America’s Cup: Team New Zealand hit new speed record as preparations for Barcelona ramp up

After doing early work on their AC40 (pictured), Team New Zealand have returned to the water on an AC75. Photo / America's Cup

Team New Zealand are flying at a new level in their preparations for next year’s America’s Cup in Barcelona.

Having recently relaunched their Cup-winning AC75 Te Rehutai with a new configuration more in line with how they will sail in Barcelona, the team reached new heights on Friday as they set a new speed record.

Team New Zealand designer Dan Bernasconi told the Herald while he couldn’t say the exact number the team set, it was “well over 50″ knots.

The mark came with the team going out in search of challenging conditions, hoping to find swell similar to that expected in Barcelona.

Team New Zealand have had a consistent design team over the last several campaigns, but this edition presents a new challenge for that group as this will be the first time they have had to factor in a potentially rocky sea state.

“We’re very used to designing boats that are absolutely optimised for performance in pretty steady conditions,” Bernasconi said.

“It wasn’t the first reaction to say ‘OK we need to change this’ - it was more that we needed to learn about what we should be doing differently.”

On Friday, they had conditions at the top end of the scale, with a good breeze and decent waves, which provided the team both onboard and onshore a huge opportunity to gain important data.

“We’re learning massive amounts,” Bernasconi said.

“We’re actively going out hunting for waves now, whereas in the last Cup you could always find somewhere pretty flat in the Gulf. The racing was always going to be reasonably calm conditions. This time, we know Barcelona, there’s going to be waves most of the time, so that’s definitely one part of what we’re learning.”

After starting their campaign on the water in their two AC40s – a scaled-down version of the 75-foot foiling monohulls used in the America’s Cup – getting back on the water in Te Rehutai has been an important step.

They haven’t put their AC40s away for good, however, with the scaled-down version being used in pre-America’s Cup regattas involving all entered teams - the first of which will be held in Spain later this year.

As well as how they handle the AC75 in swells, the team are also learning a lot about the new specifications of the AC75, including the drop in crew from 11 to eight, the impact of replacing grinders with cyclors, as well as updates in the hardware within the boat.

“Ultimately, waves don’t make anything easier or better. Everything is harder and particularly the control,” Bernasconi said.

“The sailors are controlling the boat to a flying altitude that can only vary by plus or minus 100-200mm, so when you throw waves into the mix, on the one hand, you have to fly a little bit higher still otherwise you’re going to hit the crest of the waves, but also it’s much harder to control because the velocity of the water going over the foils is always changing. Waves don’t just change the height of the surface, it’s also a lot of orbital velocity below the surface.

“If you liken it to a plane, it’s like flying through a huge amount of turbulence. We’ve all been on a plane where you get thrown around in bad weather and it’s kind of like that on waves except you have to control it super accurately in altitude.”