The dark horse of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup is off and running. Persistence and tenacity were the order of the day for Orient Express Racing Team on Thursday.
An early evening flight radically step-changed their whole challenge for the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup.
It was a long day, dogged by technical issues that every boat has on a maiden voyage, but they stuck to the task and got the job done, eventually docking-in as the sun disappeared over the Montjuic mountains with smiles broader than the Champs Elysee.
Technical issues though plagued the morning as the complex systems were run through by the technicians and it wasn’t until 4pm that the sailors managed to get the all-clear to leave the base and head out for the maiden sail.
Once on the water, more gremlins crept in and they delayed the hoist, drifting slowly down towards Port Olímpic under tow but with the mainsail set, everything came together and with the J3-1 jib set, Quentin Delapierre gave the all-clear for Mathieu Vandame and Jason Saunders to trim on and up she went beautifully on the foils.
A tack over gave Kevin Peponnet a steering chance and the boat looked balanced and lively with a beautiful set of sails that could be trimmed flat as the speeds rose. Epic first sail for the French and plenty of happy faces on the support boats.
If the team had navigation lights, there is every chance that they would have stayed out all night but a small hydraulic leak around the cunningham area at the base of the mast saw the team stop, clear the excess oil off the deck with cloths and then resolve the issue.
With the light fading, the call was made to fast-track foil back to the harbour and crane the boat out.
Speaking in the evening darkness, Quentin Delapierre summed up the day saying:
“A good first step for the AC75, we achieved a long day setting the sails and after that going through the first foiling tack, the first foiling straight-line also, so yeah there’s a really good feeling in the team and I think we pushed quite hard because the level of fatigue is quite high actually, but yeah it’s a good day for the team.”
Talking about the issues that the team faced all day long, he added:
“It was the first day of the aero package, we had many issues when we launched on the water, so all the technicians managed to fix it and after that we had also a smaller issue outside of the harbour, so we delayed a little bit the sail hoisting but after the mainsail hoisting everything went pretty well so we just go through the whole checklist there until 9:00 tonight.”
Despite the issues, Quentin couldn’t hide his delight at finally being able to sail on the AC75, and when asked how different it felt, he responded:
“It’s a completely different boat, the AC75 is way more complex, you’ve got way more logic onboard and you have also cyclists with the sailors – we have to manage the energy that the cyclors can give to us, and it’s a completely different way of sailing and also I mean the AC75 is way faster, and we just love it.”
Orient Express Racing Team now have a hectic schedule through the rest of June as they continue commissioning the AC75 and start to push it harder to race pace. The dark horse of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup is off and running.
(Magnus Wheatley)
