Barker is desperate to set up base in Auckland as soon as possible but knows it could be some time before he can return home. VIDEO / Emirates Team NZ / Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team / American Magic
COMMENT:
The five America's Cup teams are emerging from various lockdowns and must rejig their campaigns for the third time this Cup cycle.
On the original timeline, the teams should have been doing a pack-out from Cagliari, Sardinia at the end of the first America's Cup World Series. The fourAC75's were to be shipped to the second event in Portsmouth, UK.
INEOS Team UK was the only team to make it to the UK after both ACWS events were cancelled.
Emirates Team New Zealand resumed their program on Tuesday, with their North Shore construction facility firing up after five weeks and an irrecoverable 8000 man-hours lost.
The kiwis' on-the-water program resumed two days later in their 12-metre test boat Te Kāhu. The team are a commercial enterprise and are entitled to continue a testing and development program. It turns out they had fared the worst of the four teams - losing what could prove to be a vital five weeks of testing and development, plus the same amount of construction time.
After rigging test cameras which project well outboard, the team tow-tested and then sail-tested what was believed to be a wing foil modification.
Te Kāhu rigs cameras ahead of the test session on Thursday. Photo / Richard Gladwell
The impact of losing five weeks was underscored when it was revealed that Thursday's modification was ready to be tested two days before the New Zealand lockdown. The team could not get out onto the water because of unfavourable weather conditions on those days. They took a five-week hit and missed obtaining vital performance data for the design engineers to ponder over the enforced break.
In Sardinia, Luna Rossa has repaired their twice damaged AC75 and gone sailing - with a crew of just five - down from the regular line-up of eleven - a response to social-distancing requirements.
The Italian team installed electric motors in their AC75 replacing six grinders. The modifications took the AC75 out of class but did earn valuable sailing time. Luna Rossa is the only competitor currently sailing an AC75.
Not having to ship their AC75 to Portsmouth and return was a significant gain for the Italians. Skipper Max Sirena told Italian media that the lockdown in Bergamo, northern Italy, where their second AC75 team is being built at Persico Marine, had not "impacted the building of the boat."
The team say they will continue sailing their first boat from Cagliari until the end of September and will fly the second AC75 to Auckland and expect to be sailing around October 20.
Team INEOS UK's first AC75 has arrived back in the UK after having a planned four-month training and racing program chopped in half by the advancing Covid-19 virus. Their AC75 'Britannia' is sporting a new strake running down the centreline of her hull. Most design pundits put the addition down to tidying up airflows under her fuselage/hull, rather than a crude attempt to emulate the centreline bustle of the Kiwi and Italian first-born AC75's.
The Brits are expected to arrive in Auckland in September.
American Magic's second AC75 is under construction in Bristol, RI - they were able to continue their build through the lockdown only with the assistance of the State Governor.
As of mid-April, they had stopped sailing operations out of their winter base at Pensacola, Florida, largely due to ubiquitous Covid-19.
Otherwise, it was business as usual for the design, build and all other aspects of the New York Yacht Club's challenge. The sailors are having to make-do with clocking up the "sailing" hours in a very realistic simulator facility.
Time pressure will see all teams fly one and maybe two AC75's to New Zealand.
Te Kāhu testing in the Rangitoto Channel. Photo / Emirates Team NZ
With the Protocol requirement to compete in the Cagliari and Portsmouth ACWS events now removed, the 2021 America's Cup door is still ajar for the fourth challenger, Stars + Stripes USA. The team has a part constructed AC75 to a Team New Zealand supplied design package. Their America's Cup aspirations went on hold when it was realised that time had run out for the young California based team to make the mandatory regattas at Cagliari and Portsmouth, UK.
Co-founder Mike Buckley told the Herald on Friday the team was "close" with securing funding, and that "S+S continues to push on to be in Auckland".
Buckley reports that he has been out of action for a month, having fallen victim to Covid-19. His family also contacted the coronavirus. All are believed to be in recovery.
The America's Cup has also had a race director appointed for its 36th edition - Australian Iain Murray. It will be the third time he has held the role, in an event where he has also participated as a skipper and designer.
Murray is one of the few who spans the 12 Metre, IACC and Multihull eras of the America's Cup from 1983 to 2017.
The 2021 America's Cup regatta it will be a return to the place where Murray made his first marks on the international sailing scene as a teenager, with two notable wins in the 12ft and 18ft skiffs.
The latter was a come-from-behind win in atrocious conditions on what will be Course C on the inner Waitemata for the 2021 America's Cup. Murray and his crew turned in one of the great displays of heavy air sailing and courage under fire - qualities that will no doubt serve him well in the coming months.
