How fast is the "BoatOne" and how stable is the "BoatOne" rig? Alinghi Red Bull will have to answer these two questions from Thursday at the America's Cup at the start of the final pre-regatta.
21.08.2024, 10:34
21.08.2024, 12:01
SDA
When Alinghi Red Bull takes on the French Orient Express Racing Team on Thursday at 2 p.m. off Barcelona, nothing will be at stake in sporting terms. The last pre-regatta, which will see five duels against all the syndicates involved in the America's Cup between now and Sunday, is nevertheless a yardstick. For the first time, the crews will be sailing on the high-tech yachts that they will use in the Louis Vuitton Cup - the challengers' Cup starts on Thursday, August 29 - and possibly also in the America's Cup against the New Zealanders.
So the cards are on the table - at least in part. The teams are unlikely to push their yachts to the limit and will probably also avoid confrontation in close duels. So the question of "Who will show how much?" is also sailing.
It was precisely at this stage that Alinghi Red Bull suffered a broken mast. It cracked on Tuesday, after the rig had already failed once in mid-June. "We are concentrating on racing. We may have lost a mast, but not the race," said the Swiss syndicate in a press release. Despite this setback, they are in good spirits.
This is probably only half the truth, because the new incident hurts. Although both fractures were minor, nobody was injured. This is not a matter of course, as the racing yachts fly over the water at speeds of up to 100 km/h. Nevertheless, the focus is on a question other than safety. Namely, whether the engineers went beyond the limit when building the high-tech projectile, or whether they made a calculation error. The America's Cup is not just a competition between sailors, but also between engineers.
Standard mast on all yachts
What you need to know: All syndicates sail with the same mast, it is a standardized product. So the mishap is not due to the mast itself, but to the design of the boat that allows the forces to act on the mast. So at Alinghi Red Bull they will be asking themselves: Why is this only happening to us?
The Swiss syndicate writes: "The fact that we now find ourselves in this situation again naturally raises some legitimate questions about what has happened to the structural integrity of the masts. This is a matter that needs to be investigated very closely. But at the moment we are leaving the investigation to the experts." The mast breakage did not occur in extreme conditions, but in a moderate breeze of 13 knots, which is equivalent to four Beaufort. In both incidents, the sensors indicated that the load was within acceptable limits.
Show no weakness now
Repairing the AC75 foiler doesn't seem to be too big a deal. With a different rig that had been used in recent months, the "BoatOne" was restored to racing condition overnight. However, the fact that Alinghi Red Bull sailed again 24 hours after the incident may also have a psychological component. At this stage of the America's Cup, they don't want to show any weakness - either internally or externally.
