America's Cup - Set for take off in San Francisco

by Andreas Tzortzis on 6 Aug 2013 Deadly and demanding are the huge catamarans that will slice through San Francisco Bay in the America’s Cup next month have created a new type of sailor for a new kind of sailing.

The wind in San Francisco Bay barrels through the Golden Gate Bridge like a gang of brawling longshoremen spilling through the doors of a bar. It whips the placid waters of the morning into frosted whitecaps by early afternoon, buffets the regal hills of Angel Island and whistles through the ghostly windows of Alcatraz, blowing the baseball caps off the heads of Midwestern tourists.

On the water, boats heel and the edges of their canvas sails flap sharply in the strong gusts. But on the 72ft catamaran with a 260m2 sail speeding past them, there is little sound.

The boat the America’s Cup committee hopes will give sailing a shot in the arm begins heeling as the first fingers of wind hit the wing. The 11 members of the crew tuck themselves into an area dug out of one of the two hulls. Paired up around four grinding handles attached to high-tech winches, they hold perfectly still.

It’s a game of inches as skipper Jimmy Spithill looks up at the sail and wing and then out in the direction he plans to head. The grinders, who operate the sails, move in synchronised motions for a few revolutions, trimming the sail and wing in and out. The only sound is the mechanical crank of the wing as the boat’s hulls begin to rise out of the water. First the windward hull, then the leeward, as it rises up on a 250kg slice of carbon-fibre daggerboard, a manoeuvre called foiling that enables the boats to hit speeds in excess of 39 knots (72kph). Other boats pound through conditions like this, but the AC72 cuts through everything. It’s remarkably stable on top of the water as the speed ticks up and up.

Spithill gives the word and the crew spring into action. A tight choreography begins as they bound across the width of the boat, skidding down on the netting and bracing themselves against the other hull as water whips through.

The boat begins a slow tack and more bound across, including Spithill, who joins them on the other side. He steadies the wheel and heads upwind toward Fort Mason. Behind him, three chase boats bearing the Oracle logo swerve in and out of the AC72’s wake at top speed like a motorcade, straining to keep up.

Spithill is the skipper of Oracle Team USA, current holders of the America’s Cup. The red-haired Australian became the youngest skipper to win the trophy when he steered Larry Ellison’s trimaran to victory in the 2010 competition. Next month he and a top-flight international crew of 11 will take on the winner of a three-team selection series between boats from Sweden, New Zealand and Italy in the 34th contest for a trophy awarded since 1851. 'I don’t think anyone, even pro sailors a few years ago, could ever predict or think this is where we would end up today,' says Spithill, 34. 'From where we’ve come from to where we are is a vertical quantum leap. It’s not a slow progression. We’ve just gone ‘Bang!’ It’s like we’ve broken a brick wall down.'

The AC72’s increased power also led to tragedy, however. In May of this year the Swedish Artemis Racing catamaran broke apart during a downwind America’s Cup training session. British Olympic gold medal winner Andrew Simpson died in the incident after becoming trapped under the water. His death led to a number of proposed changes in race rules, including a maximum wind speed reduction to 23 knots (43kph), down from 33 knots (61kph).Crewmembers must also wear life vests with oxygen canisters tucked on the outside, which can give one minute of air if they go under.

In October of last year, Spithill and his crew were fortunate to survive their own brush with disaster. On the eighth day of training on the boats, Spithill’s AC72 nosedived in rough conditions as he navigated through its most dangerous manoeuvre – the sharp turn from upwind to downwind – sending the 11-man crew into the cold water of the bay before breaking apart. It took more than seven hours to recover the boat from the water.

The dangers are set against a backdrop of the sport’s far-reaching potential. These boats are unmatched in their demands on sailors and their design innovation, and they’re set to generate the sort of buzz and TV audiences the America’s Cup, and the sport of sailing, desperately need to justify the hundreds of millions spent in investment each year.

To no one is this more apparent than Spithill, who swears he remembers the jubilation that greeted Australia II’s victory in 1983, the first time a non-American boat had won the competition since the first race in 1851. He was three years old. Seven years later, he won his first race on a wooden dinghy that he, his sister and his dad found on a scrap heap.

He’s now behind the wheel of a boat costing an estimated US$10 million. His crew hail from eight countries. The fitness levels required of the team are Olympian in this category. And the rush he gets from sailing is unparalleled.

'It was intimidating the first time I stepped on,' says Spithill of the AC72. 'We spent countless hours going through the design with the engineers, the predictions, the CAD drawings. But when you step on that and it starts moving, it’s like you’re going from a pony to a thoroughbred. As soon as that boat hits the water, it is alive and it just wants to go. All it takes is as little as five knots [10kph] of wind. It’s really demanding because it takes so much energy and concentration. One little slip and this boat will bite you.

'You hear the foils start to hum when you go over 40 knots [74kph], and the wind is like being in a hurricane. The guys are working so hard and you’re on the edge, and when you get to the end of it, you look around and just... Yeah, if you could bottle that up, you’d do well.'

Read the full story in August issue of The Red Bulletin.