Wednesday, April 27, 2016

America's Cup / SoftBank Team Japan completes two month test program with the AC45 Sport

With just over thirteen months until the 35th America’s Cup, SoftBank Team Japan has been wasting no time in their testing program having spent eight solid weeks sailing their AC45 Sport “Otosan” on the Great Sound in Bermuda.


Crédit : I Roman


Following a fantastic training conditions last week that saw the team get out on the water four out of five days, we caught up with Skipper and CEO Dean Barker to give as much insight as possible into the design race the team is chasing. Here’s what he had to say about the team’s design goals, what they’re learning about the AC45 Sport, and the advantages of sailing alongside other competitors during this phase:

Now that the testing phase has really begun, what is the team learning about the AC45 Sport?
Learning to sail the boat in more breeze has been the main focus for us over this period. The boat has certainly come alive, even above 13 - 14 knots, and we’re pushing the upper wind range more and more. This enables us to get more confidence in the boat in addition to learning how to sail it very well in different conditions. We’re also learning a lot about the racecourse and the differences that we can expect on the water here in Bermuda which will hopefully be an advantage for us.”

What specific things are you trying to test in the next couple months?
There are a number of different concepts which are always ongoing, whether it’s improving the control systems, dagger boards, techniques, learning to sail the boat differently, etc. We have several objectives, and ticking those off in a methodical way is always the challenge. With the weather becoming more settled, I’m hopeful that we can get some decent sailing in and push a lot harder in the race testing as the weeks go on.

When is the next design milestone for the team?
We have a new dagger board to design and build in addition to other components that are arriving as we are constantly looking to improve our systems. With these kinds of programs, the lead times are one of the biggest killers so being well organized in terms of pre-planning for what we need and balancing that against the speed in which these boats are evolving is a constant challenge. Its very possible to order things that are correct at the time, but 2 months later, even before they’ve been on the boat, they may be the wrong direction. So we try to be clever and keep pushing the design envelope and keep looking at how to get better and better over time.”

Is the team able to do any two-boat testing with other teams? Have you learned anything from running side-by-side?
“The great thing with the relationship with Oracle is that we’re able to get out on the water together, sometimes with two of their boats against us and we do some great sailing. When Artemis is out there as well, you can have up to 4 boats on the water at one time. It can get a little busy but it’s a great spectacle and a great way to improve.




With more sailable conditions in the forecast, SoftBank Team Japan looks to continue testing through the rest of the week before changing their focus to Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series New York set to begin May 5th.