With the latest INEOS Britannia AC75 – RB3 – now on the water in Barcelona we can see the physical result of the the integration of the British America’s Cup sailing team with Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science, a division of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team.
This followed the failure of the British AC36 challenger to make any impression, failing to reach the actual Cup Match stage after winnning just one race of eight in the 2021 Prada Cup challenger series in Auckland.
Not an unusual situation for a British Cup challenger. Since 1970 there have been 15 of 17 America’s Cup events with multiple challengers, and Britain has never managed to win a challenger series to compete against the defender!
On roll-out in Barcelona it quickly became obvious that the combined Yacht/F1 Race design team had taken a fresh look at the earlier AC75 and the AC40 test boat, and made a decsion to dramatically redraw the bustle/skeg and its relationship with the rudder and the rig.
Martin Fischer, Chief Designer at INEOS Britannia, summarised the special relationship with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team . . .
“The collaboration with the Mercedes F1 Team on the development of our race boat has been a great opportunity for the team. I’m a strong believer that looking at a problem from different perspectives may lead to new and potentially better solutions.
Ideas or methods that are daily business in one research field might be unknown in another field, even though the underlying physics are quite similar. This is what we experienced during the development of our race boat.
Working on our race yacht in Brackley together with the Mercedes F1 team – 150 kilometres inland – sparked extremely fruitful discussions between race yacht and race car designers and led to a yacht that has surprised observers with her look and will hopefully also positively surprise on the race course.”
Surprise it certainly did, drawing comments . . . ‘This could be the most interesting yacht of AC37, but is there any indication it’s brutalist style with be fastest?’ and ‘INEOS Britannia are certainly not afraid to buck convention’.
INEOS COO Dave Endean . . . “I think that as a team we can be just as proud of the operation and partnership that we’ve built with Mercedes as we can of the boat. They are both integral and essential to achieving our goals this summer.”
And it is back in the UK Brackley campus that The INEOS Sailing Support Team will be watching every move by RB3 on the water in Spain.
Geoff Willis, Technical Director. “The facility at the match venue in Barcelona is the front line of the operation, much like the engineering offices and garage at a Grand Prix.
We needed the equivalent of the F1 factory back in the UK; with design, testing and manufacturing operations that can drive the constant evolution that we know will be necessary for success.”
The INEOS Britannia team in Barcelona will now start testing RB3 and its systems for real.
In the last two America’s Cup matches the Brits arrived with what were immediatly tagged as design disasters, hopefully that will not be the case this time.
INEOS Britannia have a restricted window to set-up and test their new AC75, and it will not be until late August that they be allowed to sail alongside one another.
All six AC75s will be racing for the first time in Barcelona for the Preliminary Regatta between 22-25 August.
That event will include ETNZ the Cup Defender, so will provide a comparison of just how the various design teams efforts are likely to fare when they move to the real events . . . not that there is much chance to make any dramatic change.
The five challenging teams will then battle it out in The Louis Vuitton Cup (Challenger Selections Series 29 Aug – 7 Oct) to win the right to take on AC37 defenders Emirates Team New Zealand.
The Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup match will take place between 12-27 October 2024.
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