NYYC American Magic AC40-5 Day 7 Summary

Some days on the journey to the America’s Cup are just plain hard and for the New York Yacht Club American Magic Team, Tuesday’s session was a stop-start affair with long stints of foiling brilliance clouded by a few rare errors thrown in to remind everyone that sailing on the ragged edge of control is hard. With Tom Slingsby swapped out just after lunch, and just after a bow stuff, as he reportedly was headed to catch a plane flight, Riley Gibbs came on for the afternoon session to accompany Paul Goodison in the helming slot and the J3 call was made with the wind reaching peak speeds with gusts of up to 18 knots. It was relatively flat water inshore in Pensacola Bay but the team didn’t look their usual uber controlled self as flight control was occasionally off kilter and take-offs looked tricky. There looked to be issues with the mainsheet or traveller control and a Chase Boat crewmember could be seen mopping up what looked to be an hydraulic leak around the aft deck. Whether the hydraulic issue led to what was the shot of the day with ‘America’ cavitating their rudder and going into a nosedive and capsize, is unclear but Dan Morris alluded to it in interview afterwards saying: “You lose a little mainsheet tension, have a couple of issues and next thing you know you're in the drink…but no major damage and spirits are high and the boats are just such a blast and it's a great little tool to keep the programme moving forward.” 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