BARCELONA & CAGLIARI – THE LEEWAY BATTLE CONTINUES

22/07/2023

Talk to the sailors, designers or shore teams in this America’s Cup cycle and the battle for leeway mitigation is real and alive with everyone shifting their attention to foil design, wing variances, bulb size, bulb walls, fences and wing wash. What we’re seeing now in Barcelona and indeed out in Cagliari, is the temperature increasing not only of the land mass of Continental Europe which recorded some sweltering conditions on Wednesday, but in the battle for foil supremacy come the first start of the 37th America’s Cup.

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli went deep into the foil testing mode today in a red-hot Cagliari, escaping the heat to put in another solid performance that was all muscle, speed and tight turns as they dialled in their anhedral port foil for more testing against the flat-foil ‘Wing 3’ that is their latest iteration on the starboard side. With the boat design largely done in terms of hull form and the builds underway all over the globe at the moment, this concentration on wing dynamics has caught fire. Horacio Carabelli, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s Design Co-Ordinator confirmed the focus saying: “I think we’re doing mainly what other teams are doing now, playing a little bit with the foils, and little details here and there and this wing (port anhedral) is also a particular wing that we’re looking into. So, it has its good points and strong points so we’re coming back into it and you’re going to be seeing a little bit of up and down and changing stuff during the following month with everybody now nailing down our last card (Wing 04) and at the end we only have one more card to play but we’re pretty happy with the development and what we are achieving so far.”