It's only a short video, but it's very exciting for fans of the America's Cup: in the video from Team Ineos UK, the cupper "Britannia" with the striking platypus bow can be seen foiling for the first time. This means that fans have now seen three of the four completed boats fly, after Team American Magic's "Defiant" and the New Zealanders' "Te Aihe".
The British team's approach appears to be extremely exciting; it remains to be seen whether the filigree bow has more functions than just saving hull material and thus weight and aerodynamic resistance. As far as can be seen in the video, the team appears to be using a normal mainsail; there is still no sign of the New Zealanders' two-layer sail design.
However, the first, albeit rough, pixelated YouTube images of it have surfaced. There are some videos of amateurs and fans circulating on the net showing the New Zealanders' boat during test runs, and some tubes can be seen at the end of the main boom, which could be an air pressure system or something similar for a foil-like, inflatable structure in the sail. Neither the Americans nor the British seem to have a similar system, or they simply don't show it yet. According to a fan in one of the videos, the New Zealand AC75 foils very stably in just seven knots of wind.
Team New Zealand has now also published its first sailing images. The first videos from the Luna Rossa team, which recently launched its boat as the last of the major syndicates, are now eagerly awaited.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
