INEOS Britannia rolled out ‘T6’, their LEQ12 prototype, after a week of upgrades and modifications in Palma, Mallorca.
The most obvious change being that the radical inverted W-Foil concept that the team have been trialling since the mid March, has been dropped for now.
Its replacement on the starboard side is a gently curving anhedral with winglets both inboard and outboard that the on-site Recon team immediately nicknamed the ‘banana foil’ – See top image.
The new foil is covered in high mounted cameras. Two are on the top surface – one on the inner wing section and one in the centre in line with the foil arm connection – with the third mounted underneath in the middle, mirroring the one on top.
The starboard foil arm also looked to be new as the widened section just above the join with the foil wing appeared to be a slightly larger and less curved shape.
The Recon Unit made some interesting observations about the trailing edge control flap, with the team commenting:
“although the distinct shape of an aft flap and hinge could be seen on the underside of the foil, from our vantage points there did not appear to be any indication of this on the top surface.”
The port foil assembly appeared to be the same one as before, but both foils are now painted in hi-vis dayglo orange and with plenty of immersion markers. It will be interesting to see the overall effect on T6’s performance.
Other than the foils, no other changes to the boat were observed.
After rolling out the boat was levelled, the mast stepped, and the rig carefully calibrated, and load tested. With the rig setup completed the mast was un-stepped and the boat rolled back in the shed.
A sailing session on the new set-up is scheduled for Wednesday.
This could well see a very different performance profile now from ‘T6’ from here on in as the team push ever closer to the end-plating and bustle-skimming techniques that they have been honing.
Low flight could be key to Barcelona.
Related Post:
INEOS Britannia T6 gets a makeover and a radical new foil design
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