Emirates Team NZ in England and Bermuda
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com NZL on 20 May 2015
Emirates Team NZ watch Oracle Team USA sailing in Bermuda Oracle Team USA media
Progress continues for Emirates Team New Zealand with several of the sailing team in the UK for a testing session onboard the new AC45 ‘F’ catamaran, says Emirates Team New Zealand on their social media page.
The AC45 ’F’ for ‘foiling’, is a natural progression of the non foiling model used in the last America’s Cup World Series, and has now been converted to a fully foiling catamaran that will race starting at the first World Series event in Portsmouth in July. The AC45F is the original AC45 used in the 2011-2013 ACWS, and upgraded to permit the displacement multihull to foil.
Teams also use a surrogate AC45S for testing - which consists of the canoe body of the AC45 one design and with an AC48 proportionate platform and rig.
The New Zealand team has also made their first foray into Bermuda, hiring a boat from the local yacht club, and getting on the water for a look at Oracle Team USA sailing their AC45S at the America's Cup venue.
The visit prompted a snippy comment from the Defender in the social media. 'We had a great few hours of training on the Great Sound Tuesday. And we’d like to welcome our friends from Emirates Team New Zealand to Bermuda who came out to take a look. What took you so long guys?!?!'
It is not Emirates Team New Zealand’s first involvement in the AC45F; designers Neil Wilkinson and Chris Mellow played major roles in leading the conversion to make the boats fly. Wilkinson led the design of the new foil control system while Chris Mellow led the project management of the entire process.
'The new foiling version of the AC45 catamaran has brought the boats in line with current foiling technology,' said Glenn Ashby who was in Southampton accompanied by Jeremy Lomas and Richard Meacham as they were given a short and intense shore side session examining Ben Ainslie Racing’s own AC45F.
A strange scenario it seems, but the event wasn’t exclusively for Emirates Team New Zealand. All teams were permitted time to study the new features, systems and deck layout which make the ‘F’ foil as part of preparation for the first hit out in two months time.
It is the understanding of the onboard working systems and the subsequent conversion to crew dynamics, which will give any team an advantage in the one design class.
'It has been an extremely valuable few days here in Southampton having the opportunity to assess, test and sail with the new foiling AC45F class boat,” said Glenn Ashby.
The sailing sessions gave the sailing team a taste of action to come, 'The racing will be fantastic on these boats and having full foiling reaching starts to mark 1 and then downwind to the gate in a fleet environment will be extremely exciting.'
'The boats are very challenging to sail and operating the dagger boards rake and up/down in the manoeuvres accurately around the course will be key to a good performance.'
'We are grateful to the guys at BAR for their hospitality and assistance over the past few days which allowed various sailing team representatives to be able to sail and learn about how we will need to prepare for the first event.”
Emirates Team New Zealand have a planned training camp on the teams own AC45F in late June which will be its only preparation before practice racing on the 24th July.
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