Helen Fretter finds out how America\u2019s cup surveillance tactics are used to find marginal gains in the TP52 fleet as they chase that final 1 per centAs the TP52 fleet sweeps around the bottom mark off Palma, eyes turn to the sky. This isn\u2019t a predictable day\u2019s racing in Mallorca. The 2021 Rolex TP52 World Championships were \u2013 unusually \u2013 held in early November, and the summer sea breezes that crews are used to have been replaced by a shifty, chilly, offshore wind that is fluctuating from eight and 18 knots.
\nIt\u2019s a mentally taxing scenario for the tacticians, who rank among the best in the world: Francesco Bruni, Tom Slingsby, Terry Hutchinson. This is the most competitive inshore racing in the world, and place gains and losses are decided on margins of inches.
\nFluffy clouds are forming over the Bay\u2019s north-western shore, and the Quantum Racing team scan the course for clues. The decision on which headsail to use on the next beat is toss-a-coin marginal.
\nNumbers are called thick and fast, in clear specifics: \u201cThere\u2019s 900kg on the mainsheet right now.\u201d Load readings from the runners, diagonals and deflectors, along with angles, margins to competitors\u2026 It\u2019s a constant stream of information that captures the stresses and speeds the carbon boat is undergoing in minute detail. But we\u2019re not on the TP52, we\u2019re on a hard-topped chase RIB a few hundred metres away.
\nQuantum Racing at the TP52 World Championships in Palma. Photo: Nico Martinez\/Rolex
\nAll this data is streaming live from sensors all over the yacht to the RIB, where it is monitored by Quantum Racing\u2019s performance team on laptops and iPads as we thunder around the short windward\/leeward course.
\nIt\u2019s a set-up usually seen on America\u2019s Cup chase boats tracking foiling test-runs, but here it\u2019s deployed in a 52ft, conventional keeled, box rule fleet about to compete in its 17th year of European racing. These boats have raced each other hundreds of times \u2013 what secrets can possibly still be left to be discovered?
\nA TP52 coach boat
\nRunning the RIB is Yorkshire-born James Lyne, widely regarded as one of the best performance sailing coaches in the world. Lyne grew up sailing a Mirror out of Whitby before moving into British Olympic squads for the Finn and Flying Dutchman, and the GBR Challenge Cup team.
\nHe moved to the States, coaching the US Olympic Team before working in one-design keelboats classes like the Melges 32s and grand prix racing programs. Lyne was coach for the American Magic challenge in the last Cup and has worked closely with American Magic skipper, and Quantum Racing tactician, Terry Hutchinson for years.
\nSpy game skills
\nAs the leaders sweep past us, Lyne reaches for his camera. It appears to be a standard SLR, not some tricksy James Bond Q-style adaptation. He takes quick shots of Quantum and some of their near rivals: full rig, sailing away. Despite the telephoto lens, we are too far away to see any numbers on the competitor boats\u2019 20:20 displays.
\nBut the point of these images becomes clear the following morning. After breakfast the Quantum crew huddles in an ante-room of their Palma hotel. There are world champions, America\u2019s Cup and Whitbread veterans, all weathered pros with decades of experience behind them.
\nJames Lyne working from the Quantum Racing RIB, photographing rival boats and monitoring data. Photo: Keith Brash\/Quantum Racing
\nStanding at the back, exuding leadership in a room full of alpha males, Terry Hutchinson is the only one I see making notes. Everyone else listens intently. Lyne has rigged up a large screen, and begins his morning briefing, sharing learnings from the data he captured during racing and analysed overnight.
\nFirst, they review their own performance. Lyne runs through figures from over the boat; mast jack tension, boom position, jib clew percentage, side bend\u2026 Drone footage of the start rolls alongside speed and sensor data, using a programme called Njord Analytics which pairs video and analytics.
\nScreen shots from Quantum\u2019s onboard cameras illustrate a sail or rig setting being discussed. Then there\u2019s analysis of two other Quantum Sails boats, Platoon and Interlodge. Their data is shared, so Lyne analyses performance using figures taken off the yachts, and members of those teams often attend the briefings (for 2022 Interlodge and Platoon have moved to Doyle Sails, while two other teams will join the Quantum programme).
\nBut then discussion turns to Phoenix, a South African team which got off to a flying start at the Worlds. Phoenix is not a Quantum Sails boat, but the analysis scarcely seems any less detailed. This, Lyne explains to me later, is calculated from the photographs he takes on the water, to extraordinary degrees of accuracy.
\nSail shapes analysis. Photo: Keith Brash\/Quantum Racing
\n\u201cComing off our boat, we\u2019re probably going to collect two or three million points of data over five hours of sailing. But for all the competitor stuff, basically we have a system of taking photos. We straighten the photo to take the bend out of the lens and then we\u2019ve got some measurement programmes, so it\u2019s our way of seeing comparatives for the day \u2013 we can say such and such a boat have got 2-3 millimetres more mast bend than we have. So we can get into the nitty gritty of why a boat was fast or slow.\u201d
\nBeing able to judge sail settings to millimetre accuracy from a photograph taken from a RIB is a skill Lyne has honed over years. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent a lot of years working with cameras! It\u2019s getting more and more accurate. Obviously, when we first started the photos didn\u2019t have great resolution, so our accuracy wasn\u2019t great. But over the last five to ten years it\u2019s got pretty good.\u201d
\nWhile it\u2019s well known that Quantum has been employing such techniques, that doesn\u2019t mean others can easily adopt them. Every TP52 has a chase boat on the course to offer spare sails, sandwiches and support between races, and many also have coaches taking photographs, but the resources that Quantum has devoted to data crunching is unique.
\n\u201cI think most of the fleet are doing this to a certain extent,\u201d says Lyne, \u201cbut maybe not as sophisticated and not with the ability to measure as many photos in one day. It\u2019s great taking photos, but if you can\u2019t measure them accurately then it doesn\u2019t really matter.\u201d
\nNumbers don\u2019t lie
\nBack in the briefing room, all these numbers give empirical proof of when Quantum Racing was performing well, or below par. Owner Doug DeVos explains: \u201cIt\u2019s easy to say, oh, it\u2019s bad luck. Sure, you missed a wind shift here, and we kind of know that on the water. But by documenting it, you can see how much did we miss it by? What should we be thinking about next time so we don\u2019t miss it? How\u2019s the boat going through the water? And the data doesn\u2019t lie, it doesn\u2019t have an opinion. It just is what it is.\u201d
\nRepeatedly during the briefing, Hutchinson or a trimmer say, \u201cIt felt\u201d. \u201cIt felt like we were going well.\u201d \u201cIt felt like the boat was fast.\u201d Lyne\u2019s analysis can prove the truth of those opinions, but the sailors\u2019 perception is still important. Lyne encourages it with open questions, asking at one point: \u201cHow did everybody feel about boat speed versus the fleet here?\u201d.
\nHe explains, \u201cThere are times where you see something in the data that really stands out and you\u2019re like, guys, this was pretty significant. There are other times where you sit back and listen to the sailors as to what was good that day, and then you\u2019re able to go into the log and see what they thought was good.
\nPart of a crew debriefing session. Photo: Keith Brash\/Quantum Racing
\n\u201cSailing\u2019s like science but it\u2019s also a bit of art. We have optimum shapes of what to achieve, but every single moment the breeze is up and down, or there\u2019s another different type of wave. And that\u2019s the art of the trimmers and the speed guys. So we can give them performance numbers, but the art of actually making a boat go fast in the dynamic real world, that\u2019s on them.
\n\u201cI think what the data does is it gives them a real feeling of \u2018we are right\u2019 when the data and the feeling match up, and it also poses a question when the data and the feeling don\u2019t match up. So it gives us this ability to say: yes, we can reinforce that, that was good.\u201d
\nAiming for TP52 perfection
\nQuantum Racing\u2019s no-stone-unturned approach has brought great success \u2013 they are four times TP52 Super Series champions, and were 2nd or 3rd every other year (Platoon, their long-standing stablemates, have a hat-trick of overall 2nds). Quantum also won six World Championships, and was 2nd in 2021. But in a class this highly optimised, how much more performance can be found?
\n\u201cI think if you said at the start of a season we don\u2019t need to develop, by the end of the second regatta, you\u2019d already be behind the fleet,\u201d says Lyne. \u201cThis whole game is a game of evolution and it\u2019s who can do it faster through the season is going to win. Much of this team\u2019s ethos has always been \u2018how are we going to improve today?\u2019\u201d
\nQuantum Racing, after a win in Marseille 2010 when data analysis was far less sophisticated
\nLyne estimates the potential performance gains made over the course of a whole season are less than 1%. But, he says, that can be all it takes. \u201cThe racing\u2019s tight. You cross by inches, so maybe if you gain 10 inches in two minutes, that\u2019s enough. You only need to be 0.1 faster. And if everything else is constant, you\u2019ll win every race.\u201d
\nThese winning margins are even more remarkable when you remember that the TP52 fleet has an owner-driver. At the front of the fleet, amateur owners are helming with a level of accuracy many top professionals would be proud of, while near flawless crew work covers up any occasional mistakes in the pack. It\u2019s all part of the attraction for owners like Quantum Racing\u2019s Doug DeVos.
\n\u201cIf you\u2019ve been sailing long enough, you want to sail against really good sailors and you really want to challenge yourself. And that means you don\u2019t win all the time. But all the people here want to go against the absolute best,\u201d he says.
\nThe TP52 class is not only surprising in its longevity, but also the fact that it has continued to attract owners into it even as programmes like Quantum\u2019s raise the standard required to win. There have been plenty of past examples where classes have folded as the bar to being competitive rises too high.
\nDeVos sees the razor-sharp competition as part of the attraction. \u201cEven the newer boats joining are entering at a higher level than maybe in the past, because they see what it is and they really prepare themselves. Anybody can win a race, everybody has won a race and everyone\u2019s competitive. But that\u2019s what you want. You want everyone to feel like, hey, I\u2019ve got a chance at this if I sail well.\u201d
\nThey are all looking for that extra advantage, even if it is less than 1%.<\/p>\n
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Helen Fretter finds out how America\u2019s cup surveillance tactics are used to find marginal gains in the TP52 fleet as they chase that final 1 per centAs the TP52 fleet sweeps around the bottom mark off Palma, eyes turn to … <\/p>\n