New York Yacht Club’s American Magic team flies with ‘the Mule’

NEW YORK YACHT CLUB’S AMERICAN MAGIC TEAM IS RIDING HIGH

US America’s Cup challenger American Magic is the second team to launch a test foiling monohull. The New York Yacht Club’s challenge has been practising out of Newport, Rhode Island, in a 38ft modified Mcconaghy onedesign, and it has been seen fully foiling in Narragansett Bay.

Nicknamed ‘the Mule’ (the name given to test prototypes in the car industry), the US test foiler is substantially larger than the modified Quant 28 being sailed and evaluated by Ben Ainslie’s Ineos Team UK. The Mule is a stripped out version of the 38-footer with a soft wingsail and self-tacking jib, and has separate cockpits on each side for helmsman Dean Barker and five other crew. Training crew include Britons Paul Goodison and Ian Moore, New Zealanders Sean Clarkson, Joe Spooner, Jim Turner and Terry Hutchinson, and Americans Andrew Campbell, Cooper Dressler and Bora Gulari.

While the challengers are developing test boats (Luna Rossa is keeping a very low profile), Emirates Team New Zealand has indicated that it will instead concentrate on running simulations in advance of launching its AC75.

The New Zealand team has meanwhile been busy developing and full-scale testing the canting foil mechanism for the AC75, which will be a supplied component of the new designs.

“Everything has gone really well, everything fits the design and the model as we first imagined,” comments ETNZ’S Peter Thomas.