September and October saw the long-awaited launches of the world’s first four AC75s. The design rule was published only last April for this entirely new class – a 75ft (22.9m) monohull that flies on a single foil. The concept came from long-time discussions between sailor/ coach Ray Davies and Emirates Team New Zealand designer Guillaume Verdier, and it was then designed to a rule drafted in collaboration with ‘Challenger of Record’ Luna Rossa.
Therefore it has been a massive race against time to design, build and launch these new machines – starting from a clean sheet of paper, mustering computer modelling resources at a level never seen before in the Cup world, and virtually testing hundreds of different models and systems for each boat.
At the launch of Britannia 1 in Portsmouth, INEOS Team UK chief designer Nick Holroyd recalled: “We had just five months from the class rule being published to signing off the designs. That is very, very short compared to other Cups.”
How do you begin? “You read the rule, then from nothing more than intuition and experience, you draw what you think might be a solution to that and then you are just developing data off that.
“The first thing you are saying is: ‘How much panel area does it have? How much is it going to weigh?’ You have to start developing a weight sheet for it, start looking at the aerodynamics and the hydrodynamics and then it evolves from there. Typically you might run half a dozen hull shapes for each design iteration. The class rule came out on 1 April and we ran six weekly iterations for 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and then 1.0.”
A delay caused by problems with the specification and manufacture of the foil arms, the supplied one-design units that support the head of the foils, meant all the teams were much later than expected and used the extra time in different ways.
Denne historien er fra December 2019-utgaven av Yachts & Yachting.
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Denne historien er fra December 2019-utgaven av Yachts & Yachting.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Super, smashing, great
How do you stand out in one of the most competitive sectors of boat building? Sam Jefferson steps aboard the Dufour 390 to find out
ST PETER PORT - GUERNSEY 49°27.19'N, 002°32.00'W
This haven on Guernsey is the ideal starting point to explore the beauty of the Channel Islands, as Emma Bamford discovers
Round the Island Q&A
Dave Atkinson, director of the Round the Island Race, now postponed until the autumn, explains some decisions and breaks down misconceptions about the race in a revealing chat with Rupert Holmes.
The rest is Istria
Nicola Beykirch headed to Venice in search of a cheap winter berth and endured the hardship of sailing the length of the Croatian coast en route
Grinding to a halt
Sent home from warm-weather training in Sardinia amid Covid-19 restrictions, grinder Freddie Carr updates us on what is now for INEOS TEAM UK and the America’s Cup
From a distance
Rob Peake looks at what ‘sailing’ we can do via distance learning courses and online regattas
Flying the flag
Her rise through the ranks has been meteoric and her helm Charlotte Dobson calls her ‘an absolute weapon’. Rob Peake meets 49erFX crew Sakia Tidey
Eire on a shoestring
The Irish sea deserves respect, but the rewards of a summer cruise can be great, as Don Smith notes
Ace Your Club Race
Quirky courses and mixed fleets - Mark Rushall talks tactics and sorts strategy for club race situations
WIZARDS IN OZ
After Ainslie’s spectacular series debut, ROB KOTHE speaks to SailGP skippers on the lessons learned in Sydney, and finds out what’s next from Russell Coutts
