Jimmy Spithill freaked out by simulator work with new America’s Cup boat

America’s Cup veteran, Jimmy Spithill, has been freaked out by the new foiling monohulls to be sailed at Auckland 2021.

Double winner Spithill has returned to Italian syndicate Luna Rossa for the 36th edition of the Cup and has been busy acquainting himself with the 75-foot monster on a simulator.

Luna Rossa skipper, Max Sirena, revealed that Spithill was astonished with what was happening in front of him on the screen.

When the concept was first displayed, Spithill predicted the monohulls chosen to replace the foiling catamarans of Bermuda would be “a beast of a boat … another level”.

It seems the simulator is proving exactly that as Luna Rossa, like defender Emirates Team New Zealand and other heavyweight challengers American Magic and INEOS Team UK, look to launch their first editions in the middle of the year.

During an appearance at a recent oceans sports seminar in Genoa, Sirena gave a feel for what the numbers were showing on a simulator they designed, in part, with Team New Zealand and works similar to those used by Formula 1 teams.

He said they could expect to sail between 25 to 28 knots upwind and 32-50 knots downwind depending on wind conditions.

How America’s Cup racing is expected to look in the foiling monohulls for Auckland 2021

Sirena warned that the new boat lacked the stability of the catamarans.

“This is a monohull without a keel, with appendages that weigh little. A hyper-powerful boat, very light, with little stability. There are fractions of a second that there is zero stability, if the helmsman and the trimmer cannot anticipate this zero moment, you fall back … go from 30-40 knots to zero, you have a g-force that shoots you in the air,” he said in an article in La Stampa.

Sirena’s simulation experience backs up the testing being done by American Magic on their scaled-down 38-foot boat being sailed extensively in Florida.

The New York Yacht club’s crew, with Kiwi veteran Dean Barker on the helm, have become increasingly comfortable and are now doing “dry laps” with foiling tacks and gybes, confirming they had been on their foils for as long as 26km.

But their skipper, Terry Hutchinson, said the testing hadn’t been without issues and that the boat, dubbed the Mule, had a tendency to nose-dive in certain situations.

The New York Yacht Club is making rapid progress with their scaled-down test boat proving the new foiling monohull concept for Auckland 2021 will work.

“I can say the speed sensation on the Mule is impressive, and I suspect when we step up in size to the 75 it will have the same type of feel. You do get used to it while fully respecting how quickly a situation can get messy,” Hutchinson told sailingscuttlebutt.com in an extensive interview.

“We’ve made our share of mistakes like capsizing while getting off the tow the boat. What’s impressive about the boat is you’re way safer at 27 knots than you are at seven knots. The boat generates so much stability that you feel much better in full speed mode than you do when you’re in displacement mode.”

Asked to describe a typical crash scenario, Hutchinson said the crew got pounded.

“A typical crash is generally a big nosedive with a lot of water coming over the boat and Dean [Barker] and Goody [Paul Goodison] catching it real quick with a sheet adjustment and a helm adjustment to pop the bow back up. But the crew gets pounded, it gets really wet, but that’s about the extent of it thus far,” he said.

AMERICAN MAGIC – getting increasingly comfortable with their test boat after extensive sailing in Florida

“The guys are smart in how they sail the boat and they understand its limitations so in that regard, they’ve done good work of keeping us out of vulnerable spots. That’s not to mean it’s not going to happen in the future. In actuality, we’re having the conversations about how we have to push a little bit harder. We’re getting more comfortable with it, but generally speaking, as you develop that confidence and those comfort levels it does create the potential for a situation to go a little bit wrong.”

Luna Rossa and Team New Zealand are also building test boats but see them more as a development platform for their second race boats which will be launched next year and are likely to feature in the Auckland regatta.

In the meantime Team New Zealand have been using a simulator at their base in Auckland, a scenario they used to set up the design and performance of their America’s Cup winning catamaran for Bermuda 2017 where they trounced Spithill’s Oracle Team USA in the match.

Sirena also revealed that Luna Rossa tried to lure Kiwi America’s Cup legend Sir Russell Coutts after they lost the challengers cup final to Team New Zealand in 2010. But Larry Ellison persuaded Coutts to join him at Oracle where they won the 2010 and 2013 editions.

Sirena also confirmed there would be no women on their new boat. He felt most of the roles were too physical for women sailors. They may include women in a wider sailing group but conceded there wasn’t enough time to train a woman for the helming role in this campaign.

Story and images courtesy of www.stuff.co.nz