Behind the wheel?

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

In comparison with their training boats GBR-41 and 52, Wight Lightning is much stiffer fore and aft. "On the Japanese boats, if you've got someone who hasn't let the runner off before and they jerk the runner when they release it, the boat sort of drops from underneath you. Particularly when you are the helmsman standing up here, you bear away and it suddenly goes 'DONK' and then comes back straight again.

"You can definitely feel that the Japanese boats are three years old but when you do that on the new boat it is stiff as a board. We're looking at having under 20mm of bend over the entire length of the boat when you've got 16 tons of load through the runners and the forestay. 20mm is not that much over 80ft and we're looking for less than that. And that is the essence of these boats - you've got to keep them as stiff as you can. So the boat feels good."

Wight Lightning then went back into the shed for minor detailing work to be completed before embarking on an intense period that is comprising more speed testing than match racing practice. "The sailing team really feel that we've done most of our match race training now in the old boats," says Green, who expects that when the time is right they will line up against other challengers' new boats.

In the meantime the new, new boat, Wight MagicGBR-78 is also now in the rather crowded GBR Challenge compound in Viaduct Basin although it's exact role has yet to be finalised. "The main reason I think we've brought it down is to foreshorten the learning process for the next America's Cup," says Green. "And by bringing it down now it means that we work it up over the next six months as opposed to leaving it in Cowes and getting to it in April and I think that's so valuable."

Significantly he adds: "The intention really is not to sail GBR-78 at this stage. If of course it turns out there are no problems with it and we can work it up to speed very quickly and it proves to be a good boat then maybe there's a chance we could use it in the second or third round robin. But we'll always have it there in the quiver, but the absolute focus is on GBR70 and we're not going to get distracted by having the other boat down there. And we have a small team that are working on 78 as opposed to taking a whole bunch of people and splitting the team. There are 3 or 4 people looking after 78 and that's really not taking any resource away from 70." So while GBR Challenge is effectively a two boat campaign, it is not in quite the same way as other challengers.

See part two of this interview on madforsailing tomorrow.