This week we’ve had three AC75 yachts on the water, training hard, in Auckland, Cagliari and Lorient with all three teams – Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna Rossa and La Roche-Posay Racing Team – well out of their commissioning phase and fully into development and race training.
For the other teams around the world, we have had updates on progress with everyone working away to get on the water as soon as possible. Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned from the Recon Teams, and the team personnel themselves so far after what has been a very interesting period of training for the AC75 crews…
Emirates Team New Zealand
After a solid block of AC40 training in the host venue, Naples, the team were recalled to a chilly mid-winter Auckland to begin the work-up of their AC75 ‘Taihoro’ into a potentially race-winning weapon.
Grant Dalton, the CEO, had opined in Sardinia that now was the time to start finding speed and after the first few sessions, there was an ominous quote from skipper, Nathan Outteridge, who said: “Every time it goes in the shed and gets some upgrades, it comes out, it’s an improved boat, which is fantastic to see. We always thought there was going to be just small gains here and there, but the team’s been doing a fantastic job to find some real metres on the table, which has been awesome. The boat’s going faster and it’s getting easier for us to sail, which is really cool.”
Those words will reverberate around the rest of the teams with Taihoro looking steady in flight and very controlled through manoeuvres. Much work has gone into upgrading the legacy main foils – although visually it is impossible to see the modifications and the shape is the same – but we can see a larger protruded-forward weight anvil which might indicate a reduction in the overall foil weight.
A new, smaller and very fore-and-aft raked rudder has been introduced that presumably aids lower end control but in the most recent session, stability was much in evidence as the sailors ripped around the Back Paddock in Auckland at speeds in excess of 50 knots under the smaller M3 mainsail and J5 (smallest) jib. ETNZ are looking ominous right now.
Luna Rossa
Four solid days of training in Cagliari in the AC75 ahead of a 10-day break for the whole team before they de-camp to Naples for PR2, has been valuable time in the AC75. What we saw over the period was a notable increase in manoeuvre speed, particularly in pre-start practice with the helms, still on rotation through the sessions, pushing the ‘Silver Bullet’ hard into tight circling perhaps in anticipation of the fight that is set to come in the Louis Vuitton Cup in May 2027.
Skipper Peter Burling has been an ever-present but still the debate rages as to whether double gold medallist Ruggero Tita or Youth America’s Cup holder Marco Gradoni gets the nod for the coveted port helm slot and this is a story that will run and run. On the water in the latest training block, Luna Rossa have looked much more assured than in the July block which featured a big nosedive and a near-capsize.
August has seen the team iron out boat-handling issues and they have looked solid. Much attention is being paid in this phase to the aero package with Burling overseeing mainsheet track and cunningham settings – often walking out at high speed to inspect. Max Sirena, CEO of Luna Rossa, alluded to upgrades in the coming month but stopped short of saying in what areas that development will be visible – foils, sails and systems controls being the most likely. Luna Rossa are in it to win it.
La Roche-Posay Racing Team
Smiles have returned to the enigmatic French team with their AC75 back on the water in Lorient after the capsize that saw battery smoke (lithium and salt water are not good bedfellows) coming out of the cockpits and led to an overhaul of the electronics systems below.
The cause of the capsize looks to have been a pinned mainsail traveller not releasing but since being back on the water in near perfect conditions off the northwest of France, the AC75 has looked spectacular. A new mainsail double skin was introduced in the last session and Quentin Delapierre, skipper of La Roche-Posay Racing Team, was impressed saying that it gave the team more control out of the manoeuvres initially – and that’s a huge gain.
The team are still running the legacy foils of Barcelona 2024, and it feels like the concentration, just like Luna Rossa, for now is all about the aero package and the pre-set controls that develop the speed through manoeuvres up the wind range. Linking mast control and rotation with cunningham and outhaul settings to both de-power and then power-on the rig is the big game in town and La Roche-Posay Racing Team are beginning to look polished in that area.
With plenty of time on their side after almost a month out following the capsize, the French are taking every possibility to get on the water and the comms between Quentin Delapierre and Diego Botin are on point with a good flow. The French are deadly serious about going deep in Naples in 2027 and with a sister-ship to ‘Taihoro’ they have a great platform to work from.
