Emirates Team New Zealand continue testing their rebuilt AC75 with an interrupted session on Friday 17 April, day 12 on the Hauraki Gulf.
Sailing on starboard tack with the Code J3.2 – a relatively big sail for the conditions – a failure at the sail tack bond under heavy Cunningham load caused what looked like a dramatic failure with the sail coming clean away from the forestay and the carbon battens clattering against the mast.
The session, having lasted some four hours, was stopped for further assessment.
Chris Draper, helming from the port side of the boat opposite skipper Nathan Outteridge in the starboard pod, put it in perspective saying: “That was obviously a bit annoying and a sad way to finish the day because it had been a glamour session up until then. But yeah, it was just a failure on the tack – nothing major and nothing that the team can’t deal with.”
Apart from some batten clash with the spar there didn’t look to be any rig damage, the permanent forestay saving the rig. The age of the sail was not known, but sails from AC37 are being used in the testing sessions.
Draper is filling in for Seb Menzies in this training block as Menzies is in Quiberon, France, with George Lee Rush for the 49er World Championships from 12-17 May.
In the early phase of the session, conducted in lighter winds of 6–8 knots, a couple of rudder ventilation events were observed, although it was unclear if this was an aggressive test of rudder rake range or a forced ventilation.
Notably the boat was consistently sailed high on ride height. This set the tone for the day: a deliberate exploration of limits, specifically the lower-speed foiling envelope. As the session progressed, the team repeatedly engaged what appeared to be a defined “high slow mode.”
The boat was sailed at elevated ride heights and comparatively low speeds, suggesting a targeted effort to better understand stability and control at the margins of sustained flight.
A key focus emerged around take-off and stall behaviour. Low take-off speeds were observed in the 14–15 knot range, indicating continued refinement in early flight capability. More importantly, there was clear and repeatable testing of the port foil’s stall limits.
The boat consistently dropped out of flight in the 16–18 knot range during these tests, suggesting a structured effort to map the boundary conditions of foil performance and control system response, forcing the stall and observing this process.
The session ultimately came to an early conclusion following the major failure of the jib tack fitting.
