Team NZ members speak about the launch of their 2024 America's Cup boat the Taihoro. Video / Alyse Wright
Dan Bernasconi’s interest has been piqued.
Over the past month, the America’s Cup syndicates have all unveiled their AC75 race boats, with the five challengers all getting out on the water at the race venue in Barcelona.
Team New Zealand are yet to join them, though they won’t be far away as their AC75 Taihoro arrived safely in Spain last week and they have taken stock of what they’ve seen from recon photos so far.
While some components, such as the race foils, are yet to be revealed across the fleet, Team NZ chief technical officer Bernasconi has taken an interest in the different directions the teams have gone with their designs.
“I mean, there’s a lot of different features on different boats but I’d say the American boat ... intriguing,” Bernasconi told the Herald.
“They’ve got the lowest frontal area, they’ve got recumbent cyclists ... they’ve got those open cockpits quite close to their mainsail, so there’s some quite big trade-offs in both directions.
“There’s pluses and minuses and they’ve obviously gone through all of that themselves and come to the conclusion that it’s a winner. It’s a different decision that we’ve made and we’re happy with where we are, but I think it’s still an interesting example of how teams have made different decisions.”
Until last week, Team New Zealand had been monitoring their challengers from their base in Auckland, gathering intel and building 3D models of the opposition hull shapes to run them through simulation tools.
Bernasconi admitted not much could be read into the results as he expected every team’s simulations would show its design to be the best, but it provided an opportunity to get a better understanding of other elements.
“Other than performance alone, you’re also looking for ideas and concepts,” he said.
American Magic and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli cross during a training session in Barcelona. Photo / Ivo Rovira, America's Cup
“For instance, we’ve seen in recon photos recently that American Magic have got this kind of honeycomb structure over the cyclor cockpits covering part of it, which is exploiting a potential loophole in the rules.
“Generally, if you can cover parts of your cockpits, you get an aerodynamic advantage. But the rules prevent covering that; they require you to have, say, 90 per cent of coverage. It’s not worded like that, but if you imagine 90 per cent has to be uncovered, then by using a honeycomb kind of structure, you can use very fine honeycomb and you’ve still got only 10 per cent covered when you look directly from above. But maybe from an aerodynamic point of view, it has the effect of being mostly covered.
“Those are the kinds of things we’re looking for. Then we think, ‘That’s a clever idea. We haven’t thought of that. Is that something we can exploit on our boat?’”
American Magic are the only team to have decided to have recumbent (reclined) cyclors powering their boat, with all other teams opting for upright cyclors.
The American power unit is also rear-facing, with helmsman Tom Slingsby noting their tools showed their final design was the best option from an aerodynamic standpoint and they were surprised no one else had come to the same conclusion.
Bernasconi had a different view when asked if he thought more teams would take the recumbent approach to their power units.
“No. I’m actually surprised that American Magic did go with recumbent cyclists.
“We obviously looked at it, all teams looked at it. It was very much discussed among the teams.
“Through the process of ironing out some details in the rules, all the teams get together and discuss some aspects of it, so it’s not like an idea no one had thought of. Everyone had discussed it and debated it, and the rule actually contemplates that. The rule has different cockpit opening size requirements for recumbent cyclists.
“We thought the way that you could package those cyclors into the boat if they were recumbent, they take up more space longitudinally, we didn’t think that was a trade-off worth going for. Although upright cyclists take up more vertical space and at first glance you might think they have more aerodynamic drag, we felt the benefits outweighed the negatives for that one.”
Team NZ launched their AC75 Taihoro in Auckland in mid-April, putting it through a commissioning period of about a month before packing it onto a kiwifruit reefer and shipping it north to Barcelona.
With the boat now at their Spanish base, it won’t be long before the Kiwis resume operations as they prepare for the final preliminary regatta in August. While the first two preliminary regattas were contested on AC40s, this will be the first time the six teams get to line up for proper competition with the boats on which they will try to claim the Auld Mug.
