Over on the Red Sea in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it was another superb afternoon for the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team who once again were going hammer and tong against each other with Dean Barker again mentoring Maxime Bachelin on the ‘Red’ marked AC40 whilst the all-conquering duo of yesterday, Arnaud Psarofaghis and Nicolas Charbonnier took the ‘Black’ boat – both with full bespoke suits of exquisitely finished LEQ12 sails.
Full race reports are below but the recon team caught up with Brad Favelle, one of the true legends of sail design to chat through the impressive ‘fruit’ that Alinghi Red Bull Racing have been sporting. “Basically the decision for our winter base to become a primary source for our winter testing with the sail programme especially with the AC40s, that decision was made early and we had enough time to set up a fairly decent temporary loft which is more than ample to do what we need to do and with a diverse team and a big team we’re slowly shifting gears between Barcelona and Jeddah…The AC40s are a great platform in LEQ mode at the moment, and it’s given us real-world data and feedback to get back to the designers and the concepts and the models so yeah it’s vital.”
And Brad continued: “The conditions on the Red Sea have been pretty favourable especially this trip, the last three days have been pretty textbook to get the tests done and today we were on the J2 and J3’s and a fairly flat sea…Today was a little bit different weather than we’ve had the last two days with the overcast conditions and being inside here on the Creek sometimes we just poke our nose out at the entrance to realise what the conditions are like and today we were a little bit small on the jib for what we saw and how it prevailed in the first hour of the session was on the J2’s which was the right call at the end of the day.”
Asked about the batten technology that so many of the teams, and especially the Swiss are tweaking and playing with, Brad offered: “The battens are obviously integral to supporting the flying shapes and matching the models, so you know we’re developing battens on every sail every day, small tweaks, but you know the details are the difference at this end of the AC40 campaign.”
Another big day for the Swiss with some 94 manoeuvres counted and a 97% foil-to-foil ratio. Good by any measure and plenty more to come from the Jeddah training camp.
One other bit of news today – check out the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli social media channels for an absolutely astonishing nosedive and pitchpole by the Italian Youth Team. If ever there was any doubt about the resilience of the AC40 when pushed to the extremes, the video posted is a great testament to McConaghy’s build and the resilience of the AC40 masts in extremity. Well worth a look. (Magnus Wheatley)
On-Water Recon – Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s AC40-4 (Red) and AC40-7 (Black) were rolled out at 09:00 and 09:30 respectively. Other than standard checks, there was a focus sail control systems, with work observed carried out by the electronics and hydraulics techs, particularly around the traveller systems.
Both boats were prepared with full LE sail selections. Notably, the teams carried J1 sails off the dock before dock-out. The crew configurations remained unchanged from previous days, and no crew swaps were carried out. The team docked out at 12:30, with J3 sails initially hoisted.
Stint 1 (12:55 – 13:23, 11-15kn 215° @ 12:55) Sailing commenced from the Obhur Creek entrance, with both boats stopping after a couple of minutes to drop the J3 jibs in exchange for J2 jibs. The Black boat set off on an upwind/downwind, as the Red boat dropped the M1-4 to adjust top diagonal batten on the new M1-4 mainsail.
Stint 2 (13:27 – 14:01, 5-8kn 220° @ 13:20) The Black boat set off on a long upwind stretch on port, as Red finalised sail setup, then joining up with Black to commence a long stretch on starboard sailing in parallel, followed by a shorter stretch on starboard. The yachts then turned downwind and sailed in parallel, completing five gybes each.
Stint 3 (14:12 – 14:28) The team sailed split tacks upwind and split gybes downwind, before dropping the J2 jibs in exchange for J3 jibs, this time swapping the J3 sails between boats to assess performance differences.
Stint 4 (14:45 – 15:13, 7-11kn 235° @ 14:45) Four pre-starts were practiced, with Black entering on port for the first two starts, and Red entering on port for the following two starts.
Stint 5 (15:16 – 15:33) Start 5 saw Red enter on port, and with a clear start, the yachts continued into a two-lap race, with multiple lead changes, as Dean Barker and Max Bachelin on the Red boat won the race just ahead of Black. The course was set at 230 degrees.
Stint 6 (15:48 – 16:11, 6-9kn 230° @ 15:45) Start 6 saw Red enter on port, starting to windward of Black and leading the 1.5 lap race from start to finish at the second windward mark, then continuing back to base to finish the day.
Sails were dropped by 16:20 and the last boat was craned out at 17:15 to conclude the day. During the four-hour session on the water, the team spent 145 minutes sailing, achieving a 97% fully foiling rate across 94 manoeuvres.
