Gladwell's Line - Emirates Team NZ launches shadow AC50

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZL on 22 Jun 2016 Emirates Team NZ took a late but significant step along the road to the 35th America's Cup, with the launch of their AC45S - S for Surrogate - as the test boats are called in the Protocol which governs the 2017 event.

The bloated Protocol, which now runs to 83 pages of legalese, is restrictive on the size of boat that can be built as a test platform but doesn't place any restriction on the number that can be built.

Under the first edition of the Protocol specified an AC62 as the yacht to be used in the America's Cup match. But after the gesture by Luna Rossa to abdicate its rights as Challenger of Record to a Challenger Committee, a simple majority of the Challengers opted to switch to the smaller 15metre long AC50.

By acting in concert they gained three additional benefits - got a top challenger Luna Rossa out of the Cup; got the Qualifiers out of Auckland after a fit of pique by the America's Cup Events Authority; and got the New Zealand Government to pull its backing from Emirates Team NZ, putting the most experienced team in the Cup on the financial ropes as the Kiwi media delighted in giving the team an eight count.

A further quirk of the change in boat, was that a loophole was effectively created in that the length gap between the Surrogate boat and Match boat was reduced from 12ft to 5ft. Further astute reading of the Surrogate rules showed that AC45 could be fattened up to be almost an AC50 - and that is what Emirates Team NZ launched on Tuesday.

Whether other teams have gone down the same route is not really known, but certainly they will be close to the same concept.

This is in an America's Cup edition which talks long on cost reduction - which it believes can be done by reducing the dimensions of the boats used in the Match - but places no limits on the number of test boats that can be built. Of course, there is only just under 5ft (13.45mtr compared to 15mtr for the metrically inclined) of difference between an AC45S and an AC50 - and the cost difference is minimal depending on how you cost the boat. (Most are not new builds but are AC45 One Design hulls split down the centreplane between the forward and after crossbeams and with a new deck added.)

To date, the Defenders have launched and had design input from three AC45-S boats. Britain and Sweden have launched two each. Japan, a Challenger, has inherited their one from the Defenders. The Kiwis have just splashed their first, and France is yet to do so.

Quite how this battle between the 'Haves' and 'Have-Nots' all plays out will be fascinating come the end of May 2017, when the Qualifiers get underway.

In the past, those with the toys have won or performed best. Bill Koch indulged in no-cost-barred technology overkill in 1992, building four boats for this America3, including running a full on surveillance and spy program, which he later bragged was so sophisticated that they knew the outcome of the 1992 Cup before they had even sailed the first race in the Match. That excess aside, all winning teams have run two boat teams - the maximum allowed.

Since 1992 there has been a limitation of the number of boats built - set at two in the monohull era, and again for the San Francisco Multihull Cup.

A pointer to performance in 2017 comes from the 2010 and 2013 America's Cups.

In 2010 Oracle Racing got on top of the technology game and were able to use computer analysis to evaluate most of the design options, pick the best and build them, and then integrate that design program into the sailing program with a proper electronic feedback loop running between the design and sailing teams. Onboard systems were wireless - which opened a whole new area for getting the boat optimised during racing against the performance prediction systems.

Going into the 2013 America's Cup, Oracle Racing should have been able to roll this technology base onto a new wingsailed multihull boat and given the Challengers a rogering.

As we now know that didn't happen until the final week of a three-week match. Instead a team which had to survive through the competition and sponsorship hiatus of 2007-2013 developed a technology edge which had the other teams including the Defender playing catch up.

A lesson out of the 2013 America's Cup was that it is certainly possible for a team to make clever use of applied design creativity to jump a chasm of technological advantage.

Emirates Team NZ's late launching on Tuesday must be seen against that backdrop.

So too must their approach to solving the problem posed by the 35th America's Cup.

Three teams have opted for a three/four boat approach to the 2017 regatta - being to build two or three AC45S's, and then go to the AC50. Running that size of campaign is not without its challenges, and the amount of high-tech boat kit that gets acquired is very significant and can be very distracting.

Team New Zealand's approach appears to be more simple and traditional - with effectively the two boat campaign that has served them well for six America's Cup campaigns. The key point being that the AC45 is not that much different to the AC50 - and certainly is close enough for the learnings and some components from the slightly smaller smaller boat to be carried over to the larger.

While Emirates Team NZ love to adopt the mantle of the Battlers from Struggle Street (and with considerable justification this Cup cycle), those who have followed the team in some detail know that once they get a boat on the water, they work very hard indeed, with long hours.

Also, remember that the Kiwi 's have probably the best stretch of test track of any of the teams - the Hauraki Gulf - where it is possible to do a 40nm run, upwind or down in relatively sheltered water, free of ocean swells. That sort of long run is where you hone speed and can make changes, without having to return to the bottom of a track a tenth of that length and start again.

So when Team NZ talk about how far behind they are, remember they have the assets, talent, expertise and urgency to be able to catch up reasonably quickly.

Although Sail-World was not able to attend the launch on Tuesday, it is clear from the interview snippets that many of the parts on the AC45S are almost plug and pay with the AC50.

That is a very interesting approach. Maybe the other teams have done the same.

Of course, it makes a complete mockery of the Surrogate Boat rule in the Protocol which fails to place any limit on the number of AC45's that can be built, but does limit each team to one AC50.

Think about that for a minute. The AC45S is only 5ft shorter in its hull length than the 15metre long AC50. There is no restriction on the rig size/shape for the AC45S - so an AC50 wingsail can be used, or one that is proportioned to the AC50.

There is no beam restriction on the AC45S so that the boat can be as wide as the AC50. Crossbeams can also be transposed as can AC50 parts.

The dagger boards and rudders can also be a straight take from the AC50 - making a complete mockery of the more two pages in the Protocol, which cover restrictions on the numbers of daggerboards that can and can't be used. This particular section of the Protocol is completely unintelligible - and just as well, as the partial workaround is quite obvious.

For those who think a 50ft foiling multihull will be faster than a foiling 45fter, please adjust your monohull thinking. There is little difference because only the foils are immersed and waterline length has no currency.

Against the above backdrop, there is not a lot of difference between the two boat types. The steroid versioned AC45 can be stretched so that it is essentially very close to the AC50.

Look at the difference in the photos of the AC50 under construction and ETNZ's AC45 on this page - the boats have the same layout and proportions - just a matter of losing 5ft somewhere in the smaller AC45S.

Emirates Team NZ seem to have done some of this this in the rudder gantry which effectively extends the boat length from a foils perspective - but staying within the surrogate length restriction as rudder gantries are generally excluded from waterline length calculations. All the rule requires is that a set of AC45 underwater shapes be used. The rest of the length difference is probably blotted up in the bows.

Indeed, the Protocol may as well say that a team can build unlimited AC50's - it would probably be cheaper, than the current situation where the teams are running at least three different classes in the 45-50ft range for a total of five boats/platforms, multiple daggerboards, and multiple wingsails for each of the five.

But like all recent America's Cups, the event won't be won by the team with the most boats or money, but by the one which thinks the smartest - and gets some lucky breaks.

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This story was first published in Sail-World NZ's newsletter

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