America's Cup update

ACRM CEO Iain Murray brings us up to speed following last week's Competitor Forum

The 34th America’s Cup continues to move at lightning pace and so following another Competitor’s Forum that took place in New Zealand last week, we felt it time to catch up once again with Regatta Director and CEO of America’s Cup Race Management, Iain Murray.

The meet last week it should be noted was a ‘Forum’ rather than a ‘briefing’, the former being solely for teams that have formally entered, be it publicly or not, the latter being open also to prospectives. According to Murray, most of the eight teams - Oracle Racing, Mascalzone Latino, Artemis Racing, Aleph and TeamAustralia, plus one anonymous team, were present while absent was the Peyron’s Energy Challenge (read more about them here), who were being represented by Emirates Team NZ and another anonymous team, possibly from Spain.

The three day forum covered a lot of ground in particular tidying up the AC72 rule and also the Racing Rules for the 34th America’s Cup. While the Racing Rules are due for publication imminently, as reported the most significant change to the AC72 rule was the reduction in wing sections from eight to six (ie three full wings). According to Murray this reduction has been in discussion for a while. “It is definitely a cost saving, but it is a complexity that I don’t think anyone wanted either. It is just another whole project.”

While there is some flexibility in the scale of the wing, from 255 to 260sqm area, Murray says that feedback he has received from the teams indicates they are okay with this size. “Having seen the 45 sailing in excess of 30 knots, I think the wing and the bow-up attitude of the boat, everyone feels a bit more comfortable.”

After the reduction in number of wing sections, the biggest amendment has been a move to prevent designs that induce righting moment from the windward daggerboard (as stated in article 9.9 of the AC72 rule), although this does sound like something we’d like to know more about...

Regarding the Racing Rules, Murray says that they are just going through their final stage with ISAF, prior to publication, possibly today. As mentioned in previous articles, in an effort to make America’s Cup sailing more accessible to a non-sailing public, there has been a significant drive to simplify the rules. Work on this has been spearheaded by Richard Slater, Mike Martin and Bryan Willis, along with other selected umpires. Much of the amendments to the AC72 rule followed its close scrutiny from the Measurement Committee, resulting in word changes.

“There are a lot less of them and we’ve tried to concentrate on what is relevant to sailing these hull speed cats to in relatively small fleets,” says Murray. “They are real specific and that is what it says on the front: Rules for the America’s Cup and that’s fleet and match racing.”

So it seems unlikely that the rules designed for the AC will filter down wholescale into the rest of sailing, although some parts may be adopted... “Maybe there are some parts in there. The way we’ve treated overlaps and mark roundings and definitions - there could be.”

Some time was spent discussing the AC45 at last week's meeting. While sail dimensions have been published for this along with the general ethos of the boat, the AC45 Class Rule remains a work in progress. Murray says that they have dealt with the AC72 rule, the measurement committee will now be focussing on this. “The boats are what they are and we are saying don’t get your boat and start changing it, because it’s not allowed.”

As reported following its unfortunate capsize at the beginning of last week, the AC45 is now back in action, with the Artemis team sailing her in Auckland until the middle of this week.

So did Artemis stump up for breaking it? “They primarily fixed it. It wasn’t anything huge. The main thing was the materials were minimal, it was just the time. We took the opportunity to run a workshop and educate other people who are about to get boats, to applying the films and bits and pieces to the wing, etc. It has been quite beneficial from that point of view and we made a few modifications to how the wing flaps attach, just things we picked up when the incident happened.”

The capsize occurred when the AC45 was at a standstill, a gust caught the wing causing the catamaran to go backwards (nothing unusual in a catamaran). She then flipped backwards over her transoms (which is unusual).

“I don’t think it was terribly violent,” says Murray. “The funny thing is - the faster they go, it is almost like the softer the landing in a way, because they sail down, they have flow all the way like a plane coming in to land. It is like that Vodafone [ORMA 60] rig that went over the other day - they didn’t even break the Windex and they were probably nudging 30 knots when it went over!”

It has been suggested that having transom scoops on a boat that is likely to sail backwards occasionally, isn’t the brightest move. “We’ll put some film on it to stop the water scooping it up. It is no problem when the boat is going forward. Probably the biggest lesson to learn out of this is to keep the boat going forward and keep steerage on.”

Stopping the AC45 isn’t recommended it seems, unless it is somehow tethered. “Like I can’t tell you how many booms we broke in Fremantle having lunch! You sail around in a relaxed way and the boat gets loaded and stressed in ways that it is not designed for, without the full complement of sails, etc. These boats aren’t different to any boats like that. I know the ACC boats had similar problems sailing around under mainsail only. It was tough on booms and other bits and pieces.”

Murray says that to date he hasn’t had the opportunity to try out the AC45 himself.

While Artemis are back on board this week, it is unclear of who gets a go on it next. This could be Mascalzone Latino. “The boat might have a rest for a little bit. We have stringent rules on the use of the boat,” says Murray.

One reason is that beyond AC45 no1, which belongs to ACRM, hulls no2-4 have now been issued to the teams with hull no5 being delivered this week. So this would presumably be Oracle Racing, Mascalzone Latino and Artemis Racing with Emirates Team NZ being in there too. 

And this presumably means that teams have paid for them? “It certainly does!” says Murray.

While the first America’s Cup World Series event is to take over 16-24 July with the AC45s scheduled to be shipping from New Zealand in the middle of May, Murray says that some warm-up racing between the boats may be held in Auckland before they go. “We are having trials of racing and TV equipment and on board stuff - a dress rehersal down there at end of April, beginning of May.” He adds for this they expect to have six or seven boats, including their own (hull no1) while eight AC45s will be on the ship in May. Come the AC World Series regattas the ACRM boat (hull no1) will either remain at the dock as a spare or will be raced by a team, says Murray.

While dates for the America’s Cup World Series have been published, the venues have not. They were due at the end of January but according to Murray they are now due at the end of March. Palma and Newport, RI seem to be the names springing up most often.

At the Competitor Forum they also ran through the planning documents for San Francisco. According to Murray the America’s Cup Event Authority is in the process of establishing themselves there while his team at ACRM are represented in the AC34 venue by their newly appointed PRO and local resident, John Craig. Otherwise ACRM will remain spread out across the globe with their main administrative base in the UK (in Guildford) plus another in New Zealand.

Other significant dates coming up are the close of entries on 31 March followed by the first performance bond of US$ 200,000 due on 30 April.

So given the hectic schedule, particularly for the launch of the AC45s, progress with the 34th America’s Cup seems to be going well. “We’d clearly love some venues, but in terms of us being on top of what we need to be on top of...we are pretty much staffed up,” says Murray. New appointments include PRO John Craig, Harold Bennett who will be in charge of the on the water activity and Mike Martin who runs the administration side of the rules and umpiring.

“So we have most of the people in place, we have been working on that for some time,” he continues. “It is nice to have rules, class rules and racing rules and umpiring systems. From a logistics point of view I think we can go and run racing tomorrow which is quite remarkable really. And San Francisco – that big document is well laid out now, obviously it is a long winded approval process but the wheels are spinning there.”

And his latest number of teams forecast? “I could see use having an initial 12 entries, which is how many start in the AC45. We have said from eight on Tour and eight in the America’s Cup and anything more is a bonus. I’m sure we’ll lose one or two.”