Emirates Team New Zealand, Alinghi Red Bull Racing and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, have confirmed their new AC75 launch dates for early April.
Ben Ainslie announced that the INEOS Britannia AC75 – codenamed RB3 – was out of the shed, but has not confirmed a launch date for Barcelona.
The AC37 America’s Cup Teams are required to give a the Recon Panel, a 2-month notification of intention to launch their respective new AC75s under Technical Regulation 10.6 (a).
By dint of sheer geography, and the constructed-in-country rule, it is in hindsight perhaps no surprise that Emirates Team New Zealand was the first to declare their intention and go for launch early.
Shipping times are around 47 days from Auckland to Barcelona, so the Kiwi announcement will certainly have factored this well into the overall equation of the campaign.
The sailing teams begins racing at the end of August in the final Preliminary Regatta and into the round robins, but then sit out until the America’s Cup Match itself from the 12-27 October 2024. They have therefore, a relative luxury of time.
Sir Ben Ainslie announced at the launch of the Athena Pathway Team for the Youth and Puig Women’s America’s Cup on Monday, that the INEOS Britannia AC75 had been taken out of the Jason Carrington build shed over in Hythe, Southampton that morning.
Assuming that the AC75 is now en route to Barcelona, we could well see an announcement from them shortly of a launch date.
Again, for the Challenger of Record, they will be keen to start the development process at full scale with all the technical might of Mercedes Applied Science at their disposal to measure accurately every output and begin the long process of what the sailors call: “working the boat up.”
No training or tuning is allowed between the new AC75s. The first meeting for them will be at the third Preliminary Regatta, with fleet racing in the AC75s, due to sailed at Barcelona from 20 to 25 August 2024.
For Alinghi Red Bull Racing it’s a very different strategy and one that is admirably super-aggressive as the Swiss look to extract maximum time on the water through a launch in April until racing begins on the 22ndAugust 2024.
Launching early gives the Swiss time to develop the crucial control systems and pre-sets that could be the key to winning through what is looking like a desperately close Louis Vuitton Cup to select the Challenger.
What the Swiss have done is ramp up the pressure safe in the knowledge that in terms of sheer hull design, there is very little that other teams can do to alter at this stage – and equally vice versa.
What it perhaps shows is a real confidence in their design team led by Marcelino Botin and certainly, a confidence in their Decision S.A build team up in Ecublens, near Lausanne.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team members have already intimated in interview that their boat will be ‘radical’ and they were next to declare their launch intentions on Tuesday 6th February with Max Sirena speaking after an afternoon of two-boat sailing in Cagliari saying: “I think we can expect that in the next couple of hours.”
Meanwhile for the Orient Express Racing Team, who were some people’s pick to launch first having secured an Emirates Team New Zealand design package to save time, their boat is in-build at the Multiplast yard in Vannes and an announcement of their launch date is imminent.
For NYYC American Magic, they like the Kiwis, have a shipping timeframe to consider with their AC75 in build over in Portsmouth, Rhode Island on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
No word yet on schedule but the team is known to have put systems on their legacy AC75 ‘Patriot’ that will be transferred straight onto the new AC75 when it arrives in Barcelona.
