Emirates Team New Zealand LEQ12 Day 1 Summary

Diving into the sea of technology, pretty quickly you can get swamped. Design teams warn about the dangers of haring down blind alleyways, of programmes being de-railed by the sight of what others are doing and the history of the America’s Cup, even the most recent history, bears testament to those that are the real innovators and those that are trailing. So, it’s interesting to see that sailing style and technique is being focussed on by the current holders, Emirates Team New Zealand, in their early development phase as they work through tweaks and nuances of the AC40 – or should we call it an LEQ12 now? Nathan Outteridge confirmed what we saw on the water today: “As we go through our development phase, we’re starting to think about how we sail. We’ve come up with a few different ways that the four of us can sail this boat, whether you’re doing things on the windward or leeward side and who’s doing what in manoeuvres. We’ve just been experimenting and today was really interesting because some of the things we thought would be easy to do were a little trickier than we thought and some things that we thought would were quite hard, felt natural 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