The INEOS Britannia race-training continued with the pace noticeably lifting but the cream really rising to top. Once again, it was a dominant Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott who really stamped their authority over Dylan Fletcher-Scott and Ben Cornish over a six-flight series of pre-starts and full-on race practice.
Any issue that the ‘works’ boat ‘Athena’ had in terms of speed deficiency over the newer AC40 of the Athena Pathway programme ‘Sienna’ are old news now and the be-medalled duo really put the hammer down, commanding the pre-starts and showing no mercy when ahead. Still though, plenty for Rob Wilson, the team coach, to analyse after racing with a few mis-called laylines but as the race reports from Argentinian Olympic Coach, Sebastian Peri Brusa, below show, it was pretty much one way traffic all morning after a super early dock-out.
‘Sienna’ has been, in comparison, struggling a little bit so far this week but Ben Cornish, helming today in the port pod fessed-up in his usual honest manner saying: “We talked about it on the way in, we were probably giving away a bit with some rusty manoeuvres…a few of the gybes were tricky on our boat today but other than that the racing was really good, it was tight, we were setting up for splits at the top marks within half a boatlength of the other boat so it’s pushing both sets of crews to real high intensity which is great.”
A nosedive and a cockpit full of water ultimately ended the day for ‘Sienna’ but overall Ben described the day saying: “It was good, early start so a credit to the shore team here, their alarms were off when a few of us were deep into a sleep last night. We got the morning drainage over at the airport as we have done a few times lately and we made the most out of the morning.”
INEOS Britannia will be back out tomorrow to continue their two-boat race programme with the electronics issue on ‘Sienna’ expected to be sorted out this evening. Whilst the British docked-in at just before midday.
On-Water Recon Report: INEOS Britannia: The British craned to the water their two AC40s, Sienna(b) and Athena(a) in one-design foil configuration, at 06.23 and 06.54, respectively; that had been left with their masts up and out of the shed overnight. The team docked out at 07.45, as planned.
Both boats got on the tow and headed towards the airport area with no sails. Once there, at 08:20 one-design mainsails were hoisted, combined with the LEQ12 J2-4 on AC40(a) and a one-design J2 on AC40(b). A north-westerly offshore wind of 8 to 14 knots of intensity prevailed during the session, providing good conditions for racing.
From 08:40 till 09:05 both boats warmed up, sailing independently one from another, while the coaches set an upwind-downwind course with top and bottom gates.
Race 1: At 09:05 the first sequence of the day got underway. Athena had the port entry, while Sienna came in on starboard. During the last thirty seconds remaining to the start, boat A had full control of B, standing to leeward and very close, being both boats to windward of the starboard end layline. Athena locked Sienna and finally had a clear-ahead start. From there on, boat A covered boat B and extended all the time. After five tacks, A rounded the top right gate in the lead with an eight-second gap. B rounded the opposite top gate. On the downwind leg, A crossed ahead of B after both boats gybed once. However, A went too far to the left side (looking upwind) and overlayed the bottom right gate (always looking upwind), almost losing the position to B. A managed to round still in the lead one boat-length ahead of B, after coming back on fast high mode. B tacked immediately after rounding and fell-off the foils. At that moment the race was abandoned.
Race 2: Both boats switched entries. It was an even start with A to windward and B to leeward. Slight advantage for Athena that took advantage of a right shift right at the start. The parity continued for almost the entire upwind, with the two boats rounding the opposite top gates almost at the same time, B to the left and A to the right. On the downwind, after both boats did one gybe, B crossed just ahead. However, B had a poor second gybe and then an even a worse third gybe that ended up in a hard nosedive. At that moment the race was abandoned.
At 09:30 there was a twenty-minute break. Boat B had to re-attach the anemometer at the end of the bowsprit that got released on the nosedive.
Race 3: At 09:55 a third sequence started. This start saw both boats approach the starting line coming from far away, deep in the box, sailing on closed-hauled course managing time and distance, with a big lateral gap in between them. A to windward of B had a better start and was already ahead and to windward of B before the first tack. A covered B from there on and extended to round the top left gate after four tacks with a 10-second lead over B who headed to the opposite gate. A rounded the bottom right gate after three gybes and then the race was abandoned. B struggled to achieve clean gybes.
Races 4 and 5 saw boat B falling-off the foils just before the start. Both races were abandoned immediately after started. Not sure if they were already suffering consequences of the electronic issues that became evident a few minutes after.
At 10.15, boat B took a tow-line to the chase boat and the boat captain plus two shore-team members came onboard to work for half an hour inside the port side cockpit. Unfortunately, whatever problem they had, could not be solved, and that was the end of the day for Sienna. In the meantime, A sailed around waiting for B.
At 10:45 the wind had dropped considerably, and A changed the LEQ J2-4 for a One-design J1. However, ten minutes after, once it became clear that B could not solve the problem, both boats lowered their sails and headed back to the port on the tow. Once docked at 11:55, the intention was to try to go out for an afternoon session. However, twenty minutes after, the team decided to end the sailing activities for the day. Sebastian Peri Brusa – Recon on INEOS Britannia
