First INEOS Team UK AC75, Britannia, is back in the water following the mast stepping as rigging continues before first sail trials.
Just after the rollout and launch of Britannia, the Tip & Shaft Newsletter caught up with INEOS Team UK Head of Design Nick Holroyd.
They asked him his thoughts on the three boats which have already been launched?
Everybody is pushing. Really pushing. There are a lot of ideas, quite new and novel ideas. It is very hard to go past the Team New Zealand boat for two reasons.
There are few bits of information to which we are not privy to, like the wind limits might be etc., and two, we had five months from class rule to launching boat 1, they undoubtedly had this concept in their simulator a lot longer than that, I was taking to them in October the year before so they probably had six months more.
The bustle on the Kiwi boat?
It is very smart. Theirs is a very clever boat.
Does it worry you?
We are on Boat 1 right . . . (laughs) . . . No, not at all. What worry me is if I could not see the reason for it or understand the purpose behind it or the logic.
Digging one layer back what are the cards they are holding which drags them in that direction? They have had longer and know the conditions. I would pick their boat as one which has to some extent disregarded any floating races.
(NDLR That is what Guillaume Verdier was saying last week in Tip & Shaft . . . Holroyd jokes . . . ’Yes, Guillaume was first on my phone…..’He said why on earth does it look like that?’ . . . he is watching and we all watch each other).
American Magic is probably closest to us in terms of a boat which will perform well in the floating condition. It is a nice boat, very well executed and they are on the water early and learning. It is a good programme.
Luna Rossa is quite an extreme boat, their foils are very, very small. There is learning for us to take from them. Like I said, every one is pushing hard. Which is great. There is never any expectation on our side that we slow down, we back off or get conservative.
Will your second boat more radical?
It will be different . . . even if you think you are right you would not build another one the same. I am not arrogant enough to think I am right. And there is a lot to learn from other people, to put resource into different places in the design cycle.
There are some easy wins…these guys have put a lot of effort in there, what did they find and we incorporate? And I am happy to be shameless and copy of that gets you ahead?
Read the full Tip & Shaft article here
In further America’s Cup developments, ETNZ hoisted and sailed with their Code Zero for the first time yesterday.
Related Post:
Snap-shot of the INEOS Team UK launch day . . .
Luna Rossa Launch their first AC75
RSS – Posts