This is a sports website and there has been no lack of attention regarding current events from multiple outlets, so all we will say is that we wish the best for the entire country of New Zealand, as well as anyone directly connected with the recent tragedy.
What caught our eyes today is that the New York Yacht Club has been testing the foiling monohull design that was picked by New Zealand when it took the America’s Cup in 2017.
Time flies, as it is now halfway along to the time when New Zealand will attempt to retain the Cup in the waters off Auckland in 2021.
Our first inclination regarding the radical new design was that there was no possible way the new boats would float, but the New Yorkers have got an actual scaled-down test boat. Let the record show that we were equally dubious about the catamaran designs.
The prototype actually uses technology from Airbus, which seems appropriate on consideration, because the foiling monohulls seem more like flyers than watercraft.
We saw videos of the boat, dubbed American Magic, trialing in Florida waters and it was simply flying to a degree than motorised chase boats were hard-pressed to keep pace.
What we did not see was video of the boat turning, but turn it must and it is hard to conceive that it will be necessary for the primary hull to touch the water in order to tack or otherwise maneuver.
The American syndicate have been doing “dry laps.” That term simply refers to the fact that they have been able to navigate a course of approximately 26 kilometres with the hull never touching the water.
“When we get the right breeze direction … we can do 16 miles [26km] of sailing out of the water. It’s amazing how fast that happens,” Terry Hutchinson, American Magic’s executive director and skipper, said in a phone interview.
The video we watched saw the boat going with the wind in a straight line, leaving a long wake, but no speed figures are known.