ACC yachts FRA-93 and GBR-75 arrive safe and sound in Nice

It took less than 2 days to cover the 450 nautical miles that separate Valencia from Nice under tow. The two ACC yachts, FRA-93 and GBR-75, have just arrived, safe and sound in Nice, meaning the shore crews will have their hands full working on them, trying to make them as equally matched as possible.

ALL4One Challenge's FRA-93 arrives in Nice, under tow from Valencia. Nice, 20 October 2009. Photo copyright ALL4One Challenge

Team Origin's GBR-75 arrives in Nice, under tow from Valencia. Nice, 20 October 2009. Photo copyright ALL4One Challenge

Greek Challenge training in Valencia

For the first time ever, a Greek crew sailed an America's Cup yacht. It is taking place throughout the week in Valencia aboard K-Challenge's FRA-93. Sébastien Col and four of his World Match Racing crew are coaching the 25-strong Greek crew, giving them a crash course on ACC yachts. The team will make its maiden appearance in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in two weeks.

Greek Challenge sailing for the first time. Valencia, 13 January 2009. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Greek Challenge

Louis Vuitton Cup - Round Robin 1 - Day 7: Areva Challenge beat Desafío Español

It wasn't supposed to be a difficult race for Desafío Español, the Spanish America's Cup challenger, but it turned out as the day's upset as a broken spinnaker pole on the Spanish boat cost them the early and comfortable lead they had over the French.

The start was pretty even and the Spanish went off the right side of the course and began to take the lead early in the first leg. The held on it till the top mark which they rounded 7 seconds ahead of their rival. Halfway through the first downwind leg, and after having increased their lead, Desafío Español suffered a breakage on their spinnaker pole. They tried to improvise and continued using their shortened pole (by 1 meter) through the rest of the downwind leg but when approaching the leeward gate they dropped it.

The obvious downwind speed difference meant the French rounded 1 minute ahead of the Spanish whose only option was to dramatically catch up in the second upwind leg. They achieved in reducing the gap to just 15 seconds at the top mark but the in final leg the cards were reversed once again and Areva Challenge crossed the finish line 2 minutes ahead.

The only consolation for the Spanish team is their superior boat speed and crew tactics. According to Marcos Iglesias, spinnaker trimmer, "the spinnaker pole broke after a maneuver within one and a half minute. It wasn’t positioned either very high or very low but broke in a straight line. At the moment we still don’t know why it broke".

Start of the Desafío Español - Areva Challenge race. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Clearly superior over their oppnents, Desafío Español lead the race from the first stretch of the first leg. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Areva Challenge approach the leeward gate clearly ahead of Desafío Español who are still trying to sail with their broken spinnaker pole. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Areva Challenge ready to round the leeward gate while Desafío Español are still trying to sail with their broken spinnaker pole. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Areva Challenge round the leeward gate and sail to the right side of the course. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Desafío Español finally sail the last stretch of the first downwind leg with no spinnaker pole. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Desafío Español round the leeward gate and sail to the left side of the course. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Areva Challenge cross the finish line way ahead of Deafío Español, but their overall performance shouldn't satisfy them. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Desafío Español crosses the fininsh line after sailing the last leg with no spinnaker pole. Valencia, 22 April 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Identify the boats

We received a great number of replies and the first correct one came considerably fast, one hour after posting the quiz, from a reader in Copenhagen. Here are the correct sailnumbers of the boats, in the order they appear from the top: USA-87 (BMW Oracle), ITA-86 (Luna Rossa), FRA-93 (Areva Challenge), ITA-94 (Luna Rossa), ESP-97 (Desafío Español) and USA-98 (BMW Oracle).

So far our quizzes have been limited to some obscure parts of a racing boat. Today we focus on the big picture and our test will consist of identifying 6 America's Cup yachts being towed out of Port America's Cup. All photos were taken today Thursday while the boats were on their way out to another day of training, taking advantage of the considerably good wind conditions so far. Some might be obvious while others, hopefully, not so.

The first person to correctly identify all boats will receive a surprise gift from Valencia Sailing. As a result and in order to be able to reach you, please send your replies by email. Don't leave an anonymous comment at the bottom of the article since we will not know who you are.

Speaking of wind conditions, Paul Cayard's comment this morning on his website is very revelatory: One thing I think could throw a curve ball at some teams is the weather in April. April is still definitely spring and the previous racing in Valencia has never started this early. February was 15-20 knots 75% of the time. Most teams have designed their boats for 9-14 knots which is expected in June. But to get to June, you have to survive April and May. The competition is going to be tough. I think there will be a number of "upsets". All this will mix up the results a bit more than expected and create some anxiety for the teams that are "supposed" to be there in May.

It will be fast and furious for six teams; the regatta will be a three week event for them. You only have to look at that reality to become extremely motivated.

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Valencia, 22 March 2007. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

What is this?

Update: It turned out to be a fairly easy question since the correct answer was given almost immediately. It is FRA-93, the brand new boat of Areva Challenge, sailing off Valencia's coast on January 8, the first day the French team resumed their daily training schedule after the holidays. This beautiful picture was taken by Frank Socha, the team's official photographer, and can be found, together with lots of other interesting material, on the blog of Dimitri Nicolopoulos, Areva Challenge's design coordinator. His blog is only in French but still one can read very interesting first-hand information on several yacht design issues.

Can you recognize this yacht? This beautiful picture was taken exactly a week ago. Unfortunately, we do not have the right to offer a reward to the person(s) that will find the correct answer but it is still worth giving a try.

FRA-93 of Areva Challenge sailing in Valencia for the first time in 2007 after the winter holidays. Valencia, 8 January 2007. Photo copyright Frank Socha / Areva Challenge

Dimitri Nicolopoulos of Areva Challenge talks about FRA-93

Areva Challenge, the French America's Cup challenger, finished their 2006 training period on Thursday afternoon. They had been sailing with their brand new boat FRA-93 for a couple of weeks and the holiday break is a very good opportunity to assess her performance. Dimitri NicolopoulosDesign Coordinator of Areva Challenge

Click for more info, design team coordinator for the French syndicate, gives us his first impressions after 8 days of testing:

When we did set up for our maiden sail last week, it was one of those moments everyone is looking for in these campaigns. A blend of plain happiness and high stress about the ‘baby’ behaviour at sea. In our case, things went really well and on the first day we could exceed slightly the heel targets we did set ourselves, sailing upwind under main and genoa. After this first shake down, we really got into testing mode on the second day. The first thing you want to achieve with an ACC yacht is to make sure the structure is up to the expectations and you can sail fully heeled without breaking anything. The loads are huge, exceeding 50T on the mast step and 100T on the keel root and they travel through tiny (this is how you perceive them under load…) carbon bulkheads. This is one of the keys to the yacht performance as all teams are looking for light internal structure without compromising the stiffness of the hull. Light structure in order to have a heavier bulb and achieve the same stability with a narrower (less drag) hull. Stiffness to be able to tension the head stay without bending the boat too much which would reduce the sailing waterlength thus decreasing performance. Those two objectives being antagonist, we did spend quite some time developing numerical simulations and scratching our head to achieve the targets. Thanks to the creativity of Guillaume Verdier, Benjamin Muyl and Hervé Penfornis (and many many many work hours…), we have reached those targets we did set ourselves 2 years ago.

FRA-93 of Areva Challenge sailing for the last time in 2006, just before the holiday break. Wind conditions in December turned out to be better than expected, allowing the French team to test their boat. Valencia, 20 December 2006. Photo copyright Frank Socha / Areva Challenge

So after theorizing for two years, building for 6 months, setting her up here in Valencia for 4 weeks here we were scrutinizing all noises inside the hull and monitoring the stresses and loads. It goes like that: ‘OK guys, lets load up to 20° of heel and stay there for 5’. Then everyone goes quiet and we listen to noises and look at the computer screens. If nothing happens we climb to 25° and so on. From time to time you ear an unusual noise and you perform immediately a big ease of the sails to check everything before restarting the sequence again. On board 93 we have a couple of people to monitor the boat. Designers, Yannick Le Morvan the shore and construction manager, the boat captain ‘Billy’ P. Merrington and a few other sailors. My task for these days being on board was to coordinate the efforts of everyone and make sure we don’t lose valuable time but also do not push 93 beyond limits. When wind is lighter, we switch to system testing (hoist a spinnaker for example). This less stress than structural testing but fills the ‘to do’ lists with many small modifications and improvements. Meanwhile Bernard Nivelt has been spending quite some time looking at 93 motion through the sea from our Mother Boat with André Jacques and Cyrille Douillet developing their ‘curve rider’ attitude behind the computers screens to be able to feed us with real time data on 93. After the day sailing, everyone involved comes to the day debrief, the ‘work list’ is defined as well as the testing program of the following day.

So far, we have been happy with the results and able to achieve pretty much all the targets of the session. The first reward was coming from inside the team with many people coming to see us designers and boat builders with a smile and encouraging words. FRA-93 appears to be well balanced and sailors start to become accustomed with their new ‘office’. Of course being narrower and with a lower freeboard than the old 60, there are quite a few adjustments that need to take place but sailors were involved continuously on the deck layout design therefore they are quickly adapting and seem happy right now with FRA-93. The year sailing ended yesterday with a pretty rough ride under the rain and with big waves. It is good to be able to log hours in tough conditions and sort out the problems, when they occur, as early as possible. Today the boat although not 100% tested (we need once again to Log more hours) is deemed good for service and we will resume sailing in January with the race crew fully on command most of the time. We (the design team) have succeeded in keeping a little bit of time every week for our special projects. January and February will be dedicated to fine tuning of the balance, installation of new hardware to come and continuously work on the sail development with Andrew Lechte and Bruno Dubois. This period is very short and we will really have to work as a team to make sure information is carried from the sailors to the designers and appropriate development decisions taken altogether. All the efforts of our performance group under the leadership of Olivier Douillard until now will then hopefully help us move in the right direction most of the time.

FRA-93 sails for the first time in Valencia

[Source: Areva Challenge] The winter continues to be rich in emotions for AREVA Challenge: FRA-93, the French Team's new boat for the 32nd America's Cup, sailed on the race course in Valencia, Spain for the first time today.

The first sail is always delicate for an ACC boat, and is carefully thought out with many precautions. But all went well for FRA-93 which successfully passed its first tests, as team members confirm:

Dimitri Nicolopoulos, Coordinator of the Design Team: I believe that we can qualify this day a “baptism of fire” for FRA-93. We are really satisfied with the way everything happened today, because we sailed with realistic wind and sea conditions (i.e approximately 15 knots of wind and waves) and thus putting pressure on the boat near to the maximum. We took a big step ahead with regard to confidence in the structure of the boat. Everyone is very happy.

Sebastien Col, Helmsman: We sailed today in ideal conditions to test reliability of the boat. We also had good surprises, the boat is really well balanced. For the moment there are only positive points, and you only had to look at the faces of all the people on board to realize that!

Thierry Peponnet, Tactician: For the moment the results are very encouraging and very satisfactory. We took the tension up gradually to take FRA-93 “in our hands” according to the protocol which we had established to check her reliability. We carefully did pressure taps everywhere and gradually analized and checked everything, and for the moment all goes well.

The first trainings and tests on FRA 93 will continue until Christmas, before starting again at the beginning of January.

FRA-93 of Areva Challenge sails for the first time ever. Valencia, 13 December 2006. Photo copyright Frank Socha / Areva Challenge

FRA-93 of Areva Challenge sails for the first time ever. Valencia, 13 December 2006. Photo copyright Frank Socha / Areva Challenge

Areva Challenge christens FRA-93 and sets ambitious goal

It was the turn of the French America's Cup challenger Areva Challenge to present and christen their brand new yacht FRA-93 and they did it on Friday night during a nice "fiesta" in a tent in front of their base. We won't go into details about the show since you can watch here a nice video produced by the team.

What was really surprising was the very ambitious tone set by Stéphane KandlerChief Executive Officer of Areva Challenge

Click for more info, CEO of the team, at his opening speach, where he stated the team's goal was to win the America's Cup in Valencia. He couldn't be less explicit in his words when he said "this boat will win the America's Cup in Valencia". Check our exhaustive set of photos in our Friday report, right after the christening.

Who better to talk about the new French rocket than Dimitri NicolopoulosDesign Coordinator of Areva Challenge

Click for more info, design coordinator of Areva Challenge. Since this is a blog and we can afford the luxury of being less formal, I would like to add that a boat designed by someone of Greek-French origin (just like myself) can be nothing but excellent. We'll see next spring and summer.

Valencia Sailing: This is probably a cliché question but how do you feel now that FRA-93 has been christened? I suppose this is one of your happiest days.
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: Absolutely, the whole shore and design teams are thrilled to be able to share with everybody here what we have been designing and building for three years now. Our dream became reality tonight.

Valencia Sailing: Is this a revolutionary, radical boat?
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: Unfortunately for me, everybody can have a good look at the boat at this moment and I had proposed to keep it behind the curtain during the whole evening but our communications department obviously had a different opinion. I doubt anybody could build a revolutionary yacht for this edition of the America's Cup but this is a boat to win the America's Cup.

Valencia Sailing: Are you sure about your claim?
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: I hope so. Honestly, we tried to challenge ourselves in the areas where we thought we could have an impact and minimize the risks when it didn't make much sense taking them.

Valencia Sailing: Did Areva Challenge set you any limits or constraints on your design or did you start from scratch?
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: We didn't start from scratch since we had purschased what is called the design package from Team New Zealand with NZL-57 and NZL-60. As a result we didn't start with a blank paper but with knowledge gained through several years. This proved to be a good starting point and as a design coordinator I assembled a team that consisted of people with long experience as well as young talents. The aim was to mix all these people with mutual respect where everybody carried out their job in a perfect way. It's been an extraordinary period of three years, we had 7 designers in the core team and reached 14 at peak times. Even in the most difficult times of what was then K-Challenge, last winter, we kept working on the design despite the budget problems we encountered. We really believe in this boat and if we lose we will never use the budget problems we had as an excuse for our performance.

Valencia Sailing: How do you think FRA-93 compares to the new boats launched here in Valencia? Did you get any ideas from them?
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: During the design of the boat there were moments we thought we were doing something radical but when we saw a new boat on the water in Valencia we realized it wasn't so. Don't forget that the design of FRA-93 was more or less frozen when the new boats started arriving. We started working in the boatyard in late April but it was a good thing to see we were not the only ones to use a particular idea or concept although I doubt we would have changed anything at all.

Valencia Sailing: Obviously FRA-93 has been optimized for the conditions we have in Valencia.
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: Definitely, this is a boat for Valencia, although there are teams that believe you have to build a boat for races that start between 2pm and 3pm. We believe you need a boat for lighter winds in the first race and heavier at the second race, more versatile.

Valencia Sailing: Shorter term, when are going to see FRA-93 sailing for the first time?
Dimitri Nicolopoulos: Very soon!

A closeup look at the stern of FRA-93. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

A closeup look at the bow of FRA-93. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

This boat will win the America's Cup in Valencia

At least this is what Stéphane KandlerChief Executive Officer of Areva Challenge

Click for more info, Dawn RileyGeneral Manager of Areva Challenge

Click for more info and Dimitri NicolopoulosDesign Coordinator of Areva Challenge

Click for more info claim. Who are they? Roll your mouse over their names and you'll find out. Full details on Saturday..

Yet another America's Cup yacht is about to be christened in Valencia, this time FRA-93 of Areva Challenge. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Yet another America's Cup yacht is christened in Valencia. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

The hull of FRA-93 a couple of minutes after it was christened. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

The hull of FRA-93 a couple of minutes after it was christened. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

The hull of FRA-93 a couple of minutes after it was christened. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

A closer look at the bow of FRA-93. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Finally, a closer look at the stern of FRA-93. Valencia, 24 November 2006. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

FRA-93 of Areva Challenge arrives in Valencia

[Source: Areva Challenge] The level of excitement on the AREVA Challenge base in Valencia, Spain, has been growing these past few days, as an anticipated addition traveled along the 880 kilometer route which separate La Ciotat, in the South of France, from Valencia, the site of the 32nd America's Cup.

During the last six months, this newcomer has been under construction at Composite Works. To imagine the feelings of the AREVA Challenge team members this morning, remember back to when you were 5 years old and waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas morning… Dawn Riley, General Manager of the team, tried to keep everybody calm, but the same question came back again and again, approximately every 30 minutes: “when does she arrive???”

FRA 93, the new boat of team AREVA Challenge, finally arrived safe at her destination.

At 05:00pm today, the French team opened the large doors of their base, and welcomed the 40 meter truck with the present of FRA 93. She was covered with protective and quickly transferred by the team into the boatshed. She was shrink-wrapped in white plastic to protect her for the journey and from ‘prying eyes’. The team swiftly transferred FRA 93 into the shed where she will stay for the moment, hidden from curious eyes.

FRA-93 in the travel-lift in front of the Areva Base. Valencia, 15 November 2006. Photo copyright Tom Ehman / Challenger Commission