INEOS Britannia is sharing the Bay of Palma this week with the near 1,000 boats competing in the Princess Sofia Olympic classes regatta and their session started with a fly-by of the ILCA/Laser race area.
Before the British crew – helmsmen Giles Scott and Dylan Fletcher (on his birthday), and trimmers/flight controllers Luke Parkinson and Iain Jensen – headed off into the open waters of the west side of the Bay – they did a fly-by of the ILCA/Laser race area.
This Regatta is familiar ground for many of the INEOS Team who competed here in this same Olympic classes regatta on their way to representing Britain in the Olympic Games.
The 52 Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofía Mallorca by Iberostar is the first World Cup qualifying event of the season, with 66 different nations competing . . . In total there are 1259 athletes competing.
The complex challenge of the new W-Foil that the team are sporting on the short starboard arm, is being taken head-on and, whisper it quietly, is beginning to look like the early foothills of a game-changer.
INEOS Britannia’s silver ‘T6’ LEQ12 test boat looked to be firing on all cylinders during an almost six-hour testing session conducted in winds ranging between 8 to 15 knots.
Clearly the focus was on data gathering with some prolonged straight-line runs – particularly on the starboard W-foil.
Especially later in the day the crew seemed determined to push this foil to its limits and there were several upwind splashdowns as they repeatedly ‘found the edge’.
A noticeable vibration was noticed in the upper section of the mainsail leach – which appeared not to be fixable on the water.
Talking about the modes that the team were trialling today, Giles said:
“Yeah we were certainly pushing it to some pretty extreme states and probably not states that you could race the foil in, but finding those corners and how it acts in those corner cases is always interesting, certainly for the design team.”
Dylan Fletcher-Scott is proving to be an inspired selection to partner with Giles Scott who had the honour today of flying from the port helm on the starboard W-Foil.
These two look to be gelling extremely well and on the 18 tacks and gybes that they completed, the hand-over transitions looked sharp and a 72% success rate of foil-to-foil or touch & go on 18 manoeuvres was, in the conditions, excellent.
Related post:
INEOS Britannia T6 gets a makeover and a radical new foil design
RSS – Posts