INEOS Britannia T6 Day 31 Summary

Sir Jim Ratcliffe was on the water in Palma today to witness a sensational training session of ‘T6’, the British team’s LEQ12 test platform, as Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott pushed it to the outer limits. At times, T6 looked almost supersonic as they rocketed around the Bay hitting mid-30 knots upwind and well into 40 knot barrier downwind and had the innovative W-Foil really performing to its profile. Luke Parkinson is one of the key flight controllers for INEOS Britannia who brings a wealth of foiling talent and long experience to this America’s Cup campaign. Speaking afterwards he gave a terrific interview with the recon team who dug into the differences that he can feel between the foil designs: “It's definitely an interesting concept and there's a lot of pros and cons to it. It's something that we looked at last Cup and the designers wanted to look at it again. I guess it's just different junction heights that’s really the big thing but there's different angles and forces going on so there’s a fair bit of interesting things…Each foil is always different depending on a T or a W or the albatross like the Team New Zealand one. They all have different little features to refine the window of where you fly them to get their performance.” 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