America's Cup Recon: "... right now even my name is quite hard to remember"
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 8 Aug 02:43 PDT
La Roche-Posay Racing Team - AC75 - Sailing Day 6 - August 6, 2026 - Lorient, France © Pierre Bouras/America's Cup
The French America's Cup team La Roche-Posay Racing Team returned to the Atlantic Ocean for their second training session of the week.
It went well - a big change from the situation a month earlier, when the French team staged a slow-speed capsize, following which they had water ingress into key systems - taking the AC75 out of action for a month.
They relaunched last Tuesday for a rather nervous re-commissioning sail followed by a second on Thursday, which went even better with the three-time America's Cup Challenger recording the most on-foil run time of the campaign to date.
"Today was really amazing. It was a very nice session. I learned a lot every day!" exclaimed Maelenn Lemaitre, whose appointment to the sailing squad was only announced just over a month ago.
"Right now I'm a bit tired because after sailing all day I learned so much", she continued, "I have all this data in my mind, and right now even my name is quite hard to remember!"
Lemaitre's delightfully refreshing comments came in the post-session interview with the Reconnaissance unit assigned to the team.
Even though she has won multiple world womens match racing championships, Lemaitre was clearly thrilled to be involved at this level in an America's Cup campaign, more than justifying the decision to require mixed gender crews in the upcoming America's Cup. She will also bring vital match racing experience to the French - essential to gain the advantage out of the race start. Across the six America's Cup teams, generally speaking, the male sailors have come through the Olympic and SailGP pathway, while many of the female sailors, like Lemaitre have a strong match racing background and mindset.
Lemaitre was recruited at the start of the season through the K-Challenge Academy, she had her first sail in an AC75 on Day 3 of the campaign, but had already been working with the team for several weeks on the AC75 simulator.
"Today was amazing. We learned a lot on the boat - for everyone, not just me. We are going step by step, and it's quite amazing because today's just my fourth sailing day," she enthused.
"It's like a dream coming true," she said, recalling her appointment in early July. "Everything is amazing. For me, the announcement was a big one. I was like, "Whoa, yes! Now it's really true, and let's go for this amazing adventure."
She says a big focus on board the French AC75 is understanding the batteries and energy systems on board, which provide power to pressurise all the control and sheeting systems.
"Right now, it's a new setup for the [battery] energy, so it's quite hard to describe precisely what we are doing.
"For now, we are looking to understand more about this new setup for energy. So it's more my engineer role right now. I have to learn how it works and how I feel it. "e are looking to use the energy we have the best way we can, and Amelia and I will be responsible for this energy, and about the strategies - like sailing in other boats."
As explained on Tuesday by boat captain Antoine Rucard, the French team have used the unexpected shed time to adjust their campaign to reflect a slower but more measured pace, realising that while they may be down on sailing days compared to the Italians and New Zealanders, they are however well advanced on the three other challengers.
More French talent was on display on their AC75 today. Alongside Lemaitre at the back of the boat was 2025 World Moth champion Enzo Belanger, who also won the 2026 Europeans in L'Escala, Spain. The 2026 Worlds are in Fremantle, Western Australia, in November.
La Roche-Posay Racing Team - Sailing Day 6, August 6, 2026 - Lorient, France
Crew List:
- Starboard Helm: Quentin Delapierre (FRA)
- Port Helm: Diego Botin (ESP)
- Trimmer/Flight Control: Jason Saunders (NZL/FRA)
- Trimmer/Flight Control: Florian Trittel (ESP)
- Position 5: Maelenn Lemaitre (FRA)
- Position 6: Enzo Belanger (FRA)
Wind & Sea Conditions:
- Summary: Sunny, light air; a fine, settled afternoon
- Wind: W to WSW; 5 to 7 kts on first run, building to 10 - 12 kt with gusts into the mid-to-high teens by the final run
- Sea State: Choppy easing later
- Dock Out: 1225hrs
- Dock In: 1630hrs
- Time sailed: 180minutes
Recon Report - Sailing Day 6 - August 6, 2026
La Roche-Posay Racing Team sailed B1 at Lorient for a full and productive afternoon, in what appeared to be the most on-foil run time of the campaign to date. The mast rolled out first and the boat came out of the shed at 10:00, with the mast already raised for stepping as the boat was brought to the crane.
No change was apparent on the stepped mast, and the masthead windex and anemometer unit was reinstalled for the session, consistent with the two small masthead sensors and the windex/anemometer noted on D8.
The foils, fences, wings, flaps and rudder shaft all appeared consistent with the configurations used on previous sailing days. Work appeared to be continuing on the spare mast outside the shed, still limited to sanding of the bare tube with no fittings attached.
The boat was craned and launched around 11:08, then held for a long period hanging just above the water with both forward trimmers aboard and the foils canted up and down, which appeared similar to the equivalent phase on D8 and could be consistent with ride-height sensor checks. Once afloat, some attention was paid to the aft hatch behind the mainsail traveller, before the sailors ran their control-system checks, with the usual hydraulic noises, traveller, sheeting-angle and mast-rotation movements and a tacking and gybing sequence. The boat docked out around 12:25.
Sailing took place through the afternoon just north-east of Groix in a light W to WSW breeze, read at around 255 to 265 deg, over flat, smooth water under sunny skies. The air was light early, in the region of 4 to 6 kt around the first run, and built steadily through the afternoon, with Groix Sémaphore reading into the region of 10 to 12 kt with gusts into the mid-to-high teens by the final run. The mainsail (MN2-1) and a jib (J3-2) were hoisted, and the boat took a bow tow for the first run, then self-started onto the foils without a tow for the four that followed as the breeze filled in.
The opening run was an extended one, running from 13:21 to 13:56, around 35 minutes continuously on the foils and appearing among the longest runs seen on the campaign. On this and the later runs the boat looked settled for the conditions, with generally stable ride height and a good spread of upwind and downwind legs; touchdowns appeared limited, mostly on gybes, with a single touchdown logged on a tack. Estimated angles from the RIB track put upwind around 45 to 55 deg and downwind around 140 to 150 deg.
On trim, the mainsail traveller appeared to be worked low on tack exits early, with a brief pump above centreline and back to give a quick power-up, a movement that was progressively dropped as the breeze built until tacks were being made with just a trim of the traveller to centreline.
Gybe exits appeared to be made with the traveller above centreline. The jib appeared to carry a distinctly powered-up, deep shape on gybe exits, taking around three to four seconds to flatten as the boat accelerated, and looked flatter on one touch-and-go gybe (20:53 to 21:22 in the video highlights).
The upper mainsail leeches also appeared to carry more separation between the two skins, from the head to about the second sail-shape stripe, than on earlier days; an additional white band along the leech and along the luff between the second and third stripes formed a square on the starboard skin that drew attention on board, and a thin horizontal sail-shape stripe appeared to have been added below the second main stripe.
A battery change was carried out around 15:00, and the jib was changed from J3-2 to the smaller J4-2 as the breeze built, before the final run from 15:20 to 15:43, which was the quickest of the day. Sailing finished at 15:43 for a total of around 1h33 across the five runs. The jib and then the mainsail were dropped, the boat took a bow tow back, and docked in at 16:31 to visibly happy faces after a long and productive day, before returning to the shed at 17:51.
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