Just four months before the start of the America's Cup elimination, the team of Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Tornqvist surprises with a supposed admission of weakness. "We need to be more committed to foiling," says Paul Cayard, team boss at Artemis Racing, the sailing information service Scuttlebutt. Foiling" refers to flying on wings, which the three other teams Oracle Racing, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa have been practising more or less successfully for some time now.
According to Cayard, the training days together with Cup defender Oracle Racing provided valuable insights. The team boss also provides insights into the complex design strategy that this still young sailing technology requires.
"When we talk about foiling, we only mean reducing the displacement of the boat. This is achieved by the lift created by the wing of the rudder blade and the shape of the centreboards. However, there is not just black or white, but foiling means a range between zero and the entire weight of the boat. A completely foiling boat means that the entire weight is lifted out of the water," says Cayard.
The first Swedish AC72 catamaran has J-shaped centreboards, which also generate lift, but not enough to lift the entire boat. "The game in foiling is to balance lift and drag," says Cayard. The more lift a wing generates, the higher its drag. The L-shaped centreboards of the competition have more wetted surface than a J-shaped one, but at the same time the angle of attack in the current is much steeper, so the drag is significantly higher. In return, they generate more lift.
"The teams' design programmes can predict what will cost more resistance and how much more lift will be achieved. And you have to say we did it wrong," Cayard admits surprisingly openly, firing a broadside at one of the best designers in the world at the moment, the team's chief designer Juan Kouyoumdjian. It is better to admit this now than to realise it in July, Cayard continues. "What we still need to find out is how much impact L-foils have on manoeuvrability and acceleration downwind. But they don't seem to be a major obstacle at Oracle, if at all."
The decision to switch to a fully foiling catamaran meant that the existing boat had to be rebuilt. The centreboards, centreboard boxes and rudders would have to be redesigned. This is why the cat is now going into the shipyard for three weeks. At the same time, an AC45 catamaran would be converted so that foiling could be practised on it. But even after the conversion, the AC72 cat would not lift itself completely out of the water. Modifying it for this would take too long.
The second cat is due to fly and be tested for the first time by the end of May at the latest. By then, however, the competition from the USA, New Zealand and Italy will have been practising flying for more than six months.
What does this reorientation mean?
Artemis Racing was Oracle Racing's first challenger, the so-called Challenger of Record. Together with US team boss Russell Coutts, Paul Cayard's team set the conditions, including the boats, for this defence. It is therefore all the more surprising that Artemis Racing has apparently reached an impasse and is now under time pressure, as the elimination of the challengers, i.e. the races against Italy and New Zealand, will begin on 9 July.
Probably never before has a challenger admitted to having miscalculated the design so close to the Cup. So why is Cayard doing this? If what he says on the record is true, the two other challengers can actually write the Swedes off. They only have a good month to get to know their race cat and its new driving behaviour, which is hardly enough time to be competitive.
Or is it just a smokescreen, which wouldn't really be surprising in the Cup business? Only the races will provide the answer.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
