Team NZ take heaviest hit
Holders lose five weeks to lockdown as Cup challengers continue to prepare
The five America’s Cup teams are emerging from lockdowns and must rejig their campaigns for the third time this Cup cycle. On the original timeline, the teams should have been doing a pack-out from Cagliari, Sardinia, at the end of the first America’s Cup World Series. The four AC75s were to be shipped to the second event in Portsmouth, England.
INEOS Team UK was the only team to make it to England after both World Series events were cancelled.
Emirates Team New Zealand resumed their programme on Tuesday, with their North Shore construction facility firing up after five weeks and an irrecoverable 8000 man-hours lost.
The Kiwis’ on-water programme resumed two days later in their 12-metre test boat Te Ka¯hu. The team are a commercial enterprise and are entitled to continue a testing and development programme.
It turns out they had fared the worst of the four teams — losing what could prove a vital five weeks of testing and development, plus the same amount of construction time.
After rigging test cameras which project well outboard, the team towtested and sail-tested what was believed to be a wing foil modification.
The impact of losing five weeks was underscored when it was revealed Thursday’s modification was ready to be tested two days before the New Zealand lockdown.
The team could not get out on the water because of unfavourable weather on those days. They took a five-week hit and missed obtaining vital performance data for the design engineers to ponder during the enforced break.
In Sardinia, Luna Rossa has repaired their twice-damaged AC75 and gone sailing with a crew of just five, down from the regular line-up of 11, a response to social-distancing requirements.
The Italian team installed electric motors in their AC75, replacing six grinders. The modifications took the AC75 out of class but earned valuable sailing time. Luna Rossa is the only competitor currently sailing an AC75.
Not having to ship their AC75 to Portsmouth and back was a significant gain for the Italians. Skipper Max Sirena told Italian media the lockdown in Bergamo, northern Italy, where their second AC75 is being built at Persico Marine, had not “impacted the building of the boat”.
They will continue sailing their first boat from Cagliari until the end of September and will fly the second to Auckland and expect to be sailing around October 20.
INEOS Team UK’s first AC75 has arrived back in England after having a planned four-month training and racing programme chopped in half by Covid-19.
Their AC75 Britannia is sporting a new strake down the centreline of her hull. Most design pundits put the addition down to tidying up airflows under her fuselage/hull, rather than a crude attempt to emulate the centreline bustle of the Kiwi and Italian first-born AC75s.
The Brits are expected to arrive in Auckland in September.
American Magic’s second AC75 is under construction in Bristol, Rhode Island — they were able to continue their build through the lockdown only with the assistance of the State Governor.
As of mid-April, they had stopped sailing operations out of their winter base at Pensacola, Florida, largely due to ubiquitous Covid-19.
Otherwise, it was business as usual for the design, build and all other aspects of the New York Yacht Club’s challenge. The sailors are having to make do with clocking up “sailing” hours in a realistic simulator.
Time pressure will see all teams fly one and maybe two AC75s to New Zealand.
With the Protocol requirement to compete in the Cagliari and Portsmouth events now removed, the 2021 America’s Cup door is still ajar for the fourth challenger, Stars + Stripes USA. The team has a partconstructed AC75 from a Team New Zealand supplied design package. Their America’s Cup aspirations went on hold when it was realised that time had run out for the young California based team to make the mandatory regattas at Cagliari and Portsmouth.
Co-founder Mike Buckley told the Herald the team was “close” with securing funding, and that “S+S continues to push on to be in Auckland”.
Buckley reports that he has been out of action for a month, having fallen victim to Covid-19. His family also contacted the coronavirus. All are believed to be in recovery.
The America’s Cup has also had a race director appointed for its 36th edition — Australian Iain Murray. It will be the third time he has held the role, having also participated as a skipper and designer.
Murray is one of the few who spans the 12 metre, IACC and multihull eras of the America’s Cup from 1983 to 2017.
The 2021 America’s Cup regatta will be a return to the place where Murray made his first marks on the international sailing scene as a teenager, with two notable wins in the 12ft and 18ft skiffs.
The latter was a come-frombehind win in atrocious conditions on what will be Course C on the inner Waitemata for the 2021 America’s Cup. Murray and his crew turned in one of the great displays of heavy air sailing and courage under fire — qualities that will no doubt serve him well in the coming months.