Tour of the ORACLE TEAM USA base in Bermuda
by Rob Melotti & Mark Jardine 18 Oct 2015 22:07 AEDT
18 October 2015
ORACLE TEAM USA take their AC45S for a spin in Great Sound, Bermuda © ORACLE TEAM USA
Grant Simmer gave an overview of the ORACLE TEAM USA base in Bermuda and how they set things up, "We're proud of our base here, we started getting set up here immediately after the announcement in November last year. This area we're on here was just a junkyard really, with old boats and stuff just lying around. While we were in San Francisco we set up a plan for building this base and moved a lot of our containers from the event last time to build up a space out of nothing. There are two big sheds that we built and a couple of months later we were operating.
"We now have our boat shed where working on our boat building and our electronics and we have our wing shed where we take care of our wings, service them and modify them. Those building are side-by-side.
"We also have offices and a gymnasium in the old part of the dockyard which is in a building which was derelict - the Government of Bermuda agreed to put a roof on it and put the windows back in and we built the inside of the building. It was built in 1860 by Irish white slaves and it's been there ever since. It's quite a historic building and we're proud to be putting it to good use."
There are around 55 people working at the ORACLE TEAM USA base and many family members have located themselves in Bermuda, including around 40 kids.
"They're all different ages and all now going to school in Bermuda. The school year has only recently started, but that in itself was quite an exercise to relocate families and get them settled." said Grant. "It seems to be going well and the nice thing in the team, we are a team, so we've got our own little community, so all the families will be here today watching the racing on TV and out on the race course."
Bermuda was in the path of a hurricane a couple of weeks ago and ORACLE TEAM USA took various precautions to avoid damage.
"We had a hurricane plan and, depending on the anticipated severity, we did certain things. We boarded up the glass and in the big sheds we shored up the bi-folding doors on the big sheds with straps and supports. We also took the docks out. We had 100 knots, front on to the doors and the spray was going right over the building. Waves were breaking over the sea-wall so we got a bit of salt damage, but other than that we survived the storm quite well. It took us one day to put everything back together and the next day we were operational again." said Grant.
The boat-building facility within one of the new sheds was built by the boat builders themselves. The main components are imported in and generally only modifications and repairs are undertaken at the Bermuda base.
Grant continued, "We have grinding rooms, an oven, a mixing room, cutting rooms - everything that you have in a modern boat building facility we have in this space here. We like to call it the Taj Mahal because the boat builders are in charge and it grew and grew and grew out of control! The boys are also in here to fix everything on their Moths."
Inside the boat-shed are a couple of heavily modified AC45s which are designed to be more like the new America's Cup class. They're wider, so more powerful with more righting moment, with a pod structure in the middle and they have cockpits in them so that the crew can use the grinders.
"We're using these boats as our development platform for the America's Cup class boat, which we're not allowed to launch before the 1st January 2017. We'll be building that boat next year, so everything we learn about the geometry, control systems, centreboard cases - all of that stuff - will be incorporated into the new boat that we build." said Grant. "There are some one-design elements in the new America's Cup class which will help reduce costs, for example, the front beam. The front beam is not going to win you the America's Cup, but if you asked a couple of structural engineers to design a front beam they could take months to do that, so we looked at the areas where there's not much room for improvement, such as the hull shape as the boat's are foiling anyway, and locked down those areas and left the areas where there's really big development, such as the aerodynamics of the platform, the geometry of the boards, the control systems, the wing is a really big one. I think we've taken away about 20% of the developments that can win you the America's Cup and probably left 80% for us guys to play with and develop. Technology's still a really important part of the cup but we're not going to fester on the stuff that really isn't that important."
Brad Webb, who has been involved in the America's Cup since 1995, is responsible for all the systems onboard the ORACLE TEAM USA boats, "I'm lucky to be surrounded by engineers with a huge wealth of knowledge, but I bring a wealth of sailing knowledge. Our job is to design a control system that will allow these boats to go faster and faster and faster. We're trying to control the wing, two boards and a rudder that are going through two different mediums at 40 knots +, so refining the system to make the boat more controllable and allows us to push the envelope and make the boat go faster.
"Part of the rule is that the boat has to be driven manually - we can't use a motor to drive the system. Those of you that followed the America's Cup in 2010 with the giant trimaran saw that we were actually allowed a motor in that boat and we pushed enormous amount of water around that boat to control the massive wing and foils, but that was outside the realm of what the America's Cup is about - humans being involved and sailing the yacht.
"One thing we found from the last America's Cup was that the boats were going through the manoeuvres so fast that it actually got quite dangerous when the guys didn't have enough power to control the boards. So a development from last time is that we're allowed an accumulator to store a certain amount of energy, which allows the guys to store hydraulic energy so there's something there for the helmsmen during the manoeuvre in case anything goes wrong.
As time is a finite asset, the team run a test bed of the controls, set up exactly the same as the development boats, and the team are building the cockpits around the positions to see exactly how much room the crew have around them.
"We can run computer programs and we can test all the components before they go on the boat and run them through their paces so that we can really get an idea of the characteristics of each component." concluded Brad.
Moving onto the wing shed, the wing can be cambered up on a test rig to check the functionality of the systems before rolling it out and putting it on the platform. This also means the team can test new wing control systems without having to put the wing in the boat. The wings used on their development AC45s are extended AC45 wings with elongated top elements.
In the gym head trainer Oscar makes sure the sailing team is in peak physical condition for their role, "As you know, the boats are quite physical now so the sailors are on a par with rugby players and ice hockey players. Every time they go on the boat and train here I manage their sailing loads. We monitor and manage their heart-rate profile so that they're running at 85-90% of maximum. Jimmy Spithill leads from the front in training which really helps my role here."
The team's office is above the gymnasium in the old dockyard restored Victorian store house.