Flying from day one

Murray Jones tells us Alinghi 5's sea trials while Brad Butterworth was in court on Tuesday

The Swiss America's Cup defenders have now sailed Alinghi 5, le grand chat, possibly the world’s widest catamaran for its length, for two days and impressively on its first outing the boat flew a hull both upwind and downwind in typically light Lake Geneva breeze of 5-9 knots. While narrow catamarans will readily fly a hull, getting a cat that is nearly square in terms of its length:beam to do this is much harder and an indication firstly that their boat is light and secondly that the sail plan is generating simply monstrous power.

“It was pretty exciting to do the first day’s sail,” Murray Jones, who has been co-ordinating the early sea trials, told thedailysail. “And it is incredibly successful for us that we could achieve so much on the first two days. We thought we wouldn’t get as far through our list as we did on the first day because it was allocated for structural testing, but everything was going so well and we’d ticked everything off the boxes, we just kept pushing on, so we could load it up and fly the hull, which was pretty nice. And it was awesome, the boat looked awesome and it seemed awesome to sail.”

While Jones helmed it briefly, most of the time on the wheel was Team Principal Ernesto Bertarelli, who is probably still the most experienced non-French cat helmsman on the team, with design team adviser Alain Gautier.


Ernesto Bertarelli with Alain Gautier and below with Murray Jones



So what surprised Jones about it? “It felt quite easy to sail, it didn’t feel like a huge boat, it felt like a smaller catamaran. It was quite responsive. The steering will take a bit of getting used to and tuning to get everything running well, but everything was working pretty well. One thing you have got to appreciate on these boats is that the loads are absolutely massive. You’ve just got to be aware of that when you are sailing, knowing that the loads are three or four times what we are used it. Safety first.”

Love it or hate it, Alinghi 5 is the first racing multihull to be fitted with powered hydraulics in the same way as the maxi-monohulls like Alfa Romeo, Wild Oats and ICAP Leopard. Thus trimming is a push button affair, but significantly all the hoists that previously would have had the grinders burning through watts, are now also done at the flick of a switch. While this might give the impression that days in the gym are now a thing for the past, considerable manpower is still needed for the manoeuvres and in particular lugging the humungous sails around on deck.

Jones won’t commit to how many crew he reckons they have shed through having the powered hydraulics but acknowledges there is still much physical work to be done on board. However in this they have an advantage of being an inshore boat. While the sail plan is considerably larger than even boats like Banque Populaire V, the world's longest racing trimaran, Jones says that the sails and rig are considerably lighter in comparison.

The crew also have many more controls to deal with than they previously saw on the V5 boats. For example there are twin daggerboards to be hauled up and down, the towering wingmast not only rotates but can be canted from side to side (again presumably a push button affair) and if they have really gone the whole hog then the rake of the rig may also be adjustable (as it was on the later ORMA 60 tris) via a hydraulic ram at the bottom of the forestay. Ok, perhaps they’re not that brave…

That they felt able to fly a hull on their first day out, Jones says is testament to their sophisticated fibre optic load sensing. “All the structural elements on the boat, all the rigging, the rig and the hull and the beams, the mast, the foils – they all have fibre optics strain monitoring equipment, so while we are sailing the boat we can look at the loads on all those parts in real time, so we know what the loads are and that’s why we could keep pushing it on the first few days. We have got alarms, but you can see the numbers as well. It is a pretty cool system. It is much much more advanced than anything else we’ve had before on our America’s Cup boats.”

One of the most revolutionary features has been the S-bend shaped daggerboards. We assumed that the top of the S was simply there for engineering reasons, to enable each board to be cranked down. But Jones says this is not the case. “They are radical. That was part of the testing program we did last year in Valencia, sailing on the Alinghi 41, we built some boards of the same concept. A normal tri will have a centreboard and some C-foils. You can’t do that with a catamaran, so this is the solution and it gives us a lot of options. The concept is that when you are sailing downwind, the board is half up or reduced area, but because it is an S it is rotated inboard a lot, so it has got a lot of horizontal lifting capability when the board is half down. But when you push it all the way down, because of that top part of S, it cants it back out and makes it more vertical.” Cunning and certainly something which, if it works, we'll be seeing on cats from dinghy size up, even though trying to shove this snake-shaped appendage down a daggerboard case must be quite an interesting exercise for the engineers and builders.

Aside from running the trials, Jones is also involved with the rig program, as he has been with the Cup monohulls, and for him this was his first wingmast. “I have found it a really interesting project, especially because you have no rules, no limits - it is great, looking at all the options and its always weight, you are just trying to save weight all the time because on a multihull that is everything.”

Again the wingmast will be relatively light compared to the wingmasts that we have seen for more than three decades now on the French offshore multihulls. Jones points out that while the French wingmasts have become almost standardised with shrouds and lowers, they have taken a different route, presumably to save weight, with a diamond strut and double diamond stays, which has allowed them to shed the lowers.

Back to the boy racer aspect of their trials and Jones vaguely says that during their trials so far they were into the 20s boat speed-wise, sailing at twice wind speed. He reckons 40 knots will be possible. We would imagine 25 knots upwind being possible too and if there is likely to be a performance difference between their big cat and BMW Oracle Racing’s tri (assuming this is what they pitch up with) then we would predict it will be pointing angle. Tris are typically better at this, although Jones states: “This boat has been designed for an up and downwind course, so it is different from the round the world boats that do a lot of reaching, so it should sail well upwind.”

For Jones the work-up program for Alinghi 5 will continue out of Bouveret at the opposite end of the lake from Geneva into the first week of August when the very scary helicopter airlift from Switzerland to Geneva will take place. “Going over the Alps - it will be incredible. Everyone will be a bit nervous about that,” says Jones, who added he is looking forward to seeing what the boat will do in 15 knots when the boat arrives in the Med.

In New York

Meanwhile Brad Butterworth has drawn the short straw this week and rather than playing with revolutionary 21st century yachting equipment on Lake Geneva was in New York on Tuesday at the court hearing.

“I went to New York because it was a sailing issue. It was one of the first times that the sailing side has come up and also the ISAF agreement, which is something that I was involved with,” he says, adding that he is likely to go yachting on the big cat for the first time this weekend.

Tuesday’s hour in the Supreme Court was one of those unusual instances when both sides came out feeling they had won. Alinghi/SNG weren’t held in contempt. BMW Oracle Racing/GGYC wasn’t disqualified. Scrubbing RRS 49-54 was permitted and while this was a victory for the Swiss, as least BMW Oracle Racing gained some clarity over the rules and can now go about modifying their boat(s).

Butterworth refutes that RRS 49-54, that specifically in their case allows the use of powered winches [Rolf Vrolijk isn't keen on water ballast], were ever going to be used. “It was always clear. You just have to look at 1988 - if you look at that it is a blue print. All we have done, because we have nothing to go by, is we have gone by 1988. So it is good old Tom Ehman’s rules, given back to him.

“I think that the way that both teams have viewed this cycle of the Cup has been reinforced, where the Deed is paramount and the boats are designed accordingly – so a 360deg design window, you can do what you want really.”

He adds: “The finding of the court was a pretty nice situation for us because it reinforced the situation and the philosophy what we’ve done to design the boat. It was a good time for us. While I say it was a sailing argument and now that it has gone, I am happy that both teams can see that we can move on. Tom just needs to read his rules of 1988 and everyone will be happy.”

While BMW Oracle Racing’s Tom Ehman is hammering home the point that if the venue for the 33rd America’s Cup, when it is announced on 6 August (Butterworth won’t absolutely confirm it is the 6th not the 8th of August), must be Valencia or southern hemisphere or there will be trouble, Butterworth counters with the BMW Oracle Racing boat having measures 90ft long by 90ft beam exactly on the load waterline.

“The judge has said in the past that if they’re not 90 by 90 they will be disqualified,” states Butterworth. “You’d be a bit crazy not to build your boat 90 by 90 when you challenge. We’ll wait and see.”

He has resigned himself to not seeing the Customs House Registry document for the American challenger, but reiterates: “They aren’t going to give it to us and it doesn’t really matter. As long as they are 90 by 90 there shouldn’t be any worries, so it is not a big deal.”

This was backed up by Justice Kornreich in her summary on Tuesday: “In regard to SNG's application, I am stating right now that, although the Deed does not require a certain date, it does require that the vessel conform to the challenge dimensions, if the CHR does not conform to the challenge dimensions, it is this Court's belief, and my direction, that Golden Gate will be disqualified, and I am directing Golden Gate, in good faith, to abide by the Deed, to make application for the CHR as soon as possible and providing it as soon as possible.”

In comparisonthe defender has much more flexibility in that they don’t have to announce their boat until the day of the regatta (not that they have a second boat option) and otherwise according to Butterworth their vessel must conform to the Deed’s length stipulations of 90ft LWL for a sloop and 115ft for a two master.

Having now read, with the aid of a powerful double expresso, the transcript from Tuesday’s hour in the Supreme Court, there was much talk of ISAF and the rules and there still remains little clarity on how BMW Oracle Racing’s trimaran, which presumably only has two of its three hulls in the water at one time, will have its 90ft load waterline measured.

On Tuesday Justice Kornreich reserved judgement which the BMW Oracle Racing/GGYC legal team felt would be forthcoming in 7-10 days. However Butterworth says that it is his understand that she might not even write an order. “She told the teams what had happened – I didn’t see any problems with what she explained. She was straightforward and pretty clear. So I don’t know if she is going to write anything.”

As to the mediation this is to continue, but Butterworth says this came to a grinding halt previously when BMW Oracle Racing/GGYC returned them to the Supreme Court. “It was George Bush mediation. We were at mediation but then we got sued again. Even the judge was surprised that she didn’t realise that mediation was terminated. That must be a Republican thing!”

As to the venue, contrary to what BMW Oracle/GGYC believe, Alinghi/SNG have interpreted the courts’ decision as allowing them the right to choose a venue in the northern or southern hemisphere and Butterworth says “we are trying to sort out a venue that is good and safe and out of the winter.”

So going home possibly [Auckland]? “I don’t think we’ll be going that far.” Equally Butterworth talks of “shipping the boat from Genoa” so it sounds like it won’t be there. Valencia will be too ‘wintry’, so a Gulf state venue seems like the most probably option – and thus we can expect to see the two sides back in the Supreme court by the end of August, unless, as Ehman says, they can agree to the venue by ‘mutual consent’.