Cup boat an ‘eye-opener’
British yachting great Ben Ainslie has described sailing the America’s Cup test boat as ‘‘an eye-opener’’.
American rival Terry Hutchinson summed up being on his syndicate’s scaled-down version of the 75-foot foiling monohulls to be used at Auckland 2021 ‘‘like getting into a car with my 16-yearold son driving for the first time . . . just wondering what could possibly go wrong’’.
The two skippers have given first-hand accounts of their experiences from the opening phase of testing as teams use development programs for the build of their first full-scale racing yachts to be launched this year.
Ainslie, who heads the INEOS Team UK challenge, admitted there were some heart-in-mouth moments.
‘‘As you can probably see by some of the footage, we’ve had some pretty big wipeouts, some fun moments, and some pretty exhilarating moments as well,’’ Ainslie told Yachtracing.life.
Ainslie said they had to trust the design genius of Emirates Team New Zealand as they worked off the design parameters for the revolutionary concept.
‘‘Grant Dalton told me that this boat was going to work … it was going to be a fantastic boat, so we just believed that would be the case,’’ Ainslie said.
Ainslie said sailing the fullsized race boat would be a major examination for the crews.
‘‘I’ve got some feel for it in my mind – just the performance predictions, and so on. It’s going to be an exceptional boat. To look at it’s going to be an extremely impressive boat. To sail it, it’s going to be a huge challenge,’’ he said.
While Ainslie has been on the wheel of his test boat, American Magic skipper Terry Hutchinson is tactician to Dean Barker who has been signed by the New York Yacht Club to helm their boat.
That left Hutchinson feeling somewhat vulnerable early on as his fate was in the hands of Barker.
‘‘The first day that I was on the boat when we foiled it was quite windy and some of the systems weren’t operating perfectly. And so the boat was a bit loose and we were a bit out of control – and that was exactly how it felt. It was almost like getting into a car with my 16-year-old son driving for the first time. Just wondering what could possibly go wrong,’’ he told Yachracing.life in a separate interview.
‘‘As you evolve and as you listen to the communication between Dean and Andrew [Campbell] and Goodie [Paul Goodison] and hear the level of calm that’s in their voice, what you quickly realise is the level of experience that you have and that we have as a team.
‘‘Very quickly you go from nervous anticipation to getting into the routine of just doing your job on the boat. Sitting up in the front of the boat and learning how to go fast, for me it’s a really, really, unbelievable experience.
‘‘The sensation of speed is impressive, and yet I’ve spent the better part of a month now sailing around at 30 something knots, and it’s becoming normal.’’
Hutchinson said the challenge now was to transfer their growing test data into developing the ultimate America’s Cup machine.
‘‘If we don’t have a fast boat, I’m quite certain it doesn’t matter how well we race a slower boat, you’re probably not going to win. So we have to make sure we work hard on developing a fast boat.’’