Gladwell's Line- Reflections on Valencia 2010

by Richard Gladwell on 25 Feb 2010
Sail-World's America's Cup Editor, Richard Gladwell, reflects on the week in Valencia and what can be taken out of the 33rd America's Cup:

Probably the first point is that Alinghi 5 is not as slow as her results would tend to indicate.

In Race 1 she was caught out badly by a sudden change of windstrength just after the start, and with a bigger head sail on, she noticeably had to stall to ease the load, and soon afterwards changed down a jib and then looked more comfortable.

In terms of speed when both there in the groove, USA-17 was mostly at least equal or faster – by ‘0.5 to a knot average, sometimes more.

USA started to leeward of Alinghi in Race 1 and was some 600 metres behind. The increase in wind pressure soon after the start pretty well wiped out all this advantage for Alinghi. In any other class this sized lead would have put the race in the bag. But these are multihulls, and large ones at the that, and speed difference are not measured in tenths of a knots, but whole knots.

To some extent with these boats, it is not how much wind you have but what you can do with it.

The key difference between the boats was clearly USA-17’s ability to fly a hull for sustained periods, this allowed a drag reduction, which in turn facilitated a speed gain, and which down wind, meant more apparent wind at a more forward angle – so she was able to dive deeper if required.

Essentially the wingsail had no real downside for USA-17. At worst it was breakeven with the softsailed boat. At best it gave much better control on power over a variety of conditions.

If the wind was lighter, a jib could be unrolled on USA to provide the grunt. If the wind increased the jib was just rolled, and USA-17 sailed faster and higher for the lack of disturbance on the wingsail.

In terms of hull weight Alinghi was probably the lighter of the two, but did not seem to be able to translate that into sustained hull flying in marginal conditions in the same way that USA-17 was.

While some were quick to point the finger at Alinghi’s crew and yacht, the reality is that the wingsail gave USA so many options, from generating power up high to induce heeling moment, to flattening when the breeze is up, to actually inducing reverse camber in the upper wingsail to provide right moment.

Think of that last statement, for a minute, and you will understand the versatility of the wingsail.

By hooking the upper rear element (on the trailing edge of the wingsail) the crew can force the wind to actually push the mast tip upright. Of course, the downside is that drag increases as the more the element is poked out into the breeze, and if this feature used in the extreme it would actually slow the boat like a giant airbrake.

The rest of the wing can be bought into play as much as required, and if not required then flattened and feathered to reduce drag.

Compare this with a softsail yacht of the same size, like Alinghi 5, you have to control the sails through sheet tension and other devices. If you have too much sail on then you have to physically reduce sail – by changing a jib, which is slow and not that simple on a yacht which has no real foredeck.

Same song second verse, on Alinghi 5, if you want to increase power – set a bigger headsail, and try to grunt up the mainsail. The latter is easy enough, however by implication with the former there will be some agonizing as to whether or not a change is required, and there is always some period of being under or over canvassed, plus the time lost making the change.

Because of her rig, Alinghi 5 was not efficient sailing bareheaded (ie with no jib) whereas for USA-17 it was a performance gain.

In simple terms the wingsail allowed USA-17 to change gears much more quickly, and to be sailing at her optimum for a much higher percentage of the time than Alinghi 5.

Ernesto Bertarelli often claimed that he thought he was supposed to be sailing against a sloop, based on the Notice of Challenge supplied by Golden Gate Yacht Club.

But as he later argued in the New York Supreme Court, pleading the case for the use of engines and water ballast, that the America’s Cup is a technology race. It is, no doubt about that.

The purpose of identifying the Challenger USA as a sloop was to indicate the number of masts and that she was in compliance on the maximum load water line length, not whether she was using hard or soft sails.

While the Swiss do tend to sail soft sailed multihulls on their lakes, this is presumably for ease of handling, and not for a marked superiority, over the wingsail type.

For storage wingsails, like aeroplanes need hangars, where the wings can be stored, and leaving them flogging around on a mooring with a night shift crew, is not a medium or long term solution.

Quite why Alinghi did not invest in a wing, was beyond most watchers of this America’s Cup.

On their design team they had Duncan MacLane probably the person with the single most knowledge of such sails in the world. If Bertarelli had stepped away from the world of Swiss lake sailing, and what worked in that environment - and looked at the world of A and C class cats (a development class designed for inshore racing), most of which use wingsails of one type or another. To go with a softsail rig in one of those two classes would be to take a high risk option, unless there were considerations other than performance and speed involved.

As the BMW Oracle wing team were quick to point out thousands of aeroplanes take off using wings everyday. The technology and engineering is very well known and proven in the aviation industry. While many marvel at the USA-17 wing, in aviation terms it is rather crude, but still effective for its purpose.

Certainly you would get very apprehensive taking off in a plane with strings and arms and flaps running out to the wingtip. It may be that there is a way of handling all these controls hydraulically, if the weight can be contained.

By way of comparison, the BMW Oracle wing team described their wing a low speed aircraft wing, such as when a plane lands, rather than takes off or flies. The fabric and materials used are from the aircraft industry – so what is the issue?

Alinghi actually had an advantage, in that as Defender they could set the rules as they did with engines and waterballast, and in a technology race there are virtually no limits.

USA-17’s rig took six months from the get-go to be standing in the boat, and five months of that was in the build of the structure.

So in the context of a 31 month lapse between the issue of the Notice of Challenge and sailing of the 33rd Match, six months is not significant.

Additionally, Alinghi had the jump on BMW Oracle in terms of design talent and rule setting ability - if there were any issues of legality. The simple fact is that Alinghi failed to play an ace card, when they had plenty of opportunity, and that was a significant factor in their loss of the America’s Cup.

However the fact that Alinghi were able to put a soft sailed yacht on the water, and get it up the track in Race 2 (with a more even breeze) and be crossing tacks with the wingsailed USA-17 at the end of an eight mile beat, underlines the strength of their technology and sailing teams.

An America’s Cup exercise of this type requires the welding together of a huge team of technology specialists and experts, often from outside the sailing world, and being able to bring these groups together and make the team work is a credit to both the BMW Oracle Racing and Alinghi teams

It is probably fair comment that had USA-17 raced with her conventional rotating mast and softsails that she would have been beaten by Alinghi, and we would have been marching to a different beat, today.

In the 33rd America’s Cup, it was the wingsail that made the difference between the two campaigns, for its versatility and simply allowing her crew effortlessly put USA-17 in the right gear for the conditions.

But in the final count it was the same thing that won this America's Cup, as all others in the multi-challenger era - Leadership. This time, BMW Oracle Racing was the better led team, and this single factor determined the outcome of the 33rd Match.