America’s Cup: the resurrection of American magic

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – The 75-foot-long oblong object with a pointy nose looks more like a downed spaceship than an elegant racing yacht.

Hoisted into the air and surrounded by scaffolding, the object’s two appendages protrude and flow down its sides like the long slender legs of a praying mantis. But it’s not a spaceship, or even an oversized insect: it’s Patriot, the yacht of a team, American Magic, which hopes to reclaim the America’s Cup, the most prestigious trophy in sailing, for the States. -United.

And Patriot has a big problem.

On January 17, as American Magic led a race against an Italian challenger in the Prada Cup, the series that determines who will challenge the New Zealand team for the America’s Cup in March, Patriot capsized in a dramatic fashion. – effectively pulling a wheelie as he emerged from the water and then rolled over to his left side.

The crash tore a hole in Patriot’s hull, sent crew members scrambling to cut teammates off their safety harnesses, and left his entire union braced to watch the multi-million dollar boat sink in the waters of the Hauraki Gulf in New Zealand.

Instead, an accident that could have been fatal – American Magic skipper and executive director Terry Hutchinson and several crew members were briefly trapped under the fallen sail while the boat was filled with water – was simply catastrophic, at least in the sense of the race.

Less than a week later, on a calm Sunday morning, three boat builders sanded a giant stain that now covers the hole in the Patriot’s hull. Another, with an arm full of cables, climbed the scaffolding stairs to continue rebuilding a sophisticated electrical system that seems more suited to a Formula 1 car than a sailboat.

By this point, American Magic was only halfway through its many repairs, part of a frenzied effort to save Patriot and his team’s hopes of victory, even as the competition continued without the American ship. Other teams offered their expertise and sent pizzas. Fans completed the team coffee tab at a local cafe. And around 70 boat builders, engineers and mechatronics technicians from the team worked in shifts to complete the work.

Repairs could easily have taken weeks without delay, Hutchinson said. Instead, they were completed in 11 days. The Patriot’s sleek hull returned to the water for the first time on Wednesday.

This weekend, after losing four races, the American Magic team, now a big outsider, will enter the Prada Cup semi-finals against Italy’s Luna Rossa. The first to score four wins will face a British yacht for the right to race the Kiwis, who won the America’s Cup in Bermuda four years ago.

“We can’t be broken and as long as we stick with this, which we will, then it’s a clear demonstration of that and the sky is the limit,” Hutchinson said of the 24 hour effort. on 24 to bring Patriot back from the dead.

Patriot’s capsize came on the last race of the day, as American Magic led Luna Rossa out of the last corner. The wind speed suddenly increased and changed direction, sending Patriot through the air at around 45 knots, over 50 miles per hour.

The boat crashed on its left side, nicking the hull. None of the 11 crew were injured, but the damage – discovered after a pursuit boat removed a piece of the Patriot’s carbon hull out of the water – was significant.

“It was a very extreme circumstance that no one can ever really be prepared for, this big hole in the boat,” said Casey Smith, who oversees the Patriot hydraulic system.

Flotation devices were used to prevent the boat from sinking as it filled with water. The plans have been discussed, revised, rejected. Nothing worked, Smith said, until a police officer “came out of nowhere” with a 40-foot-long rectangular raft that the crew wrapped around the Patriot’s hull and inflated.

“It was the first time that I thought, ‘OK, we’re actually going to save this thing,” Smith said.

To understand the work that lay ahead of American Magic once it was saved, it helps to understand the ship first. The class of boats that race in the America’s Cup, AC75, is a new model that each participant had to build and race in this year’s competition. Boats don’t just sail, they fly – as long as they can reach speeds of over 15 knots. Once a yacht’s hull comes out of the water, all that touches the surface are the boat’s two hydrofoils – those mechanical legs shaped like a praying mantis – and an equally thin rudder.

Even the terminology used around boats has changed to expressions more commonly associated with theft. “Pitching, nose up, nose down – they use the exact same terminology in sailing now,” said Mark Orams, professor of sports and recreation at Auckland University of Technology. There is also now a crew station called a flight controller, responsible for stabilizing the boat out of the water.

“You can go really, really fast,” Orams said of the new generation of racing yachts, “but you’re going to run a high risk of crashing.”

While an AC75 won’t go anywhere unless it’s windy, all of its instruments and functions, like moving hydrofoils in and out of the water, need power. The hydraulic power that moves or adjusts the sails comes from around eight crew called grinders, who furiously pump hand-turned levers as they race. A lithium battery powers everything else.

This power system, along with other major controls, was destroyed by salt water when Patriot capsized. The team had spare parts for all major components and harvested parts from Defiance, the Patriot prototype, to make repairs. The team had to improvise with many yards of connecting cables, said Sean Healey, who worked on the electronic reconstruction of Patriot.

Any modification to the boat, including the various cables or the patch for the hole, puts Patriot in danger of breaking the strict weight rules of the competition. To race, the boat must weigh in the 33 pounds from 14,374 pounds, according to Silvio Arrivabene, the team’s design and production manager.

Another hurdle that American Magic now faces is the undiscovered bugs in Patriot’s newly rebuilt electronic systems. The tight repair schedule left only a 36-hour buffer for delays, testing, bug identification and fixing, and one or two practice laps. On Wednesday, an issue with a trip battery that briefly cut power to the boat was resolved on the water during the boat’s first post capsize sail. “Sadly, we would like weeks to shake off all of these issues,” Healey said. “We just don’t have weeks.”

On Wednesday, less than two weeks after capsizing and about 48 hours before the first Prada Cup race against Italy, Patriot returned to the water. “We held our breath for the first five minutes,” Arrivabene said of this morning’s weigh-in, “but she’s fine.

When the boat returned, its crest was decorated with a message of gratitude to the competitors of American Magic – bandage-shaped graphics featuring their flags and the words “Thank you.”

The other three teams had come to the aid of a sinking Patriot – a break from the famous bitter and contentious America’s Cup culture, and Team New Zealand freed some of their boat builders to create the replacement hull section in one of its local facilities.

On Auckland’s Waitemata Harbor, Patriot was towed for a running start to get the boat up to its hydrofoils, standard for a day of training in light winds. Soon the rope fell and Patriot was flying alone. The yacht wobbled through the air on one foil, then both, then the other as it moved through the water, hitting over 30 knots.

“She picked up where she left off – go fast,” Hutchinson said.