GBR
Challenge to opt for Wight Lightning (11/07/02) (Source
: sport.telegraph.co.uk)
Fresh winds yesterday continued to erode the available
time for America's Cup teams to test their boat changes
ahead of next Tuesday's start of the Louis Vuitton challengers'
quarter-finals.
Although time on the water has not been great, Peter
Harrison's GBR Challenge seem to have made their pick
and gone for GBR 70, Wight Lightning, used in the first
two round robins, ahead of their 'joker', the unconventionally
keeled GBR 78, Wight Magic.
GBR 78 was air-freighted to Auckland in August at huge
expense but differing technical problems have seen the
boats barely sailing. Electing to go down the radical
design route was a bold step for a newcomer short on
experience.
Once GBR 78's severe handling difficulties became known,
requiring rearrangement of mast and keel to get the
boat back in balance, the GBR Challenge have had to
maintain their focus on making detailed incremental
improvements to GBR 70, the boat they have actually
raced.
David Barnes, the general manager, said: "I think the
programme is big enough for us to keep all the balls
in the air. Yes, we've got two different configurations,
but we're quite happy with what we see as the way forward
to ultimately give us the best result. We will race
with whichever boat will give us the best result."
That choice has homed in on GBR 70, which underwent
a subtle bow-shape change in the last round.
GBR 78 was not sailed on Tuesday and yesterday its mast
was moved into GBR 52, the 2000 generation boat acquired
from the Nippon Challenge and which has been quickened
up by Derek Clark's design team.
The sailors are sanguine about the choice. Simon Fry,
the sail trimmer, said: "I don't have any qualms about
racing 70 or 78 - so long as we pick the right one."
He knows that GBR are striving to raise their game for
the next round.
"Within the sailing team we set ourselves a target in
Round Robin One and achieved that target. For Round
Robin Two we also set ourselves a target and didn't
achieve it. That's a simplistic but revealing way of
looking at our performance. It tells us, tells the public,
that we were a little disappointed in our performance."
GBR Challenge will race Dennis Conner's Stars and
Stripes in the quarter-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup
in Auckland and several questions remain unanswered.
The one on most people’s lips is which boat will GBR
Challenge be using.
"To get further we desperately need to squeeze
more speed from our boat, mast, foils and sails",
said Ian Walker. "The margin between winning and
losing can be measured in tiny differences of boat speed
and these can come from any of these areas".
"We have had our moments in this series but these
have largely come from good crew work, brave tactics,
good starts or good strategy. In only one race, against
Mascalzone, have we drawn clear at the start and slowly
extended to a comfortable victory by speed alone".
Peter Harrison's team have a week to test their GBR
70 against GBR 78 with her unconventional tandem keel
- it will be a choice between a boat better-understood
by racing rivals against an unproven concept which has
already required major corrective surgery.
"We believe 78's concept has enormous potential but
until we can quantify what we expect to see, we can't
make that decision," Barnes said. "We will race with
whichever boat gives us ultimately the best result.
There's are a number factors in that: boatspeed, tactical
advantages, starting ability and so forth."
British
contemplate radical change of boat (10/23/02) (Source
: sport.telegraph.co.uk)
Will Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge sail its second
boat, GBR 78 known as Wight Magic, with its radical
tandem keel, in November's quarter-finals? General manager
David Barnes suggests it might.
The second yacht, which will race as GBR 78, will be
tested again this Thursday, GBR's scheduled lay day
in Round Robin 2, to see if re-location of her goal-post
shaped keel, with steerable struts, has cured the boat's
balance problems.
Despite GBR 78 being portrayed as a late 'insurance
policy', the decision to build one conventional and
one radical boat was made when the design process was
frozen on November 1, 2001 after a six month research
and development effort.
The tandem keel is shaped like an inverted goal-post.
Conventional appendages split the steering functions
of a rudder whereas the tandem has two keel fins joined
by the lead bulb, combining steering, lift and stability
in one suite.
"We realised that we'd never see her full potential
unless she was re-configured," confirmed Barnes. He
remains coy about the precise keel design but Barnes
is an unabashed advocate for the tandem keel used by
the New Zealand Challenge 1992.
Then, Barnes said, its potential was masked by the hull
deficiencies - the boat was too wide, too light and
with too little sail area - but that GBR investigated
the form from day one.
"The concept's got enormous potential; it's one of those
things that could be a trump card," he said. "It could
bring you the America's Cup, but unless you manage to
extract that potential, it probably won't."
It is this gap between theoretical and realised potential
that divides opinion inside the team.
