After a few days off, the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Team came back out of their temporary shed at the Barcelona Nautic Centre.
With Dean Barker jetting in to start putting the pedal to the floor as the light-weather that has dogged the Mediterranean for a week finally broke, producing winds in the upper bracket of safe sailing.
Clearly the relationship between designated Skipper, Arnaud Psarofaghis and Barker is proving to be a positive one with Arnaud leaning on the experience of the Kiwi to extract ever-better helming performance.
And it’s clear that the new boomless configuration is offering a balance and control above what the team has experienced to date.
As the breeze built through the day and the hazy cloud cover shrouded Barcelona, as forecast, BoatZero was put to its max with some fast runs out along the Barcelona waterfront.
Finding stability in the puffy conditions was tough at times with the flight controllers working hard to keep the boat level and low-riding fast but it was an encouraging performance ahead of a big rise and splash-down to conclude the session – heart in mouth time for the boys but all safe and well!
Nils Theunink confirmed what the recon teams saw on the water saying: “The boat feels lighter and more controllable and the mainsail looks so much better.”
Clearly a big tick to the Alinghi Red Bull Racing engineers and sail designers who have been slaving over the design and build for months, since almost the start of the programme.
The connection between deck and sail, as well as the whole clew box aerodynamic are looking slicker and slicker. If this truly is to be an area of design development, then Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s sail team are making big steps forward.
The Swiss team aim to resume sailing on Saturday 5 November.
