Red Bull Youth America's Cup, Racing starts on September 1st, 2013

From the following article on americascup.com

http://www.americascup.com/en/news/3/news/17697/countdown-is-on-to-the-red-bull-youth-americas-cup

The Red Bull Youth America’s Cup starts in less than a week and the 10 national youth teams are into their final preparations on San Francisco Bay.

The event runs from September 1-4, with four days of fleet racing off the America’s Cup Village at Marina Green.

On Saturday, August 31, there is a final day of practice with Speed Trials incorporated in the final training session – a spectator favourite.

“If I had to sum up the situation, I would say that this is a fantastic race course, with great boats and that our rivals are going to be tough,” said Antoine Lauriot-Prévost, the helmsman for the French entry, Next World Energy. “But we have a wonderful team here and everyone is focused.”

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Extreme Sailing Series update, Race report on day 1 of Cardiff event (Act 6)

From the following article on the Extreme Sailing Series website:

http://www.extremesailingseries.com/news/view/small-breeze-calls-for-big-tactics-on-day-one-of-act-6-cardiff-presented-by#.UhfFpMhAp8Q

- Swiss dominate on opening day with 2013 newcomers Realteam staking an early claim and circuit veterans Alinghi in second.
- Swapping the tide for turf – Extreme 40 skippers rub shoulders with British and Irish Lions heroes Leigh Halfpenny and Alex Cuthbert.
- Big breeze on the horizon for tomorrow – tune in LIVE from 1600 BST on the official website. Watch the preview here.

Quashing all fears of a shut down in Cardiff Bay on the opening day of the Extreme Sailing Series™ Act 6, Cardiff hosted by the Cardiff Harbour festival, the light airs that looked set to characterise the day's racing revved up to a playful breeze across the bay just in time for three all important points scoring races – perhaps spurred on by a wind dance from Red Bull Sailing Teams trimmer Matthew Adams. Out on the course the Swiss dominated, with 2013 newcomers Realteam leading the Act after day one and circuit veterans Alinghi exercising their new weapon and Olympic champion Anna Tunnicliffe, putting them in second. Never far from the podium top spot, Leigh McMillan’s The Wave, Muscat wait in the wings in third as day one of racing concludes. To wrap up the opening days proceedings, the Extreme Sailing Series skippers tonight joined British and Irish lions heroes and two of international rugby’s best-known stars, Leigh halfpenny and Alex Cuthbert at the Cardiff Blues home ground to see for themselves what the Welsh do best.

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Racing light airs in Cardiff (Act 6), photo courtesy Extreme Sailing Series

Extreme Sailing Series 2013, Cardiff event (Act 6) kicks off on the 23rd August 1400BST

From the following article on the Extreme Sailing Series website:

http://www.extremesailingseries.com/news/view/battle-drums-sound-across-cardiff-bay-ahead-of-act-6-cardiff-presented-by-l#.UhaTDchAp8R

The towering masts of the Extreme Sailing Series™ fleet dominated the Cardiff Bay skyline today, as eight Extreme 40s took to the water for one final shake down ahead of Act 6, Cardiff hosted by Cardiff Harbour Festival. Gliding round the Bay under bright skies and tactically demanding light airs, today’s series of short preview races came as a final chance for the circuits new faces and old hands to sharpen their swords and polish up their armor ahead of the battle of Cardiff Bay, kicking off on Friday 23rd August at 1400 BST.

Making their racing debut at one of the highlight events in the Extreme Sailing Series calendar, ChinaSpirit used the day’s practice racing as an opportunity to ‘iron out the final creases’ as the team’s Kiwi skipper Phil Robertson explained: “It was great to get out on the water today ahead of the main event, we’re getting better and better as a team and we’re in a good place going into tomorrow’s racing. We’ve started at the bottom, but we’re ready to work out way up. ChinaSpirit are a brand new Chinese team and we’re thrilled to be here in Cardiff.”

Read more here

Extreme 40's racing in Porto, photo courtesy Extreme Sailing Series

GC32 catamaran update, videos of racing at Aberden Asset Cowes Week.

Red Bull Youth America's Cup update, training underway for youth teams from around the world

Looking forward to the RBYAC, great to see these young teams battling it out on the water in AC45 catamarans.

From the following article on americascup.com

http://www.americascup.com/en/news/3/news/17242/for-red-bull-youth-americas-cup-sailors-its-christmas-every-day

With less than three weeks to go before the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup, training is well underway and the excitement and anticipation is building rapidly among the teams.
Next World Energy Sailing’s skipper Arthur Ponroy described the current feeling among the sailors. “Everyone is very happy, very excited to be here. There is a very good atmosphere,” he said.
That atmosphere is due in large part to the teams’ surroundings.

 The RBYAC base shares Piers 30/32 with Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Challenge and the young sailors are thrilled to be neighbors to the big boys. “It’s great to be so close to them. It lets us dream a little bit. Maybe in five or 10 years it will be us – we’ll be in these big team camps,” said Ponroy.

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GC32 Catamaran update, new speed record and first capsize for the GC32's at Aberdeen Asset Cowes Week

From the following news article on the Great Cup website:

http://thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=63e9f901-2637-4f7f-a9bd-b4a68eb9298f&month=08&year=2013

After setting a new speed record yesterday, another new limit to GC32 racing was discovered today. While leading the final race of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, Flavio Marazzi’s Marwin team capsized its boat – the first time one of the all-new Martin Fischer-designed catamarans has ever turned over.

As usual today’s race started in relatively light winds only with a downwind start on this occasion taking the boats east down the Solent. Marazzi, twice Switzerland’s representative in the Star class at the Olympic Games, led the Laurent Lenne-steered SPAX Solution off the start line. However Lenne was able to get back into contention after the Swiss team experienced issues with its genniker furler at the second leeward mark rounding.

The lengthy Cowes Week course then took the two GC32 catamarans on a long upwind leg into the western Solent. During this Marazzi was able to fight back to regain the lead, reaching the top mark comfortably ahead. Unfortunately while bearing away around this, the final mark of the course, with the wind up to 20 knots and a short chop having developed the tide having turned, the Swiss team managed to bury its bows, their boat tumbling over on its side.

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GC32 catamaran update, GC32's at the Aberdeen Asset Cowes week

The GC32 press release on the racing at Aberdeen Asset Cowes week:

The Great Cup press release issued on 09/08/2013

GC32s closing on 30 knots

 

The Great Cup has completed its third day of GC32 catamaran racing at Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week. Thanks to a technical issue on one of the three boats taking part, the racing on the Solent has become a two boat affair between SPAX Solutions and Time on the Water.

Today was one of breaking new records for the state of the art Martin Fischer-designed catamarans, built by Premier Composites in Dubai. Cowes Week courses are a long way away from the multiple short race format the teams are used to. Today the Multihull Class, of which the GC32s form a sub-group, was dispatched on a course taking them all the way up the Western Solent, on a multiple leg course between Lymington and back to Cowes, on a single high speed race lasting 2 hours 20 minutes. After a relatively light start, the wind the sea breeze kicked in, building to 17 knots and with this SPAX Solutions set a new GC32 high speed record of 29.1 knots.

The Swiss Marwin team, skippered by Olympic Star sailor Flavio Marazzi, led out of the start, covering her opponent, but it was SPAX Solutions, skippered by founder of The Great Cup, Laurent Lenne, that overtook on the third leg and from there never looked back. But the two one design catamarans remained in close contact all the way on to the finish.

Sailing with Laurent Lenne on SPAX Solutions today were Swedish Volvo Ocean Race sailor Mikael Lundh, Kiwi AC45 crew James Williamson and British former 49er sailor Rick Peacock.

“We had a few tricky moments when we passed a mark with the current,” says Lenne, who hasn’t raced on the Solent since he studied Naval Architecture at Southampton Institute a few years ago. “We almost ended up on top of this big cardinal mark and then at the finish a VIP boat tried to cross ahead of us and we had to duck them with our genniker up. But the racing was good. We were really constant, quick upwind and downwind. The boat felt great.”

Racing in the wind and waves of the Solent comes as a great relief following the two regattas of the Great Cup held so far this year on lakes in Austria and Switzerland. “The boat has been designed to sail on the sea. For me it is where it should be sailing, in current and big waves,” says Lenne.

British Olympic Tornado sailor and multihull specialist Hugh Styles has been racing on the GC32s at Cowes Week too. “It has got the opportunities of all the bigger cats I have sailed on before, but you can play with the foils to give you some more performance,” he says of the GC32. “And the performance is just electric!”

When sailing the double-S configuration foils on the GC32 are both constantly kept down, but their pitch can be altered to provide either positive or negative vertical lift. More positive vertical lift can be applied to the foil in the weather hull to help it fly in marginal conditions, but in more breeze, this same foil can be articulated in the opposite direction, dragging the weather hull down, effectively increasing righting moment. 

“That gives us the opportunity to fly the hull earlier and once we get foiling we can use the foil to create grip on the windward hull, like having extra crew sitting there,” says Styles. Using the foils as described, he adds, has allowed them to enabled them to be hull flying in as little as 8 knots.

With Cowes Week on and several top international racing boats in the Solent area preparing to take part in the Rolex Fastnet Race on Sunday, several VIPs have been for a ride on GC32, including MOD70 trimaran crewman and multiple round the world sailor Damian Foxall, Ireland’s top sailor. Foxall was suitably impressed with the new catamaran.  “He came for a little look and was buzzing at the end of it,” says Styles. “We tried all sorts of different configurations with the centreboards and inclining the L-shaped rudder forward and back. You realise that for years and years you have focussed on everything above the water, but there is so much to be achieved on how the appendages work below the water.”

Of note for Styles with the new catamaran is how it feels locked to the water. “You see Extreme 40s downwind and they pitch a lot, whereas with this you are locked in on this constant pitch angle fore and aft – it is really stable. You feel really safe on board even in bear aways.”

Tomorrow will be the final day of racing for the GC32s at Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week.

 

For further information visit www.thegreatcup.com

And a video of the racing and an interview with Damien Foxall.

GC32 catamaran update, racing news from Cowes Week

From the following article on the Cowes Week website:

http://www.cowes.co.uk/Evolution-of-the-catamaran-GC32s-at-Cowes-Week.aspx

Evolution of the catamaran - GC32s at Cowes Week

Cowes Week Limited have been working with the Great Cup Series to incorporate the innovative GC32 catamarans, which were first launched just last year, into the Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week regatta.

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GC32 catamaran update, Minoprio victorious at the GC32's debut event

From the following article on the The Great Cup website

http://www.thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=08f85b88-3bc5-426a-9836-77e646580029&month=05&year=2013

Hopes for the final day of racing at The Great Cup’s first ever event, the GC32 Austria Cup within Allianz Traunsee Week presented by BMW, were to complete an eight race round robin before a weather front rolled across Lake Traunsee. Sadly half way through the rain arrived, the wind disappeared and any further prospects of racing were quashed.

While Flavio Marazzi and his Marwin crew set a brisk tone of the day port tacking the fleet with a giant hull fly off the line in race one, it was again Kiwi former Match Racing World Champion Adam Minoprio who continued his relentless string of race wins to end the regatta first overall, eight points ahead of Marwin.

“I didn’t have high hopes of winning, but I didn’t have any other goal,” said Minoprio of his success in his first ever multihull regatta. “I am a little surprised I won. I am pretty happy with how quickly we managed to start sailing these boats fast around the track, but the guys I had sailing with me with put in a big effort.” Sailing with Minoprio were Andy Dinsdale (GER/USA), Thomas Tschepen (AUT) and Diego Stefani (ITA).

From here Minoprio sets out this year to reclaim the Alpari World Match Racing Tour title, but hopes to return to The Great Cup. “It is definitely a whole lot of fun. The GC32 is a great boat: It is very nice to sail, it gets up and flies a hull in six knots of wind and you can zoom around a track. It is a great package.”

Flavio Marazzi has taken to his new GC32 catamaran with the same intensity with which he undertook his Star keelboat campaigns for the last three Olympic Games.“It was a really great experience with six teams,” he said. “The boats are very equal. It is hard to be always be on top.”

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GC32 Catamaran, highlights from Lake Traunsee/Austria Cup day 4

GC32 catamaran, highlights of day 3 of racing at Lake Traunsee

GC32 catamaran update, day 2 and 3 of racing on Lake Traunsee

Day 2 of racing at Lake Traunsee

From the following article on www.thegreatcup.com

http://www.thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=798934e5-9435-4795-a075-a589f3c78ec1&month=05&year=2013

Despite his lack of catamaran experience, former Match Racing World Champion Adam Minoprio proved his dominance on day two of the GC32 Austria Cup today, winning all his races to take the overall lead in this inaugural event of The Great Cup.

The competition also had a different complexion today being held off the Allianz Traunsee Race Week centre of Gmunden at the northern end of Lake Traunsee. Away from Ebensee and ‘Little Garda’ where racing was held yesterday, there was a longer wait for the sea breeze to fill in. When it arrived, it did so slowly and with the light northeasterly breeze blowing straight off the land there were bullets of wind across the course, requiring tacticians to stay on their toes as once again they raced two lap windward-leewards.

Today the fleet has one light with a vital replacement part for SPAX Solutions Sailing Team due to arrive in Gmunden tonight. With only two of the Martin Fischer-designed GC32 catamarans available, so a fresh series was set up especially. This involved all six teams competing, first sailing a round robin where each team got to sail twice. According to their result in this, the teams were then divided into gold, silver and bronze matches for their finals, winner of the gold match claiming first place, etc.

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Day 3 of the racing at Lake Traunsee

From the following article on www.thegreatcup.com

http://www.thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=d82ab6a2-c4d8-4d86-a3e8-481221b6365d&month=05&year=2013

GC32 Austria Cup was up to full strength today with three boats back on the start line of this, the brand new catamaran class’ first ever regatta, after a vital part arrived overnight for SPAX Solution Sailing Team.

Unfortunately due to a front passing this part of Austria, the warm summery conditions gave way initially to chilly winds, then rain and ultimately very light winds. As a result only two races were held on the course directly off the Allianz Traunsee Week race village in Gmunden.

The first race between Laurent Lenne’s SPAX Solution Sailing Team, the Andreas Hagara-steered AEZ GC32 Team Austria and Flavio Marazzi’s Marwin was held in a light, but stable southerly wind blowing up the length of lake.

Marazzi led up the first beat and chose his sides well to take the first win of the day as SPAX and AEZ GC32 Team Austria jockeyed for second. The Dutch team rolled the Austrians coming into the leeward gate only for Hagara’s crew to relieve SPAX of second on the finish line.

There was a long wait for the second race as the light fickle wind went through a 180° turn before ending up vaguely in the southeast and still very shifty. In this the Firefly team started strongly on port tack in a puff taking them out to the right. The Dutch team helmed by former Tornado Olympic sailor Pim Nieuwenhuis led around the top mark with former Match Racing World Champion Adam Minoprio uncharacteristically last, half a leg behind. However all three boats bunched up coming into the leeward gate effectively making for a restart. Firefly led around and after she and Minoprio sailed off to the right, they parked up. Meanwhile AEZ GC32 Youth Sailing Team, in a ‘zero to hero’ move, went left hard left, hugged the shoreline, found breeze and crossed the finish line first, more than four minutes ahead of her rivals.

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GC32 catamaran prepares to make racing debut on Lake Traunsee, Austria

From the following article on www.thegreatcup.com

http://www.thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=cf8eb8b0-ebf6-4e2a-948b-7e9546f5029a&month=05&year=2013

While there appeared to be no wind on Lake Traunsee today, the experienced race committee, led by former Star Olympic sailor Stefan Puxkandl, moved the three GC32 catamarans down to the southern end of the lake at Ebensee and the area known as ‘Little Garda’, where there always seems to be the most breeze on this picture postcard Austrian lake.

All the teams got a chance to race with different winners in each of these informal races: Marwin Team of Swiss Star sailor Flavio Marazzi taking the first, Laurent Lenne’s Spax Solution Sailing Team claiming the second and their Dutch team mates, Firefly, first home in the third.

The Great Cup’s Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macpherson says that the one design aspect of the Martin Fischer-designed 32ft catamarans and the equality of their performance is working: “Over the last few days of test racing, we’ve all been lining up and no one seems faster.”

For the first time today all the crews and their skippers assembled. Austria’s great hope is AEZ GC32 Racing skipper Andreas Hagara, who over his lengthy career in the Olympic Tornado catamaran has been World Champion and has won 15 medals at World and European championship level. Hagara has also competed in the Extreme Sailing Series and was skipper of the China Team AC45.

Hagara is enthusiastic about The Great Cup and the GC32 catamaran: “I think the concept is really good, the size is good, it is state of the art, the latest you can get, apart from the wing rig [which the GC32 doesn’t have, but is fitted to the AC45 and AC72 America’s Cup catamarans], but that is not in line with the idea of the boat - a wing wouldn’t work for private owners.”
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Extreme Sailing Series update, video of Day 3 racing in Qingdao

Great Cup 32 Catamaran makes it's racing debut at Lake Traunsee, Austria as part of the Allianz Traunsee Week

From the following article on the Great Cup 32 website:

http://www.thegreatcup.com/newsitem.aspx?newsId=04f65659-6828-4c4e-b962-e7b22e263e9a&month=05&year=2013

Grand prix catamaran racing comes to the idyllic setting of Lake Traunsee, Austria next week (8-12 May) with the much anticipated debut of The Great Cup, as part of Allianz Traunsee Week.

Competing will be the first three GC32s built (a fourth is already en route to Europe from the UAE).

For the event, the three carbon fibre catamarans will sail under the colours of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria and to maximise the number of teams competing, each boat is being allocated two crews, who will alternate.

Thus, Spax Solution Sailing Team from the Netherlands, skippered by creator of The Great Cup, Laurent Lenne, and whose four man crew includes Aussie catamaran ace Andrew Macpherson and Swedish Volvo Ocean Race and America’s Cup sailor Micke Lundh, will be swapping with another exclusively Dutch crew led by ex-Tornado Olympian Pim Nieuwenhuis. The latter team includes Thijs Visser, who won the new Nacra 17 catamaran class at the Trofeo Princesa Sofia in Palma in March.

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GC32 racing catamaran sailing in Ebensee with Team Austria

GC32 Great Cup racing catamaran, upcoming events

I've reproduced this recently issued press release for anyone who is interested in becoming a prospective owner/competitor on the Great Cup circuit.  I'm very impressed by their willingness to set up the competition and provide events at which the boats can be raced. More information on this exciting new one design racing catamaran can be found at https://www.facebook.com/GC32Racing or on the web at http://www.thegreatcup.com

The GREAT CUP – the brand new circuit for state of the art foiling catamarans

 

With the Nacra 17 in the Olympic Games for Rio 2016 and the 34rd America’s Cup being sailed this year in foiling AC72s, soaring interest in competing on two hulls has prompted a new circuit to be set up for the absolute state of the art in racing catamarans.

 

Created by cat sailors Laurent Lenne and Andrew Macpherson, the Great Cup makes its debut next month on Lake Traunsee, Austria, and will be sailed in brand new, purpose-built GC32 foiling catamarans.

 

Built in entirely in carbon fibre by Premier Composites in Dubai, the GC32 has been designed by Martin Fischer, best known for his groundbreaking Capricorn, Hobie Wild Cat and Phantom F18 catamarans and his work on Franck Cammas’ Groupama trimarans.

 

The GC32 features the latest S-foil daggerboards and L-profile rudders. These generate enough vertical lift to elevate the GC32 out of the water when she is sailing at speed, in a similar fashion to the foiling AC72s. But unlike the solid wing used on America’s Cup catamarans, the GC32 features a simpler and more conventional rotating wingmast rig, making its launch and retrieval an easier process.  

 

Significantly, the Great Cup is aimed at accomplished amateur sailors looking to go racing aboard the fastest, most advanced boats for their size. “We want the Great Cup to be the catamaran equivalent of racing a Melges,” says Laurent Lenne, himself a businessman and an amateur F18 sailor, who conceived the GC32 as the boat he most wanted to sail.

 

As a result The Great Cup is being set up to give owners and teams easy access to their boats without their having too far to travel for their racing. The intention is to have a number of local circuits, the first being in Western Europe, with others to follow in the USA and Australasia. When these are established the cream of these fleets will meet up to compete in the equivalent of a World Championship.

 

Because The Great Cup is aimed more at private owners than sponsored boats with pro crews, the circuit will be less-orientated towards ‘stadium sailing’. While races are sure to be kept short, emphasis will be placed on ensuring the best racing for the competitors. The lightweight GC32 is also designed so it can be raced in the widest range of conditions, from 5 to 25 knots, to maximise the opportunities to compete.

 

While the prospect of racing a boat capable of 15 knots upwind and more than 30 while ‘flying’ downwind might seem alarming, the GC32 has been conceived to be very well behaved on all parts of the race course. If an AC72 is the equivalent of a fully fledged Formula 1 race car, the GC32 is more a super-high performance road car. For example the hi-tech foils may give the impression of making the boat harder to sail. In reality their effect on the helm is not overly noticeable, they reduce pitching and while the usually terrifying bear-away at the top mark still incurs considerable G-force on the crew, it does so with the risk of pitchpoling much reduced. In effect the GC32 design maintains the catamaran’s outstanding speed around the race track, while minimising the possibility of capsize.

 

As Laurent Lenne says: “To me, as an owner, the first time you step on the boat you are overwhelmed by how impressive the speed is, but at the same time you feel safe very quickly.”

 

2013 will be the year where The Great Cup establishes itself. Already three GC32 have been constructed and these will have their competitive first outing in Europe at Allianz Traunsee Week on Lake Traunsee, Austria over 8-12 May.

 

The boats are then scheduled to move on to Lake Geneva in June where they will compete in the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve and the Bol d’Or Mirabaud.

 

Great Cup 32 Catamaran, sailing fast in Medemblik, Netherlands

GC racing have uploaded a video of their GC32 catamaran sailing fast in Medemblik, Netherlands.  It's obviously not flying fully out of the water on the foils but the foil assistance is obvious.

http://youtu.be/9NeI0qCR2VQ

GC32 catamaran video, Hull no.2 sailing in Medemblik, Netherlands

Boat #2 gets its first ever sail on a cold day in Medemblik, Netherlands. Very light wind, maybe 5kts maximum.

http://youtu.be/vJ5n3xlk_oQ

Video of the Bay of Islands Sailing Week (New Zealand)

Crew.org.nz have linked this video of the BOISW which includes some video of the new Ninja Catamaran sailing.