SailGP’s in-development T-Foils have already broken the league’s racing speed record, with Canada clocking a top speed of 101.98 km/h (55.1kts) during tests in San Francisco.
The previous record was set by France during Season 3’s visit to Saint-Tropez, where the team hit a top speed of 99.94km/h (53.7kts). [The fastest by an AC75 is 53.4kts, set in a race – current America’s Cup teams don’t disclose top speeds during training.]
Set to replace the current L-Foils, the T-Foils have been specifically designed to improve the performance and control of the F50s at high speeds. Testing has been taking place throughout Season 4, but on-water trials following San Francisco’s Grand Final saw the F50 break through the 100 km/h speed barrier for the first time.
The speed was recorded on the second day of testing in San Francisco in 33 km/h of wind using the smallest 18m wing in a straight line. The three days of testing saw the T-Foils trialled in moderate to strong wind conditions with both the 25m and 18m wing.
The crew consisted of Canada driver Phil Robertson, wing trimmer Paul Campbell-James, strategist Annie Haeger and flight controller Billy Gooderham, alongside Rockwool grinder Richard Mason and Emirates GBR grinder Nick Hutton.
SailGP’s director of performance engineering, Alex Reid, said the testing came followed various ‘software tweaks’ to ‘improve the sailability of the F50’ in tacks and jibes.
“In terms of performance the T-Foils continued to show remarkable performance versus the benchmark of the HSB (current foils),” he said. “With the additional speed the boat was able to hit 100 kph a number of times, with a maximum speed of 101.98 kph. With the sea state and the potential for higher winds, there is clearly more performance to come.”
Posting about the record on social media, driver Robertson said the F50 was ‘a lot easier to control and fly’ and the T-Foils would result in the fleet ‘racing at higher speeds in the future’.
“Hopefully we get racecourses big enough to really light them up on race days,” he added, “Blown away by the performance upwind and reaching is going to set the speedo on fire.”
