Soft Bank Team Japan receives AC45 ‘Turbo’ from Oracle

All Images Mark Knighton / Soft Bank Team Japan – Team Soft Bank Japan has received their AC45 ‘Turbo’ directly from Oracle. It seems the same design we’ve been seeing from their latest sessions with the step back rudders.  This design data sharing will bring Barker a chance to be competitive for the LV as there is so little room to play this time around with rules. AC management might achieve lelveld performance but we want to see in the Americas Cup is top notch innovation as seen with NZ in last Cup.

In 360° video they published this week (check below)  the daggerboard is blured, but in shots above clearly visible though, it might be from another session I guess…

The Japanase funded team have a good base of sailors already, but having Barker with such experience and Draper also onboard, I would put the British former 49er sailor at the helm with the New Zealander watching over him , to match the Outteridge-Percy and Burling-Ashby proven ‘duettos’.

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Technical Director, Nick Holroyd:
“First, there’s a lot of work to assess the package we’ve got”, “Fortunately, the design space is narrowed down – appendages, control systems, wing control, ergonomics, how to deal with the shortage of power on the boat in terms of hydraulic power from the boys grinding – those are all areas teams know they really need to focus on at this point.”

…Specifically, dagger board foil design will take the priority seat in the development phase as the team narrows down which shapes will go into production for their future AC50.

…“The way the protocol works is you’re only ever allowed to fit 4 boards [2 sets] into the AC50. Depending on how you want to design those – for wind range, sea state, stability, etc. – then the first set you launch the boat with will be one of your racing sets. You’re focusing on both the refinement and revolution game at this point so the pressure is on.”
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