Behind the wheel?

madforsailing caught up with Andy Green, one of GBR Challenge's potential helmsmen come 1 October

One of interesting aspects of the design process was the amount of input the sailing team had in it. "We copied the Team New Zealand model as much as we could to get as much input from the sailors as we could," says Green. "Because there is only so much the designers can do on the detail about how the boat works around the race course.

"Shag has been overall in charge of that. But people like Mark Covell have been doing a lot with the new winches, dealing with Lewmar. People like Boycey has been dealing with all the new rigging and Jaime Marina has been in charge of a lot of the deck gear and the structure and the mast and the sailing side, as well as all of the designers of course."

The first outings were ginger to make sure that everything had bedded in and that there was nothing glaringly wrong with the boat. Green says it was also an opportunity for the sailing team to gain confidence with their new boat. They have obviously been looking at trim, balance and the sail wardrobe, but one of the most nerve racking episodes was the structural testing.

"You do things like heel it over as far as you can," Green recalls. America's Cup Class boats are not what you might describe as tender - they weigh 25 tonnes of which around 20 tonnes is in the keel... "It is a scary thing to do, because if the boat heels more than a certain angle, the keel falls off! If you look back to the last America's Cup, there are a couple of times when boats broached - America One and the French did it - and if you broach further than a certain angle, there's a possibility that the keel will fall off because the structure's not designed to take it. Saying that it is almost physically impossible to tip it over, so you go to the point of where you can't tip it any more - within safe parameters - it's a safety test effectively.

"So we had two rescue divers and two RIBs and all the pumps and an expert from SP, someone from the rigging company, the head boatbuilder and two assistant boat builders - the full jamboree out on the boat - and then you put the wheel down and crank the thing up and everyone pulls the sails in you lean it over. And when you you're standing there on the wheel and you're looking down at the guy trimming the headsail, he's probably about 20ft away from you, almost directly underneath you. So it's scary - but fun."

To everyone's relief GBR-70 passed with flying colours. "The boat builders have done just an amazing job with the boat. It just looks really really good," says Green. GBR-70 then went back into the shed for some detail work to be finished off.

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Two boat testing - GBR-70 against 52.