And his special ‘Xbox console’ toy

of the wing design team and systems engineers for helping fulfil his vision, technical director Dan Bernasconi said the Team NZ skipper made a pretty good client.

“Glenn in particular is the best skipper a designer could hope to work with, because he is just full-on into any new idea. However crazy it is, Glenn is up for it,” he said.

“We certainly had no one holding us back in terms of wanting to try radical approaches to things.”

For the Xbox generation, it may look like a fairly straight forward piece of kit, but it took the multiple world champion in the A-class catamaran more than a year to master the new mechanics of trimming the wing.

“It’s definitely something I’ve had to teach myself — a whole lot of new skills to be able to sail the boat. I spent sort of 21⁄2-years now working on that control box to set it up in a way that I can feel comfortable adjusting all the things that I need to adjust and be able to do it basically by feel so you’re not actually having to look at anything,” he said.

“You know exactly where all your buttons are and all your toggles and you can sail your boat with your head out the window.”

To get the most out of the powerful 24m wingsail, the wing and the jib need to work in unison.

It is a science, with small adjustments to the twist and camber of the wing having the potential to have a significant impact on the performance of the boat, and an artform based on gut feel and intuition when it comes to reading the wind.

Ashby describes the balancing act as like conducting an orchestra.

“You want to keep the boat as level as you possibly can. You don’t want it going up and down, you want it to be trimmed really accurately and have that windward hull nice and close to the water,” he said.

With a strong background in sailing wingsailed catamarans, Ashby considers himself lucky the America’s Cup game has shifted to high performance multihulls over the past seven years.

“I guess it’s been one of those journeys where the cards have kind of fallen my way with the way the game has kind of gone.”

Ashby hopes the cards continue to fall his way over the coming days.

Photosport.nz Helmsman Peter Burling (right), skipper Glenn Ashby and the cyclors hold the key to Team New Zealand’s success to date in the America’s Cup match.