Alinghi Red Bull Racing BoatZero Day 57 Summary

Michel Karmarec, the French Soling representative at the 1988 Olympic Games, hydro-dynamics specialist and senior naval architect in the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Team offers a unique insight into his world in this fascinating interview post sailing today (Wednesday) in Barcelona.

The Swiss AC75 ‘BoatZero’ was working through several foil-to-foil issues throughout the session with notable: “weakness in gybes to starboard while in low mode” recorded by the recon team. Michel reminded that: “it’s normal not to be at 100% now, the goal is to be more than 100% in a year’s time,” and ran through the day as well as speaking about the design process, the areas of design focus and the correlation between on-water data and the numbers generated in the simulator.

Michel also gave a good insight into cavitation and ventilation saying: “Cavitation is pretty easy because it’s well predicted by the tool, the tricky point is the ventilation and so far, it’s a matter of adjusting the tool for it and making comparison with what’s happening in real life so that’s why all our tests are very important to adjust the tool…it’s a very important point for sure.”

Section 41. Reconnaissance

a) As a campaign cost reduction measure, COR/D has mutually agreed to cooperatively implement a centralised reconnaissance programme for all teams for the reconnaissance of all Competitors’ AC75 Yachts, AC40 Yachts and LEQ12 yachts including both on-land and on-water imagery (the “Joint Recon Programme”).

b) Each team is assigned a two-person Recon Unit to follow their every on-water move, but it’s not that simple. The cameras are supplied and identical for all Recon Units. Drones are not allowed, and they can’t get that close, plus following a boat and keeping a camera steady at 45 knots isn’t that easy to begin with.

c) A three minute interview follows each on water day, and teams must answer the Recon Unit’s questions while trying not to give too much away. It’s a raw, unedited view of the never before seen behind-the-scenes development of a team and their boat to win the oldest trophy in international sports.

#AC37Recon #AmericasCup #Barcelona2024