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HomeNewsArchivesNOTES FROM NEW ZEALAND AND AMERICA'S CUP XXX

NOTES FROM NEW ZEALAND AND AMERICA'S CUP XXX

Another good week of training and preparation here in New Zealand as we get ready to start racing in the Challenger Series for the America's Cup on October 18. In another classic example of the variable weather in this country, we started the week with a little rain, hail and temperatures between 35 and 50 degrees, and then ended the week with some beautiful sunny days in the 70's. Really amazing! If you could have seen me riding to the gym on my bicycle at 5:15 a.m. when it was 38 degrees, you would have been convinced this island boy had lost his mind! To go along with this wild weather, we had winds of 35 knots for the first half of the week, then 0-5 midweek, and a nice 10-15 at the end of the week. They say here that if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, because it will change!
One major accomplishment for us this week was completing the measurement process. The measurement period started on September 18 and each team must go through an elaborate process of weighing, measuring, floating on its lines, etc. all before the racing starts. This is a tricky time where your custom designed and built machine must all fall within the precise rule limits and minimums. If something doesn't measure as calculated, many days can be lost to first modify and then get another appointment for the measurer's to re-check. We were the first team to sign up and in another great sign of our team of designers, builders, and project managers, it went incredibly smooth. So this was a great hurdle for us to cross and now we can focus on just sailing, testing, and the race ahead.
We took advantage of these measurement days to do some match race training. Since we only have a one-boat Cup program, we need to sharpen our match racing skills by some other means, so we borrowed two 30 foot Etchels and spent two days match racing. We assembled two teams using the primary trimmers and afterguard and had two great days of focusing on the rules and maneuvers particular to match racing.
Once the big boat, USA 55, was reassembled, we spent the next several days testing and tuning. All went well, nothing broke, and we gathered valuable new information on getting the boat to perform at its peak potential.
As for the competition, everything is cranking up. All the teams and their boats have now arrived. The two Japanese boats are being assembled and should be sailing by next week. They have covered the corners, going with one wide boat and one narrow. The French boat is extremely narrow and should be sailing next week. Both of these teams have decided to follow our lead and not cover their underbody. The Swiss boat appears the most radical, having a canard rudder in the front of the boat as well as the rudder in the back. This theory has been proven to work in airplanes but has had limited success on boats. The Italian boats have arrived but are hidden inside their sheds. New York's second boat arrived, as did AmericaOne from San Francisco. The two Hawaiian boats are still in their shed with lots of work being done to get them sailing in time. Spain was the newest arrival on the race course this week, so we had seven Cup boats all tuning up one day which was pretty exciting.
I have attached a special photo. In-house we have titled it "The First Crossing"; our USA 55 crossing 5 feet in front of Team New Zealand's new boat one day when we were both out testing. We can now take credit as being the first team to cross ahead of the Defenders new boat!!
Peter Holmberg

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