Multi-tasking vital for busy Team NZ
Team New Zealand are keen to refine their afterguard work as the America’s Cup clocks rapidly counts down.
The traditional afterguard continues to get downscaled as these foiling catamarans have their power increased and crews decreased.
There’s no luxury of a dedicated tactician like there was four years ago in San Francisco when the monster cats operated a crew of 11. It’s a far cry from the brains trust who dominated the back of the old monohulls and seemed to have all the time in the world to discuss and make their decisions.
Now with just six men on board, there are four dedicated to grinding to provide the power for the hungry beasts, with the helmsman and wing trimmer literally having their hands full with their own jobs on boats nudging 90 kmh.
It’s required a rethink a bit of multi-tasking. As Team New Zealand went down the pedal-powered option, there was always the need for yachting brains as well as cycling brawn amongst their ‘‘cyclors’’.
‘‘The way we have sort of set up the boat is to really free Pete [helmsman Peter Burling] up as much as possible to get his head up,’’ skipper and wing trimmer Glenn Ashby explained.
‘‘Because the boats are so quick and you have to make quick decisions, often a lot of time you’ve had a conversation and you’ve travelled a couple of hundred metres. Sometimes you just need to put your head out the window, have a bit of a look and take it on.’’
Part of the technology race has also been aimed at the decisionmaking area. The lack of manpower has seen teams develop ‘‘virtual tacticians’’ with a system used on a computer tablet and smart watch feeding out critical data about boat placement, course boundaries and layout.
But Ashby said seasoned sailors such as Blair Tuke, Josh Junior and Andrew Maloney would all provide input while churning on their cycle stations.
‘‘We all, at different times, can get our heads out of the boat and improve the routing of where we are going round the track.’’
Doing that under pressure is the key and something Ashby is keen to see developed during the current five-day block of practice racing. The first official cup races start on Saturday week.
‘‘All the guys on board, we have a pretty good structure of how we play the game. It’s just we haven’t done a lot of racing like other teams have up to this stage ... we have done a lot of inhouse training and boat-handling back in Auckland.’’
Ashby admits that has left them ‘‘a little bit behind the eight-ball’’.