emirates Team New Zealand and the British team bowing out in the Prada Cup Final – the team has been busy restructuring and making some tough decisions.

“We stopped pretty firmly in Auckland and then had to regroup. You need to be careful not to make rash decisions and now we need to make sure we have the right people involved,” explained newly promoted Chief Operating Officer, David Endean, who was with the team in Auckland as Project Director.

One such right person for the job is the newly hired Martin Fischer, who joins the team as Head of Design Concept. Fisher headed up the design team for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in the last Cup cycle, so comes with a great deal of experience in the AC75 and America’s Cup more broadly.

This will be a big scalp for the team, with such an experienced designer who was responsible for producing the boat which ultimately knocked the Brits out of the Cup last time round.

They have picked up another new design hire in Nat Shaver, a foil design expert who was with American Magic for the last America’s Cup too.

Article continues below…

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Clearly the design decisions taken in the lead up to the last America’s Cup were identified as a weakness (read our piece in the development process which saw the Brits ultimately get knocked out of the America’s Cup in early 2021) and it is this area where there has been significant work on recruitment. It has also clearly been the impetus for a much closer working relationship with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, which developed during the last Cup cycle, partly when F1 racing was paused during lockdown.

“I don’t think the Brits have ever arrived at an America’s Cup with a boat that probably could have won, even though we have had some fantastic sailors,” commented Sir Jim Radcliffe.

Radcliffe is the man responsible for the Mercedes and INOES Britannia collaboration, being both the owner of the INOES Britannia team and a significant backer and stakeholder in the Mercedes F1 team.

“And our boat that we had for AC36 wasn’t capable of winning, technically it was not good enough,” he added.

America’s Cup and F1, happy bedfellows?

Since the America’s Cup moved to super-high speed foiling boats back in 2013 there has been a great deal of talk about the ways in which Formula 1 technologies can be used to improve the performance of America’s Cup yachts, be they the AC72 foiling catamarans, the AC50 foiling catamarans or the latest AC75 foiling monohulls.

Toto Wolff and Sir Jim Ratcliffe

But for all the similarities between the two sports – both are essentially design, engineering and technology challenges in which the best sportspeople compete for victory – rarely has the inclusion of F1 designers, engineers or technology made any clear difference to a team winning the America’s Cup.

One could argue that for all the similarities, the differences are too great to make a significant impact one way or the other. Or perhaps, as appears to be the opinion of INEOS Britannia, integration needs to be done hand in glove at the outset.

“When people talk about the America’s Cup being like Formula 1 on water, most people immediately think, it’s hydrodynamic, it’s aerodynamic, it’s technical. But the most striking thing to me is that it is difficult,” explained James Allison, Chief Technical Officer of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and now also Chief Technical Officer of INEOS Britannia.

“The way in which it has worked okay for us in F1 is to have the humility to admit that it is difficult and if you don’t your competition will eat you up. And this challenge; it is proper difficult.

“It’s really exciting that there is a team of experienced [Cup] engineers that are absolutely at the heart of what we are doing… and Mercedes will bring our own engineers, all of them capable, skilful engineers. Hopefully working with people who have done this Cup before, and understand it, we can work together to create something special, good enough for this one difficult challenge.”

INEOS struggled with design in the last America’s Cup. Photo: Team INEOS UK / Lloyd Images

This broadly summarises the direction of travel for INOES Britannia. There is a new design team of top class naval architects and foil designers who will be working alongside the significant engineering, design, and technical know-how of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team.

Mercedes were involved in the last America’s Cup challenge with Ainslie’s team, but both Wolff and Allison pointed out on several occasions that they were not there at the start of the cycle and came in relatively late.

“Last time round there were, as Toto [Wolff] mentioned, people in the factory who got engaged as we had some of our own down in Portsmouth working on the boat and then eventually when it was racing there were people actually out there in Auckland.

“We were brought in to be capable bodies to put their shoulder to the wheel, but we did not have any real part in the strategy or the thinking behind it, we were just brought in to help. This time round we are all one big team trying to make sure we put something competitive together.

“It does feel different as we have a lot of skin in it and we want to make sure we are pulling our weight and to make sure we have something competitive when it comes to race time.”

A key member of the team in terms of syncing up both the naval architects and the Mercedes design team may be newly appointed Technical Director of INEOS Britannia, Geoffrey Willis. Willis is a Mercedes man and also Technical Director of Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science.

Willis started his design career in the sailing field, having been a member of the design team for Peter de Savary’s Blue Arrow America’s Cup Challenge – which ultimately did not compete in the 1988 America’s Cup, which became a deed of gift challenge between Michael Fay’s giant KZ-1 and Dennis Connor’s rigid winged catamaran, Stars and Stripes.

He then moved into Formula 1 and has built an impressive career working, and winning constructor championships, with a number of F1 outfits before moving to Mercedes in 2011.    

Willis will surely be a key member of personnel in essentially helping to stitch together two design teams from the two worlds of foiling and elite motorsport.

Auckland hosted a stunning event in 2020/21

A push for the Protocol

Though much of the presentation was given over to how INOES Britannia will be working alongside Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 there was another notable theme: the push to get the protocol published and get moving with the build up to the 37th America’s Cup.

There was a sense of impatience from the Challenger of Record to get to the protocol agreed. The protocol must be agreed by the Defender (Emirates Team New Zealand) and Challenger of Record (INEOS Britannia) and usually sets out the venue, the class of boat and most of the rest of the conditions under which the America’s Cup will be sailed.

Currently the protocol is due to be released on the 17 November, but there has been a great deal of debate surrounding the likely venue of the event. Emirates Team New Zealand have been looking into options other than holding it in Auckland, the scene of their successful defence.

Without knowing the venue and its likely wind conditions, all Challengers are limited to purely theoretical design development – something Martin Fischer made clear in a follow up video chat. As time is the deciding factor in many successful America’s Cup bids, the Challenger of Record, along with any other potential teams, is keen to get things moving as soon as possible.

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There’s no question: the final Prada Cup Round Robin race between INEOS Team UK and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli was any absolute humdinger. With nine lead changes, this scorcher of a three-lap battle demonstrated many of the critical features of match racing in the foiling AC75s.

Who better than British match racing supremo Ian Williams to explain the tactics behind the manoeuvres? “This was a very interesting race due to the fact that Luna Rossa had an apparent boat speed superiority, but INEOS Team UK appeared more confident in their manoeuvres,” explains Williams.

“Normally in match racing you’d always take the boat speed advantage, but the boundaries [on an America’s Cup course] mean it is easy to get forced out of phase with the wind shifts. “When that happens, you have to do an extra manoeuvre to get back in phase – but it is very tricky to know when to do that, particularly if there is the risk of a big loss in that manoeuvre.”

Here, Ian analyses some of the key manoeuvres that the AC75 crews have had to master on the 50-knot foiling machines…

Start to leeward

At the start, the key goal for the leeward boat is to be nice and tight to leeward of the boat to windward.

In this race I think the start was a clear win for Luna Rossa. They came back very early for the line and you could hear both Ben [Ainslie] and Giles [Scott] confirm that they thought Luna Rossa were too early.

INEOS tacked in a nice spot to windward, but then had a choice to make. One option was to push hard with a view to either ‘hooking’ the other boat (and forcing them either head to wind or into a tack), or push them to be early for the line. The other was a ‘soft push’ where you feign the hook but actually your goal is to maintain separation. INEOS pushed hard but neither got the hook nor forced Luna Rossa early for the line, and thus gave up all their separation.

The luff

The next critical incident was when the two boats were lined up after they’d both tacked twice. They were close together on starboard tack with Luna Rossa to leeward. Ben Ainslie was steering from the leeward side so he could get a good view.

But with the projecting windward foil it must be very difficult for the windward boat to be confident they are keeping clear when the leeward boat luffs. James Spithill did a great job of luffing INEOS from a pretty weak, bow-back position with INEOS well advanced. You could say that Ben overreacted but with the Exclusion Zones [a 3m virtual no-go zone either side], it’s a nervous place to be. When INEOS was forced into a downspeed tack and came off the foils, that was a big gain to Luna Rossa.

Staying confident

After being forced away onto port tack, the British boat picked up a nice right-hand shift and was right back in the game at the top mark. But Luna Rossa were still in control until they made a terrible tack at the top of the course. It looks like the timing was out for lowering the new foil.

This affected the whole race because it looked like, from this moment on, Luna Rossa never trusted their manoeuvres again. And I think that impacted the Italian tactics a lot. There appeared to be a number of tactical errors by Luna Rossa later on, which might well have been down to the fact they didn’t have confidence in their manoeuvres, especially tacking.

On the final beat Luna Rossa could have stuck a lee-bow tack on INEOS but chose to carry on past them. If the positions had been reversed, I’m pretty sure Ben would have tacked and gone for the lee-bow on the Italians, and it would have all but closed out the race.

Stay in phase

Due to hydraulics problems before the start, the Cunningham control couldn’t be adjusted during the race on INEOS Team UK. It appeared their rig was reasonably set up for the upwind conditions but lacking power downwind, forcing the Brits to sail bigger angles. This meant the course boundaries came up even quicker than usual.

Generally the America’s Cup course boundaries make it very hard to stay in phase with the wind shifts, because you often get forced away from the lifted tack. The boundaries change the tactics a lot, and it’s much harder to get control of the race on a narrow course, particularly if you’re not confident to put in close cover tacks.

The Hollywood move

On the final cross before the finish, INEOS Team UK just got across the bow of Luna Rossa, who were calling starboard on the British.

In the words of TV commentator Ken Read, Jimmy Spithill did a ‘Hollywood’ and tried to show the umpires that the close call is worthy of a penalty [by coming down lower].

It was pretty clear INEOS were always crossing ahead on port, so I think this was a straightforward call for the umpires.

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In what might have been the worst kept secret of the current America’s Cup, the British INEOS Team UK has been confirmed this morning, Friday 19th March, as the Challenger of Record for the 37th America’s Cup.

Simultaneous statements issued by INEOS Team UK and Royal Yacht Squadron Racing, and the Defender Emirates Team New Zealand, confirmed that the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron had accepted their Notice of Challenge for the 37th America’s Cup (AC37) and the British team has become the Challenger of Record for AC37.

Known as a ‘hip-pocket’ Challenge, the Challenge letter was signed on 17th March 2021 as Emirates Team New Zealand crossed the finish line to win the America’s Cup for the fourth time. It was offered by Bertie Bicket, Chairman of Royal Yacht Squadron Racing and accepted by Aaron Young, Commodore of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club. The deal was signed aboard Imagine, the 44m Dubois-designed superyacht belonging to Matteo de Nora, Emirates Team New Zealand’s long-term backer.

(R-L) Aaron Young, Commodore of the Royal New Zealand YC, Bertie Bicket, Chairman of Royal Yacht Squadron Racing and Sir Ben Ainslie, Team Prinicipal of INEOS Team UK onboard Imagine

The petro-chemicals company INEOS owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe has also confirmed it will continue to back Sir Ben Ainslie’s team for the next Cup cycle. This will be the first time a British team has competed in three consecutive Cup cycles since Sir Thomas Lipton’s challenges back in 1899 to 1930.

AC75s for 37th and 38th America’s Cup

In their statement Emirates Team New Zealand outlined some additional details for the 37th Cup, including:

• a Protocol Governing AC37 will be published within eight months including the provisions outlined in this release.
• it has been agreed the AC75 Class shall remain the class of yacht for the next two America’s Cup cycles, and agreement to this is a condition of entry.
• teams will be restricted to building only one new AC75 for the next event.
• a single Event Authority will be appointed to be responsible for the conduct of all racing and the management of commercial activities relating to AC37.
• a new Crew Nationality Rule will require 100% of the race crew for each competitor to either be a passport holder of the country the team’s yacht club as at 19 March 2021 or to have been physically present in that country (or, acting on behalf of such yacht club in Auckland, the venue of the AC36 Events) for two of the previous three years prior to 18 March 2021 (there will be a discretionary exception to this allowing a quota of non-nationals on the race crew for competitors from “Emerging Nations”).

Photo: ACE / Studio Borlenghi

The Emirates Team New Zealand statement adds: “The Defender and the Challenger of Record, will be investigating and agreeing a meaningful package of campaign cost reduction measures including measures to attract a higher number of Challengers and to assist with the establishment of new teams.

Venue unconfirmed

Despite rumours of racing planned at INEOS Team UK’s home – and the historic home of the first America’s Cup in 1851 – of the Solent and Isle of Wight in the UK, there has not yet been any confirmation of venue. Instead, the statement says ‘it is intended that the Venue for the Match will be determined within six months and the dates of racing announced in the Protocol, if not before.”

However, clearly a return to the event’s birthplace is under discussion. Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton told New Zealand’s 1 NEWS that: “the Isle of Wight is an option for hosting the Cup”.

In the official statement, Dalton said: “The 37th America’s Cup effectively starts the moment the team crossed the finish line on Wednesday afternoon.”

“It is very exciting to have a new Challenger of Record to continue to build the scale of the America’s Cup globally. The AC75’s and the unprecedented broadcast reach of the exciting racing from Auckland’s stunning Waitemata harbour have really put Auckland and the America’s Cup at the forefront of international sport.”

The 36th America’s Cup saw enormous spectator fleets out on the Hauraki Gulf. Photo: ACE / Studio Borlenghi

Sir Ben Ainslie, INEOS Team UK Skipper and Team Principal, said: “INEOS Team UK are committed to working alongside Emirates Team New Zealand and our respective yacht clubs to continue the development of this historic event.

“The introduction of the AC75 class of yacht has proven to be a transformative moment in the history of the America’s Cup and will be the bedrock of a really bright future.”

Aaron Young –RNZYS Commodore, added: “The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron have received and accepted a challenge for the 37^th America’s Cup from our long-standing British friends at Royal Yacht Squadron Racing.

“It is great to once again have the RYSR involved, given they were the first yacht club that presented this trophy over 170 years ago, which really started the legacy of the America’s Cup.  Along with Emirates Team New Zealand, we look forward to working through the details of the next event with them.”

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I am going to need therapy after this America’s Cup. In 30 years of covering events as a journalist/commentator I can’t think of one that has so consistently delivered the opposite to what was expected.

It’s enough to have you question your judgement every day. Fortunately, it seems that even the real experts are as confused as I am as to what to expect and have eaten so much humble pie over the last few weeks as to put on weight through opinion alone.

But no one is complaining.

Today I had a natter with INEOS grinder Freddie Carr at the Cup’s favourite gossip venue about what he was reading into the Cup so far.

I was delighted and relieved to discover that he too is changing his mind as quickly as the rest of us. But, what makes his views so interesting is that he’s looking at things from a point of view of someone who’s been there and is used to analysing the opposition.

If you want to know more about how the teams compare it’s worth listening to what he has to say.

Meanwhile, as far as this America’s Cup Day 2 is concerned, after talking to regatta director Iain Murray this morning I started off thinking that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t see any racing today.

Article continues below…

America’s Cup: Day two, déjà vu as both teams still level

On Wednesday 10th March, after the first day of the America’s Cup racing, we said the racing could be simplified…

America’s Cup: Why it’s good to be wrong

There are some days when you’re pleased to be wrong…today – the first day of the America’s Cup – was…

As a result, I started thinking about light weather sailing and what we might see and this had me thinking about an advert that’s been on Kiwi TV screens for at least the last three months.

It’s a commercial for Kiwi sponsors McDonalds and features a young lad and his dad in a model boat race where they win by deploying a code zero fashioned from a cheeseburger wrapper, (I have yet to run this past North Sails president Ken Read but suspect there’s a new technology here too).

When I got up early this (Friday) morning to study the weather and write the online morning briefing the penny dropped. Just a few days ago we had seen the Kiwis sailing with a new, high clew code zero. And while they were being coy about whether they would use it or not, they didn’t challenge the suggestion that perhaps this would be an insurance policy just for the last leg to the finish.

Surely it would make sense?

They had got caught out in the America’s Cup World Series when they dropped off their foils when the breeze dropped and lost out to Luna Rossa.

Looking further back to San Francisco (for the 2013 America’s Cup) they had been unable to finish a race that could have helped to deliver a Cup win when they ran out of time on the last leg.

Photo: ACE / Studio Borlenghi

But what if they wanted us and more importantly their opponents, to think that?

What if instead, they had some way of using a code zero throughout the race simply to stay on the foils and to get to where the breeze was? As with any light airs racing, getting to the breeze is often more important than the direction you are sailing and in these boats it’s even more crucial.

And what if they could deploy it in the pre-start?

I’m probably going wildly off piste here, Ken tells me that a code zero would be flapping in the breeze as soon as the beast got up on the foils and therefore useless for this. I guess he’s right, so I blame the caffeine and hanging around for Cup races for my wayward thinking.

Anyway, fortunately what the speculation hasn’t done is make me hungry enough to want a quarter pounder… yet.

But all this speculation turned out to be a waste of time for Day 2 as we got sailing where none was expected, and once the stray spectators had been cleared off the course, racing got away largely on time.

As I’m sure you know the scoreline ended up with another draw and while there were no lead changes and therefore little in the way of tension, (something that the naysayers will leap on I’m sure), the fact that we are even-Stephens after two days is pretty unusual. Add to this the fact that we are in a brand new class where the teams have done precious little racing when compared to years gone by and it’s interesting to see how far we are down the development line already.

Photo: ACE / Studio Borlenghi

But if what you want is a quick synopsis as to how the teams compare, the answer is that the first race showed us that the Italians are indeed quicker in the light, especially upwind. The Kiwis have the edge downwind and that the starts are critical.

The second race of the day demonstrated that much of what we thought we knew from the previous races had to be reconsidered. After the Kiwis had won the start and bounced Luna Rossa off to the right when the left was the side that paid, the Kiwis simply stretched out their lead leg after leg.

The bottom line is that after two days and 4 races we are as good at predicting the outcome as we are the weather. And that booking some time on a couch after all this is over may be a smart move.

To read more of Matthew Sheahan’s thoughts from Auckland, head over to his blog at: www.planetsail.org.

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Mere days before the Prada Cup Final to select one of either INEOS Team UK or Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli as the team to take on Emirates Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup, the world held their breath in anticipation of what looked likely to be an extremely close-fought competition.

Indeed the final race of the Prada Cup Round Robin series between the two teams had seen a battle royale between the British and Italian teams and was easily the most exciting race in AC75s to date.

For all the hype and hope, the resulting series was something of a let down with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli winning emphatically by 7 wins to INEOS Team UK’s 1. So where did it go wrong for the Brits?

Start of the America’s Cup cycle

To fully answer this we have to go back to a time before Covid-19, lockdown, and PPE were all in the public lexicon; the launch of the teams’ first AC75s.

It is a phrase so well worn in the America’s Cup as to be cliche, but ‘the one thing you can’t buy is time’ saying is worth heeding. As Defender of the America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand were able to design an entirely new class of boat for this America’s Cup alongside their Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli.

As such, both teams got a jump on the competition in terms of feeding the design concept into computer simulations to get a better understanding of the performance characteristics of the design, and to compare different design concepts against one another.

It’s worth mentioning, this advantage should not be considered unfair. The America’s Cup is a unique event and the Defender and Challenger of Record always hold an advantage – the Defender a significant one. That is the nature of the Cup and is something all teams know to be the case when entering. It is part of the reason it is such an enduring and engrossing contest – at times both on the water and in the courts.

INEOS’ first AC75 featured a flat hull. Photo Mark Lloyd / Lloyd Images

That the two other challengers (INEOS Team UK and American Magic) produced initial AC75s with flat hulls and both Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa produced hulls that featured some form of skeg/bustle shows how much further they were down the development path than the others.

By the time the second AC75s were launched they all featured this pronounced skeg to one degree or another, with INEOS Team UK’s being the largest and most angular of the fleet. That INEOS’ second hull was so drastically different shows they took something of a clean sheet of paper approach in designing their second AC75.

This second hull was a bold and radical step. But it also implies the team were not yet following an incremental development path.

INEOS launched a very different boat 2.

As for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli their hull shape was visually very similar to the first AC75 they launched indicating they were pleased with their initial design and it had vindicated their simulation numbers on the water. In fact, the Italians’ second boat is the most similar to their first attempt of all the other teams.

Mainsail Setup

So radical are the latest iteration of America’s Cup boat, that almost every component on them is essentially new and untested. This is true in terms of hull shape, foils and the sails, particularly the mainsail.

There are plenty of previous examples of soft wing sails, which attempt to replicate some of the efficiency of solid wing sails without some of the key drawbacks – wings require craning onto and off the boats, cannot be removed at sea if a boat needs to be towed home, and are usually severely damage by any capsize.

In the context of an AC75, the two-skinned, soft wing concept, on a D shaped carbon mast, needs to generate a great deal of power early on to get the boat onto it’s foil. It also needs to be able to be extremely flat when the boats are sailing upwind on their foil – generating around 50 knots of windspeed once apparent windspeed is factored in. Additionally the mainsail needs to transition from one profile shape to the other incredibly dynamically, as the moment the boat is onto its foils the requirements of the sail change rapidly.

Initially there is a need for a lot of power down low, to prevent heeling moment on a boat without a keel. Next, when the boat is up on her foils, righting moment increases massively and very quickly, at which point the sail needs to develop a lot of power from head to foot. Finally as the AC75s reach speeds of 30 knots upwind, the sail will need to start flattening and then shedding power in a low drag, aerodynamically efficient fashion.

The masts might all be one design, there are sail size rules to comply with, and controls to force shape into the sails are limited to the top couple of metres of the sail and the bottom few metres, but beyond that there is plenty of scope for development.

Luna Rossa’s very clean boomless setup. Photo: Borlenghi Studio / COR36

Again when we compare Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli with INEOS Team UK we see a relatively stable development path from the Italian team as compared to a development path from the Brits that moves from concept to concept.

Luna Rossa’s first boat was launched with a boomless setup, which allowed the sail to neatly sit at deck level, cleaning up aerodynamic efficiency and allowing for significant depth in the bottom few metres of the sail.

This concept has been retained for the second iteration of the Italian’s AC75. INEOS Team UK also launched their first America’s Cup boat with a boomless setup, though it was not as refined as the Italian approach, which appears to have a solid device not dissimilar to a boom and traveller underneath the deck to help transfer loads though the hull in a traditional way, but keeping the depth in the sail above deck when needed and a clean, aerodynamically efficient foot.

It seems the Brit’s first attempt was to use something akin to a very stiff (presumably controllable by some mechanism between the two skins) pair of battens in the lower part of the sail, which was later filled in with a skirt of sorts to get rid of the gap between sail and deck.

The Brits first boat had a boomless setup at first

The Brits then moved away from this idea – presumably their data did not show it to be quick or they felt the development time needed could be better spent elsewhere.

When the British second boat was launched, she arrived with a solid boom – the Americans had had a solid boom from the start. This boom on the Brits second boat was able to articulate along its length, theoretically representing something of a compromise – a solid boom, that could bend to get shape into the foot. Emirates Team New Zealand had something similar on their first boat.

Later, following their dismal showing at the America’s Cup World Series, the Brits made a significant number of changes to their boat, including getting rid of the articulation and settling for a solid boom with no articulation, and accepting they would be unable to get the depth into the foot of their sail that Luna Rossa (and New Zealand who went to a boomless setup for their second boat) could.

The final, solid boom solution for INEOS Team UK. Photo: Borlenghi Studio / COR36

Once again this shows us how far behind the Brits and probably Americans were in terms of their development. Luna Rossa came out of the shed on day one with an impressive, well worked, boomless setup that must be the work of a great deal of study, development and expense.

Emirates Team New Zealand launched with a boom that had significant articulation and developed this concept of allowing depth in the foot of their sail into a boomless setup for their second boat.

Article continues below…

British America’s Cup team: Ainslie’s comeback explained

After the first AC75 racing we saw in the America’s Cup cycle, the British team looked to be in trouble…

America’s Cup boats: How they work and why they’re unique

The AC75s, the America’s Cup boats currently racing in the Prada Cup and that will be used for next month’s…

The Brits launched with a boomless setup, developed it slightly, went in an entirely different direction and finally ended up with something else altogether.

Foils still a work in progress for the America’s Cup

From the moment the AC75 rule was announced it was clear that foils were going to be a key factor. Not simply because these boats are designed to spend most of their time on the foils, but because the limitations on foil numbers are so stringent.

For the AC75s in the 36th America’s Cup, each team is limited to six individual foils, making three pairs total across both of their boats.

They are able to modify these foils to a degree (up to 20% of their mass may be modified) and they are able to build a greater number of flaps on the foils, which control how much lift you can generate. Broadly, however, these numbers seriously hindered development opportunities.

Most teams took a similar path. When the first AC75s were launched they all had a different foil on either side of the boat, meaning teams could get data on a couple of different design paths, presumably with an aim to selecting the best options and refining that design over the next few foils before settling on a final design for the last set, which could then be modified slightly should they need further refining.

Emirates Team New Zealand launch their first boat with a T foil and a Y foil.

That the final set of foils for each of the teams are still significantly different to each other shows how much scope there likely remains in terms of development in this area.

All teams have experimented with different foil shapes and sections, and there remains no clear direction that offers a significant advantage – though Emirates Team New Zealand now have foils that are probably furthest from the three other boats in terms of their size and shape, being smaller and the closest to fully flat wings (a T shape) than the others. Most teams settled on some form of anhedral wing (a Y shape).

The Brits produced one of the most experimental foils we have seen in a W shape which makes the most of the rule which requires the foils to fit into a rectangular shape. This W foil provides a larger amount of foil than any other shape within the confines of the measurement box.

The Brits’ W foil is an engineering marvel

Looking at the images released of the foil being built (done alongside one of the team’s partners, the Mercedes F1 team) it appears this foil features some impressive rule workarounds. The rules state that each foil must have two flaps on it, one on each wing, either side of the foil arm. The W foil manages to extend both flaps the full length of the foil wing, despite the wing being bent.

The foil also looks to be able to manipulate the flap so that for a single input on the flap control, the inner section of the flap will move more while the flap at the tips will move less. In theory this could provide better control in a more hydrodynamically efficient package.

Ultimately, though INEOS was still testing this design up to the America’s Cup World Series (they had a W foil on one side of the boat and what became their final Y foil on the other in the run up to the series), they abandoned the concept.

It is a clever concept and is the product of some impressive engineering, and it might yet be the best solution, but it also looks to be a concept that could churn though development time very quickly. Whether the team dropped the concept because they ran out of time to develop it, or it simply proved to be slow is hard to tell. But having produced a pair of launch foils with prominent bulbs, then a pair of complex W foils and finally a pair of Y foils, once again their development path looks far from smooth.

INEOS focus on sailing

A route the British team did take, which has served them well, was to go with a traditional tactician and helmsman role in Giles Scott and Ben Ainslie. They have done this by sacrificing some grinders. Where other teams have four grinders per side, the Brits have three.

It seems that the British team have never struggled for power so that they managed to output the same if not more – rumours are the British team’s grinders were putting out more wattage than all of the other teams – might indicate they have spend development in this area.

Three grinders on INEOS all have a dedicated set of handles

The Brits opted for a single grinder pedestal per grinder whereas other teams are using two people per pedestal. There are benefits to having one sailor on each pedestal – both in terms of power transfer and cadence. It is much more effective for a human to grind ‘forwards’ rather than ‘backwards’ so despite having fewer grinders than the other teams INEOS generate more power output than other teams.

Certainly on the shifty courses, the ability to have fewer people spinning the handles and more people with their head out the boat has been a boon. But, as we saw in the Prada Cup Final, if you are up against a demonstrably quicker boat, decision making will only get you so far, and, at times, in the Final the Brits made the sort of rash calls in the pre-start that come from being under pressure to win a start at all costs.

What to make of the British America’s Cup effort?

Fans of INEOS Team UK will naturally be disappointed with their failure to make it through to the America’s Cup itself. It would be easy to look at what has been written here as a slight on the team’s development process.

However, looking at their effort for this America’s Cup it is hard to fault many decisions made at the time. They started the cycle behind both Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Emirates Team New Zealand and must have known when they trained against the Italians in Cagliari in late 2019 that they were well behind the curve.

From there, the decision to radically change their boat design must have been made and we saw them fit a small skeg to their first AC75, a clear acknowledgement this was the path to take.

That their second hull was so different to their first represents a team that was willing to accept their mistakes and move on and keep faith with their design team.

A conservative approach to design is not going to win the America’s Cup, so the radical W foils were a good concept, built alongside people that really know what they are doing in mechanical engineering terms (Mercedes F1). As mentioned the foils are clearly an area every team is still exploring and there is plenty of development left on the table in this area.

It’s not clear that the Brits ever fully got to grips with the softwing sail and may have just decided their development time was best spent elsewhere.

We can’t know how much the Covid-19 lockdowns affected the development path of the teams and each will have been hampered to a different degree. However, it must be the case that if you start out behind some teams in terms of development time, any further lost time to all teams, is going to affect you more.

Ultimately in Luna Rossa, they came up against a team who have been fighting for the America’s Cup since 2000. Fighting to win the America’s Cup is a long term game and, should the Brits race again in an AC75 (if they’re kept for the next cup), they should be in a very strong position.

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The post America’s Cup: Our analysis of INEOS’ development appeared first on Yachting World.

INEOS Team UK started the third day of Prada Cup Final racing trailing Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli by four wins as both teams fight for the right to be the official challenger for the America’s Cup. They go to bed tonight still trailing the Italian outfit by four wins. 

Once again today we saw a relatively consistent wind of around 10 knots offering few passing opportunities and both races were won by the boat that won the start. 

Sir Ben Ainslie, at the helm of INEOS Team UK had not managed to get the upper hand in the pre-start in any of the opening four races of the series and the opening race today, race six of the Prada Cup Final, saw his team behind immediately. 

The co-helmed Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli led back to the startline and possibly looked a touch early, allowing the Brits to push them back towards the start. However, Jimmy Spithill, who steers the Italian AC75 on starboard, impressively sailed high and slow back to the startline managing to find the delicate balance between closing in on the Brits to windward and staying on their foils as the boat slowed. “Obviously there is a fine line between staying high and slow and being too high and slow and falling off the foils. [Jimmy Spithill] did a really good job,” said Francesco Bruni of the situation and his co-helmsman at the end of the race.

INEOS Team UK is forced to tack away after conceding a start penalty. Photo: COR 36 / Studio Borlenghi

It was obvious from fairly far out that the Italian team would be able to close the door, leaving no space on the line to windward and forcing the Brits to either sail around Luna Rossa and end up to leeward and behind or barge in at the windward end.

With few options on the table, Ainslie tried to squeeze between Luna Rossa and the committee boat end of the line. Luna Rossa were able to close the door and the outcome was only ever going to be a penalty for the British team. 

For any racer, it was a painful watch. There are few of us who have not been in a similar position – to windward of the starline with nowhere to go – and you’re taught from an early age never to get stuck in that spot. 

Easy to say, much harder to achieve when you are on the water against one of the finest pre-start helmsmen in the world in Jimmy Spithill. “It was worth taking the risk as we really wanted the right hand side [of the course] for the [better] pressure,” said Ainslie of the start situation. “I would probably do the same again,” he concluded. 

From that start Luna Rossa romped away to what seemed an easy win, extending throughout the race to cross the finish line fully 1 minute 20 seconds clear. 

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli leads INEOS Team UK. Photo: COR 36 / Studio Borlenghi

The second start of the day went better for Ainslie and his team as the Brits led back to the line and won the leeward end of the start. From there they managed to squeeze to windward and close down the gap to Luna Rossa who were forced to tack away early. By the time the boats came back together, the Brits were able to tack dead in front of the Italian team and were never overtaken. 

Perhaps the scorline on paper should buoy the hopes of British supporters – a win is certainly much needed. However, the nature of both races today does little to dispel the mounting feeling that there is a mountain to climb to win this series. 

Tacking problems

Looking back in detail at the opening two days of racing in this Prada Cup Final series shows the British team losing ground in almost every tack as Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli seem to have found a way of getting the boat through the wind more efficiently than their British competition. 

As such, with the Brits behind, all the Italians needed to do was to keep tacking on the Brits’ wind and force them to tack to make ground on them. If the Brits were not aware of this fact on the opening two days of the competition, clearly they have seen this in the data and today represented a different approach. 

When behind in the opening race INEOS did not allow themselves to be forced into tacking quite as regularly. But the problem then, is they were forced to sail much of the race in the dirty air of the Italian team and with few opportunities to pass, being in the same patch of water. 

In the second race, we saw the Brits leading and trying to cover the Italian outfit without getting sucked into a tacking duel. They sailed their own race and managed to work the course geometry to their advantage, essentially forcing Luna Rossa to do more manouvers to try to find a way past. 

This puts the Brits in a tricky spot. If you stay between your opponent and the next mark, you are in a safer position, offering little chance for them to pass you. It is far riskier to allow them some space on the race course and risk being overtaken should they pick up a favourable shift. 

Photo: COR 36 / Studio Borlenghi

But, if you know the more you both tack, the closer they will get, then staying between your opponent and the mark simply allows them to close down your lead until eventually you are overtaken. 

That the Brits won the second race of the day is certainly a positive. That they won it by a mere 14 seconds having led at the first cross on a course with few tactical options is a serious concern.

Of course, this is America’s Cup racing and teams have won from far more perilous situations than this. But with both boats unable to make any modifications to their equipment during the series hope cannot be pinned on some piece of technical wizardry to make the boat faster. 

The British team can still win this, but to do so, they will need to win the start, and find the delicate balance between covering their opponent and not tacking too often – or hope for stronger winds where the performance of the two teams is more even. 

It is not an impossible task, but the Italian grip on the Prada Cup trophy is tightening, and time is running out to peel their fingers away.

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The post Prada Cup Final: Italy edges closer to victory appeared first on Yachting World.

The Prada Cup Final, to select the challenger for the America’s Cup, between INEOS Team UK and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli will restart on Saturday 20th February, following a brief hiatus after the announcement of a new Covid-19 lockdown in Auckland. 

At the close of last weekend’s racing the announcement that Auckland would be entering a ‘level three’ lockdown forced the organisers to cancel the next two races scheduled for Wednesday 17th February.  

Since that time there has been something of a war of words, with the America’s Cup Event authority (ACE) outlining the possibility of a delay to the schedule should level three lockdown continue and possibly should the lockdown be reduced to the less severe level two – which would allow for racing, but would not enable fans to attend the event. 

The Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, would need to sign off on this schedule change and seemed determined to stick to the planned schedule. As things stand, a winner of the event will be declared on Wednesday 24th February irrespective of the number of races sailed. 

The schedule has racing planned for this Friday 19th February (now cancelled). Thereafter there is racing scheduled for Saturday 20th, Sunday 21st, and Monday 22nd, with two reserve days on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th. 

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli have improved their aerodynamic fairings around the crew positions. Photo: COR 36 / Studio Borlenghi

As such there is still time for the full 13 races in the series to be sailed (should they be needed, it is a first-to-seven-wins competition) but a single lost day could see the event one race short. 

Prada Cup Final war of words

It has been a very public and acrimonious disagreement between ACE and the Challenger of Record as reflected in the opening paragraph of ACE’s confirmation that the event will go ahead, which reads:

While America’s Cup Event is encouraged by the news that Auckland has come down to COVID Alert Level 2, one step closer to Level 1 potentially early next week, it is clear that COR are determined to remain inflexible to a change in the race schedule against the interests of the public and commercial benefits to the city and businesses. ACE has consistently maintained our preference to have the best opportunity to race at Alert Level 1.

The release goes on to quote Chair of America’s Cup Events Tina Symmans stating that: 

“Since Sunday, we have worked really hard on behalf of everyone in Auckland and all Kiwis to give COR the opportunity to demonstrate some honour and respect for this country and delay the PRADA Cup until we have a greater chance of everyone being able to enjoy and benefit from being back into Level 1” explained Symmans.

“Clearly they have forgotten the words of their leader Patricio Bertelli at the opening press conference who spoke about how privileged everyone is to be in Auckland without significant Covid restrictions and that therefore everyone has a commitment and responsibility to deliver great sportsmanship and the PRADA Cup to be a major sporting event.”

“This plea has fallen on deaf ears and it’s clear that their focus is solely on Luna Rossa taking the PRADA Cup rather than the greater good of the country who have worked so hard in order to be in a position to stage this event.” Symmans concluded.

In a press conference involving Iain Murray – Regatta Director, Symmans and Francesco Longanesi Cattani, Director of External Relations of the Prada Group, Cattani responded:

Article continues below…

Prada Cup Final: two wins for Italy as Covid-19 delays further racing

“It was a tough day. We can sail a hell of a lot better than that, and we need to.…

Prada Cup: How new lockdown could affect the outcome

After the opening four races of the Prada Cup Final over the weekend, racing was set to continue between INEOS…

“I welcome this decision [to race] and the fact that a reasonable approach has been taken towards the calendar. I disagree totally with the fact of the sporting moments that Tina Symmans has made. 

“From my view, anything that has to do with sporting fairness lies with respecting the rules and regulations and this is what we are doing and what we wanted to implement. 

“Secondly we want to respect the government provisions regarding the Covid situation and the protocols that have been agreed with ACE which are in place and allow the racing to go on under level two. 

“Thirdly they comment that [the Challenger of Record] is just pushing for Luna Rossa. I disagree as the opportunity for more races gives INEOS more races to win on the water. 

“If we were delaying the racing, the chances for INEOS to recover their current scoring would be minor. So the approach we have is to go on the water as soon as practically possible, in order to give the maximum number of races to give INEOS and Luna Rossa a fair game.”

Back to the Prada Cup Final racing 

War of words and organiser hostilities aside, the outcome is that we should see Prada Cup Final racing this coming weekend, and will have a winner of the event, and so official challenger for the America’s Cup, by this time next week. 

For the sailing teams, very little has changed, with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli still 4-0 up in the first to seven match and so remain very much the favourites to win the event. 

Photo: COR 36 / Studio Borlenghi

Conditions are due to be mid-range to light in Auckland on Saturday and getting lighter for Sunday, conditions in which Luna Rossa has shown good speed. With the lack of spectators, ACE along with Murray have announced that the outermost courses will be used – with little need to remain close to shore with no fans present. As such, we should expect less shifty winds than we have seen on the inner courses. 

The shiftier courses have, to date, seen the British team at their best. A more consistent wind direction will mean the racing is more focussed on boat speed over and above tactical positioning on the course. 

With all these points in mind, if the Brits want to win the Prada Cup, it will be imperative that they get, at least, an even start, if not outright win the starts. 

The opening weekend of racing saw Luna Rossa win all four starts and effectively control the races from there. Looking back at the action in review it seems clear Luna Rossa have found a way to improve their tacking performance, but INEOS do remain competitive in outright speed terms.

This will put even more emphasis on INEOS getting off the startline well and not getting forced into a tacking duel, where Luna Rossa are strong. 

One final point of note, teams measure their boats in, at the start of each round of the event. As such there will have been no developments to either boat in terms of foils etc. arriving for this weekend of racing, the boats will be largely as they were for the previous week. 

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The post Prada Cup Final to continue on Saturday  appeared first on Yachting World.

After the opening four races of the Prada Cup Final over the weekend, racing was set to continue between INEOS Team UK and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli on Wednesday 17th February, as the two teams continue their fight to challenge for the America’s Cup.

Update: Since this article was posted, America’s Cup Event Ltd has released the following statement: 

AMERICA’S CUP EVENT (ACE) POSITION ON CONTINUATION OF RACING:

In these uncertain times, as the permitted Event Organiser responsible for the delivery of the 36th America’s Cup presented by PRADA in Auckland under the Host Venue Agreement with NZ Government and Auckland Council, America’s Cup Event Limited remains committed to maintaining as many aspects as possible of the Event as originally planned.

This includes the ambition to maximise the possibility of safe public engagement at the event for Aucklanders and Kiwis from around the country, as well as the commercial benefits to local businesses, event sponsors and partners which includes the New Zealand Government and Auckland City. We are also mindful of the global broadcasting rights holders that are taking the stunning images of our country with thousands of people enjoying the event and broadcasting them into living rooms and devices around the world.

America’s Cup Event Chair Tina Symmans said, “As event organisers, we have spent a considerable amount of time since Sunday evening looking at all possible scenarios. Like the majority of events around the country this weekend, the ramifications of running the remainder of the event need to be considered in an environment which is highly uncertain due to the latest COVID-19 concerns.”

ACE has consulted with the America’s Cup Minister Stuart Nash and senior Council officials and one consideration has been to postpone the current schedule of racing and events in the best interests of the public and all stakeholders given the current COVID-19 environment.

The position of ACE is based on one of two options based on the Government’s review of alert levels at 4:30 this afternoon:

If the alert levels drop to level 1 in time, then racing will resume this weekend.

If the alert level remains at 3 or 2, which obviously entails restrictions in gatherings and difficulties with events, racing and event activations would need to be rescheduled to recommence the Prada Cup Final on Friday 26 February. To respect the original timeframe scheduled between the Prada Cup Final and the America’s Cup Match, Race 1 of the Match would subsequently begin a week later on Saturday 13 March with the intention of racing still being completed by 21 March.

This morning the Challenger of Record (COR36) has made their position very clear in stating their desire to race from tomorrow despite COVID Alert level 3, to complete the PRADA Cup final by the 24th February in accordance with the existing PRADA Cup conditions.

They have also stated that if the racing program cannot be completed by Wednesday (24th) they intend to declare the leading point scorer the winner of the PRADA Cup and Challenger for the America’s Cup Match. Under the current points situation, that would be Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team.

“There is no guarantee as to what COVID-19 Alert Level Auckland or New Zealand will be operating under. If the event is faced with operating under COVID-19 Level 2 or 3, plans are in place to ensure the continued delivery and conclusion of the 36th America’s Cup presented by Prada within the scheduled dates.” Explained Symmans.

“Clearly this would have potential implications for public participation which we are trying to avoid, however the intention of the potential rescheduling will give the best possible opportunity to see the event run with maximum engagement and benefits for public and stakeholders.”

INEOS Team UK Prada Cup Final statement:

Following the statement from the America’s Cup Event Ltd (ACE) today: 

INEOS TEAM UK respect the decision communicated by ACE to delay the PRADA Cup racing due to the current COVID-19 alert level in Auckland.

The result of the PRADA Cup final should be won and decided on the water in the agreed format of first to win 7 races.

INEOS TEAM UK fully respect the government’s decision to curtail racing until it is safe to do so and would support a delay in the competition if that is required.

The solution put forward by ACE is sensible in ensuring both the safety of all in New Zealand, and the integrity of the sporting competition.

INEOS TEAM UK will continue with our race preparations and be ready to race when it is safe to do so.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Prada Cup Final statement:

The Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team is surprised by the statements published by America’s Cup Event (ACE) and by INEOS Team UK.

From day one of the teams’ activities in New Zealand, protocols have been put in place, together with ACE and all government bodies, to allow teams and organizers alike to operate in the different COVID-19 alert levels, enabling them to prepare and race behind closed doors, if need be, as happens in the Formula1, Australian Open and other events; the priority in these contexts is clearly the health of the people involved.

The Challenger of Record has confirmed that it is possible to race in total safety and has also offered full support to ACE and local Authorities for the application of the protocol indicated by the AC36 Event COVID-19 Management On Land and On Water Plans for the Covid-19 alert. There is no reason why teams that are allowed to train during this alert level should not be allowed to race, albeit behind closed doors, according to the same protocol.

The weather conditions for the next few days are ideal to carry out top level racing. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli is ready to race against INEOS Team UK on Friday February 19th, in compliance to the program of the Prada Cup Finals that which must end no later than February 24th. Even more so, now that the government has taken the decision to go down from Level 3 to Alert Level 2, allowing the regattas to take place in full respect of everyone’s safety.

Update ends

After racing concluded on Sunday came news that Auckland would go into a new three-day, ‘Level Three’ lockdown – the first in New Zealand in six months, a significant setback in the nation’s largely successful efforts to control the virus – and America’s Cup organisers were forced to announce the cancellation of racing on Wednesday.

The ‘Level Three’ lockdown in Auckland essentially prevents people leaving the city, or leaving their household support bubble. Given this, it appears that racing will not be possible under current restrictions.

What next for the Prada Cup?

If Auckland is brought out of Level Three lockdown – or brought down to the Level Two restrictions that the rest of the country was placed under at the same time – then racing could go ahead under those slightly looser restrictions.

Article continues below…

Prada Cup Final: Italians look quick on day one

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli won both opening races against INEOS Team UK on the first day of racing in the…

Prada Cup Final: two wins for Italy as Covid-19 delays further racing

“It was a tough day. We can sail a hell of a lot better than that, and we need to.…

Following an initial announcement Sunday 14th February about the cancellation of Wednesdays racing, on Tuesday the 15th February America’s Cup Event Limited released this a follow up statement, which reads:

In light of the Government’s COVID19 Level 3 lockdown overnight, America’s Cup Event Ltd and the competing teams are taking all of the necessary steps to continue to work in line with their COVID19 Level 3 working protocols as reviewed with WorkSafe NZ and the Ministry of Health.

Within the respective plans and protocols, there is a clear distinction between the individual team’s operations and official Prada Cup and America’s Cup racing itself.

For each of the teams; sailing, testing and training on the water is part of the core business of all teams.

As practiced under the previous Level 3 restrictions in 2020, the team’s operations must be undertaken like any commercial business operating on the water, as well as on land, in line with their individual protocols developed with WorkSafe NZ and the Ministry of Health working safely under COVID19 Level 3 restrictions.

From an event perspective; there are a number of plans for different scenarios. With regard to the current situation and rescheduling of on water racing and on shore event organisation, the event organisers are updating plans with respect to maintaining a fluid racing calendar in consultation with the Government and relevant authorities.

It seems, then, that organisers are keen to remain as flexible as possible to get racing completed for the Prada Cup Final.

We can only speculate what might happen next at this stage. Should the lockdown be limited to the three days initially announced by the New Zealand government then it is likely that racing could take place on 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd February as initially planned.

Should they be needed, there are reserve days built into the schedule , the first of which is this Thursday 18th February; theoretically the first chance for racing after the three day lockdown window. Thereafter there are two further reserve days available on 23rd and 24th February too, so there is some small amount of leeway in the calendar.

Should lockdown be extended, however, completing the series could become difficult very quickly.

Within the notice of race for the Prada Cup there is provision to modify the schedule of racing. It reads:

5. FORMAT AND SCHEDULE
5.1 The format and schedule for the Prada Cup are shown in Attachment 1 (the “Prada Cup
Format and Schedule”). Without prejudice to Article 3.3 of the Protocol the Attachment 1
may from time to time be revised or modified by COR/D in consultation with the Regatta
Director.

COR/D refers to the Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Defender Emirates Team New Zealand.

The notice of race document also outlines the usage of reserve days and racing days. It states that:

Notes on Reserve Days

Monday 22 February to Wednesday 24 February (included) – If the Prada Cup Final is not completed prior to 22 February then racing will continue every day until completion or until the end of the last Race Day 24 February.

As things stand, should lockdown prevent racing from taking place over the coming weekend and early next week, it seems entirely possible that the Prada Cup could remain uncompleted. Inserting additional race days into the schedule would require sign off from both the Defender, and the Challenger of Record Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, who currently happen to be 4-0 up in the series.

It is undoubtedly in the interest of all teams, including Luna Rossa, to finish the series on the racecourse. The Italian team has been vocal about why they believe time on the water in race mode is irreplaceable.

However, if lockdown requires an extension to the schedule, there does seem to be scope for Luna Rossa to block further racing taking place over and above that which has been scheduled. Emirates Team New Zealand could potentially prevent further dates being added to the Prada Cup racing schedule too, but have little to gain from doing so.

We should soon know whether lockdown in New Zealand will continue beyond the initial three days. If it does not, racing will likely continue. If lockdown continues, however, things could get very messy indeed.

This is a hammer-blow for an event which has so far enjoyed being almost restriction-free for both competitors and spectators thanks to New Zealand’s zero-Covid policy.

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Prada Cup: How new lockdown could affect the outcome appeared first on Yachting World.