AUCKLAND, New Zealand – The 23-meter-long oblong object with a pointed nose looks more like a downed spacecraft than an elegant racing yacht.
Hoisted in the air and surrounded by scaffolding, the object’s two appendages protrude and descend down the sides like the long, slender legs of a praying mantis. But it is not a spaceship, not even a gigantic insect: it is the Patriot, the yacht of a team, the American Magic, which hopes to claim the America’s Cup, the most prestigious sailing trophy for the United States.
And Patriot has a big problem.
On January 17, while American Magic led a race against an Italian challenger in the Prada Cup, the series that determines who will challenge the New Zealand team to the America’s Cup in March, Patriot turned in a dramatic fashion – effectively pulling a cart when it came out of the water and then rolled to the left side.
The accident opened a hole in the Patriot’s hull, caused crew members to struggle to get their companions out of their seat belts, and left their entire union getting ready to watch the multi-million dollar boat sink into the waters of the Hauraki Gulf in New York. Zealand.
Instead, an accident that could have been deadly – American Magic captain and CEO Terry Hutchinson and several crew members were briefly trapped under the fallen sail while the boat was filling with water – was merely catastrophic, at least in the running direction.
Less than a week later, on a quiet Sunday morning, three boat builders sanded a giant piece that now covers the hole in the Patriot’s hull. Another, with an armful of cables, climbed the scaffolding stairs to continue rebuilding a sophisticated electrical system that seems more suitable for a Formula 1 car than a sailboat.
At this point, American Magic was only partially in its extensive repairs, part of a frantic effort to save the Patriot and its team’s hopes of victory, even as the competition continued without the US boat. Other teams offered experience and sent pizza. Fans completed the team’s coffee at a local cafe. And about 70 boat builders, engineers and mechatronics technicians on the team worked in shifts to complete the job.
Repairs could easily have taken weeks without a deadline, said Hutchinson. Instead, they were completed in 11 days. On Wednesday, the Patriot’s elegant hull slid back into the water for the first time.
This weekend, after losing four races, the American Magic team, now a big underdog, will enter the Prada Cup semifinals against the Italian Luna Rossa. The first to have won four will face a British yacht for the right to compete with the Kiwis, who won the Copa America in Bermuda four years ago.
“We cannot be broken and as long as we are committed to it, what we will do, so this is a clear demonstration of that and the sky is the limit,” said Hutchinson of the continuing effort to bring Patriot back from the dead.
Patriot’s rollover came in the last race of the day, with American Magic taking Luna Rossa out of the final corner. The wind speed suddenly increased and changed direction, sending the Patriot in the air at about 45 knots, more than 50 miles per hour.
The boat fell on the left side, cutting through the hull. None of the 11 crew members were injured, but the damage – discovered after a search boat removed a piece of the Patriot’s carbon hull from the water – was substantial.
“It was an extreme circumstance that no one can really be prepared for, that big hole in the boat,” said Casey Smith, who oversees the Patriot’s hydraulic system.
Flotation devices were used to prevent the boat from sinking when filling with water. The plans were discussed, revised, discarded. Nothing worked, Smith said, until a police officer “appeared out of nowhere” with a 12-meter-long rectangular raft that the crew wrapped around the Patriot’s hull and inflated.
“It was the first time I thought, ‘OK, actually, let’s save this thing,'” said Smith.
To understand the work that American Magic expected once it was saved, it is useful to first understand the boat. The class of boats competing in the America’s Cup, the AC75, is a new model that each participant should build and compete in this year’s competition. Boats don’t just sail, they fly – as long as they can reach speeds above 15 knots. As soon as the hull of a yacht comes out of the water, all that touches the surface are the two hydrofoils of the boat – those mechanical legs in the form of praying mantis – and an equally thin rudder.
Even the terminology used around boats has changed, to phrases more commonly associated with flying. “The tone, nose up, nose down – they use exactly the same terminology to sail now,” said Mark Orams, professor of sport and recreation at Auckland University of Technology. There is also now a crew position called a flight controller, responsible for stabilizing the boat while it is out of the water.
“You can go very, very fast,” said Orams of the new generation of racing yachts, “but you will be at great risk of crashing.”
Although an AC75 won’t go anywhere unless there is wind, all of its instruments and functions, such as moving hydrofoils in and out of the water, need energy. The hydraulic energy that moves or cuts the sails comes from about eight crew members, called grinders, who furiously pump hand-cranked levers during the race. A lithium battery powers everything else.
This power system, along with other main controls, was destroyed by salt water when the Patriot capsized. The team had spare parts for all major components and collected parts of the Defiance, the Patriot prototype, to make some repairs. The team had to improvise with many meters of connecting cables, said Sean Healey, who worked on the Patriot’s electronic reconstruction.
Any changes to the boat, including different cables or patching to the hole, put the Patriot at risk of violating the competition’s strict weight rules. To run, the boat must weigh between 33 pounds and 14,374 pounds, according to Silvio Arrivabene, team design production manager.
Another obstacle that American Magic faces now is any undiscovered bugs in Patriot’s newly reconstructed electronic systems. The tight repair schedule left only a 36-hour buffer for delays, testing, bug fixing and identification and a practice round or two. On Wednesday, a problem with a trip battery that briefly cut off the boat’s power was resolved in the water during the boat’s first post-capsize sail. “Unfortunately, we would like weeks to resolve all of these problems,” said Healey. “We just don’t have weeks.”
On Wednesday, less than two weeks after turning and about 48 hours before the first Prada Cup race against Italy, Patriot returned to the water. “We were holding our breath for the first five minutes,” said Arrivabene of that morning’s weigh-in, “but she is fine.”
When the boat returned, its patch was decorated with a message of gratitude to the competitors of American Magic – bandage graphics with their flags and the words “Thank you”.
All three other teams came to the aid of a sinking Patriot – a break from America’s Cup’s famously bitter and contentious culture, and the New Zealand Team released some of its boat builders to create the hull replacement section in one of your local facilities.
At Auckland’s Waitemata port, the Patriot was towed to start racing to place the boat in its hydrofoils, standard for a day of light wind practice. Soon, the rope fell and the Patriot was flying alone. The yacht swayed in the air on a rapier, then both and then the other, as it snaked through the water, reaching over 30 knots.
“It started right where it left off – going fast,” said Hutchinson.