The upside to a capsize
Forget the embarrassment of the moment, Team New Zealand will be privately delighted with their escape from the capsize of their new America’s Cup boat.
The defenders became the first syndicate to capsize one of the foiling 75-foot mononhulls when they tipped over on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour on Thursday, losing control coming out of a foiling gybe.
They couldn’t hide from their mistake, coming in the full glare of a summer’s morning in a busy zone of the inner harbour, and nor did they – releasing photos and videos that were gobbled up and dissected by general media and yachting specialists around the world as the new class of boat continues to be scrutinised.
But it’s the private analysis from this incident that will prove invaluable as Team New Zealand move forward, looking for a successful defence at Auckland 2021.
There are some obvious takeaways. The incident showed the boat’s safety design worked. It has a water-tight buoyancy component built into the upper region of its 26.5m mast that keeps the boat on its side, limiting a capsize to 90 degrees.
From there it was a simple matter for the team’s chase boat coming alongside to right the racing yacht, quickly and efficiently, via a two rope.
With the boat undamaged and with the crew escaping injury, Team New
Zealand were able to complete a further four hours of training.
Team New Zealand have emphasised to Stuff through their initial testing that they feel the monohull is much safer than the foiling catamarans used in the last two editions of the Cup.
The boat’s response to heel up on its stern rather than going into a nosediving pitch-pole like the ugly crash in Bermuda 2017 was also pleasing.
A capsize like this comparatively slow-motion training incident in a race situation would certainly cost Team New Zealand that race. But there would be no major damage like that suffered in Bermuda, a crash that threatened Team New Zealand’s immediate participation and was only saved by some remarkable repair work by the shore crew.
Te Aihe is covered in sensors and Team New Zealand’s designers will now be pouring over the data from these to get to the bottom of why this incident happened.
Helmsman Peter Burling has already dismissed it as ‘‘a little mistake’’ coming while they were ‘‘pushing the boat super hard’’. The data should give them a feel for the limits of the boat’s manoeuvreability. That will be be fed into the team’s state-of-the-art simulator as they look for ways to prevent a repeat.
Team New Zealand’s immediate response to the capsize has impressed international media, particularly the Italian sector when Challenger of Record Luna Rossa is in heavy training in Cagliari, joined by British syndicate Luna Rossa.
Various reports there concentrated on ‘‘the calm efficiency’’ of Team New Zealand’s recovery job and the safety of the boat’s actual design.
‘‘Yes, it works!’’ began one article, which had a sense of relief around the AC75’s self-righting system and the Kiwis’ ability to ‘‘resume training without any particular problems’’.