FOILING AT 50 KNOTS
It was full-on in Pensacola on Friday as the New York Yacht Club American Magic team put the pedal to the floor in 24 knots of angry Bay breeze and let Patriot rip hitting speeds over 50 knots at times. Colten Hall, one of the new breed of cyclor athletes hired in to the team, summed it up with youthful enthusiasm saying: “It was kind of funny we kept looking down and seeing 50 knots consistently so it was wild to be on that yeah it was just so fast and we just had our heads down fully grinding… it was definitely pretty chunky out there I mean definitely top end range for our part in the power group and we were definitely fully torqued. It was definitely a good one out there, good rip for the boys and a lot of fun.”
Sensibly the flight controllers kept the ride height low with Patriot just skimming above the water – probably the lowest flight trim we’ve seen her in and the smallest J5 headsail was easily enough horsepower to pop the hull clear. Riley Gibbs was sharing the helming duties with Paul Goodison and it was clearly safety first with the recon team noting that: “bear-aways and harden ups looked a bit nervous.” Understandable in the conditions but an amazing sight to behold as American Magic covered some 57 nautical miles on no less than fourteen windward-leeward laps. A total of seven foil-to-foil gybes were recorded with 100% accuracy and 27 tacks were thrown in with a 93% success rate. Big numbers.
Upwind, Patriot looked rock solid with the helms and flight controllers inducing the windward heel technique to counter the gusts and keep maximum power on. From a sailing perspective, the time that the team have put in on the water has certainly yielded strong technique and the power output was mighty from the re-geared cyclor unit that the team upgraded over the Christmas period. But Colten Hall let slip that towards the end of the day, the cyclors switched over to battery power saying: “We turn on the batteries just to give us a little bit more of a rest - you can't be out there all day at that top notch.”
Foiling runs were shorter than we’ve seen from Patriot, and it was noticeable that the team would call a halt to foiling and then gather to talk through technique. Some of those sessions were a good 15 minutes and there was also a lot of time spent making adjustments inside the leech/foot area to keep the load on the leech and flatten off the top section. Foiling time was 76 minutes in total and top speeds were 42 knots upwind and 50 knots downwind with occasional rags of the headsail observed.
A session that will be long remembered ahead of Patriot being de-commissioned after the weekend with the American Magic programme switching to the AC40s from the beginning of March. The sailors will be staying match-fit through February with several sailing International Moths whilst for the power unit, the relentless fitness continues. For Colten Hall, already the holder of a two-hour Zwift record, it may be an opportunity to better his time: “I didn't even really know it existed until one of the other cyclors actually mentioned it. I think will have better crack at it sometime in the future.”
One thing we know for sure - Patriot at 50 knots is one highly impressive spectacle. We’ll miss her when she’s gone.
On-Water Recon Unit Notes: Patriot sailed inshore today, covered approximately 57 nm, comprised of 14 W/L legs. Three headsails were loaded into the support RIB, 1 was used. Sailing began at 12:11, completed 34 manoeuvres and ended sailing at 14:40. Patriot had a total flying time of 76 Minutes. Top speeds were approximately 42k upwind (measured by GPS aboard RIB) and 50k downwind (according to interview). Patriot started the day by getting a tow to the south end of the bay to have an upwind start in top end wind conditions. The yacht looked stable for the majority of the day with only a couple of unplanned touch downs. The bear-aways and harden ups looked a bit nervous. The day consisted mainly of short foiling runs with a fewer than average number of manoeuvres, with five-to-fifteen-minute breaks/meetings in between foiling sessions. Frequent adjustments were made inside the mainsail skins in the leech/foot area.
Total Tacks: 27 – 25 foil-to-foil, 2 touchdowns
Total Gybes: 7 – 7 foil-to-foil
Recon Notes: Patriot was on foil a combined total of 76 minutes. Flight times ranged from 1 minute to 19 minutes (3, 2, 9, 3, 6, 1, 3, 10, 4, 19, and 16 minutes respectively).
Take off speed: 21 knots at 60 degrees TWA (True Wind Angle)
Initial take off was self, 11 additional self-ups, 0 tow-ups
Onboard Today:
Helms: Paul Goodison / Riley Gibbs
Trimmers: Lucas Calbrese / Michael Menninger
Flight Control: Andrew Campbell
Power Group: John Croom / Madison Molitor/ Trevor Burd / Colten Hall / James Wright / Cooper Dressler
Conditions: 11:44 N 15k/ 12:26 N 15k/ 12:53 N 17-19k/ 13:30 N 18k/ 13:53 N 12-14k. Higher wind speeds were measured on the race yacht (20k-25k according to interview). Wind speed measured 8ft above sea level using a handheld anemometer. Sunny 55 degrees (AM). Sunny 65 degrees (PM).
Sails Used:
M3 (AM-MN9): 3 hours 10 minutes
J5 (J3-6): 2 hours 40 minutes
Dock-Out: 1130 Dock-In: 1501