Emirates Team New Zealand AC75 damaged as crane fails - Video, Update and new images
by Sail-World 29 Aug 17:30 BST
29 August 2024
After racing on Race day 1 of the Louis Vuitton Round Robin, as the team were lifting their AC75 'Taihoro' from the water, there was an issue with the lift and the boat landed heavily onto its supporting cradle.
The AC75 is reported to have fallen 6-7metres unto the forward cradle support breaking the support.
The team have secured the boat with a portable crane and it is now safely being put back in the shed where the full extent of the damage will be assessed by the team overnight.
From initial assessments a call has been made that Emirates Team New Zealand will not be sailing tomorrow, the team said in the latter of two written statements.
Once further investigation is made in the following 24 hours and a full plan for the repair of Taihoro is in place, the team will give a further update on the duration of time the team will be off the water, the statement added.
Three News reporter Lissette Reymer spoke live on Friday morning to Emirates Team NZ CEO, Grant Dalton, who confirmed that there was damage in the forward part of the AC75 and the aft sections. Already a hole has been cut in the forward section of the boat and repairs had commenced in that region. The aft section was not quite so dramatic and was being repaired initially by the support team grinding out the damage before a repair could be laid up.
Dalton said that fortunately the boats systems had been left on, and it was a relatively easy matter to check what was working and what was not.
He said they had been lucky in other aspects of the incident and when quizzed further suggested that the AC75 could be back sailing next Wednesday.
The cause of the failure was a a mechanical issue with the crane.
The wingfoils had taken much of the fall, and appeared to be undamaged, Dalton said that the the load on the foils was at the top end of the designed tolerances.
In an earlier statement Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton said, "Clearly this is a setback for the team at such an important time of the campaign. These are the moments that can define an America's Cup campaign, and we have an amazing group of dedicated and talent people who will be working around the clock on getting the boat repaired.
"We will not be sailing tomorrow at least, and will provide further updates on the outlook in due course."
The incident does not affect the points situation in the Louis Vuitton Cup as there were no points being awarded for any race wins involving Challengers and Team New Zealand.
From the photos below, taken before the boat was re-hoisted, we can see the AC75 resting on one of its wing foils. The forward cradle support has fallen forward and is held in place with restraining straps.
It is not known what arrested the AC75s fall and what visible damage is involved. Initially hull damage can be quickly tested by light hammer taps, with a broken internal structure returning a softer muffled tone, indicating an area requiring further investigation.
However the expected process is that all parts will be tested with ultrasound, and any suspect areas given a more through analysis, and maybe compared with post construction ultrasounds.
Fortunately the incident happened on land and there is no water damage involved, which compounds the damage and repair time. However the shock impact on electronics and hydraulics is harder to assess. The foils are designed to lift the 6900kg boat when sailing and would normally be tested to a safety factor of three times the anticipated working load, however being dropped 6 metres onto a hard surface is probably not factored into those calculations.
The cradle breaking could have mitigated the worst effects of the fall, however the true picture will not emerge until further testing.
Emirates Team New Zealand, has its own in-house boatbuilding team, who built all the team boats for the 2021 and 2024 America's Cup. However it is not known how many of that team have travelled to Barcelona.
With hull damage the usual practice is to use the original tooling, which may be back in Auckland, or construct a temporary tool for moulding a specific area. All tooling is usually undertaken using the available CAD drawings of the repair area, ensuring a precise fit with the existing structure. Two of the teams suppliers Southern Spars and C-Tech have manufacturing facilities in Spain, and Europe, but normally the team is very self-reliant.
There was an incident involving damage to the British and Japanese entries on Day 1 of the 2017 Louis Vuitton Trophy, when the British sideslipped in the pre-start and rode up over the deck of the Japanese AC50 catamaran, resulting in a large hole being cut in the British boat, for a man to crawl through. It was repaired overnight in what was later said to be a three month task for a regular building yard.
Later in the Semi-Finals of the same series Emirates Team NZ nosedived causing extensive damage to hull and the wingsail and electrical systems, which got wet. The boat was able to be sailed the next day, however fortuitously racing was cancelled the next day due to inclement weather, allowing many of the current ETNZ shore team to get the AC50 back into full race condition, and the team went on to win the America's Cup in Bermuda.
In the 2021 Prada Cup on Day 3, American Magic was caught in a 26kt squall, performed some aerobatics, before crashing onto its side, punching a hole in the hull Patriot came close to sinking. The repair caused the boat to miss the rest of the Round Robin Racing. They launched a few days before the Challenger Semi-final but were unable to fully test wet and damaged electrical systems, and they were quickly dispatched by the eventual Challenger, Luna Rossa.
The biggest impact on the New Zealand team will be the loss of sailing time, which could be until the end of Round Robin 1, meaning they will lose already limited race training time, and also having comparative race data on all the other Challengers, except for Luna Rossa, who they came from behind to beat in Race 2 of Day 1 of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Additional Images