Ben Ainslie’s foiling test boat for the
America’s Cup in Bermuda, T1, has seized
a new record for speed – as the fastest to
go from state-of-the-art race machine to
museum exhibit.
Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR have donated
their AC45 catamaran T1 to the Classic
Boat Museum in Cowes. T1 represents
a landmark in that this was the British
campaign’s first foiling test boat. It raced
in the America’s Cup World Series in
2012-3 and broke the Round the Island
record in 2013 before being modified to
fly on foils. It was the first of five foiling
catamarans to be launched by the team.ee Caffari and the crew of
Volvo Race entry Tu r n th e
Tide on Plastic came close to
running into the largest piece of plastic
debris they have yet seen at sea in
February when they narrowly avoided an
abandoned yacht. While racing on leg 6
from Hong Kong to Auckland, they saw
another yacht close to their track but
could not spot it on AIS, or raise it on the
VHF radio, and there were no signs of life.
Onboard reporter James Blake sent up
a drone and was able to see that it was
the yacht Sea Nymph, from which two
American women were rescued by the US
Navy last year.
Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava were
rescued from the yacht about 900 miles
south-east of Japan in October, along
with their two dogs. They had set sail
from Honolulu and were sailing towardsTahiti when they encountered a storm,
but the photos of their boat still rigged
and apparently seaworthy caused a
worldwide controversy.
Given their mission to draw attention to
plastic and debris in the world’s oceans,
Caffari’s crew were unimpressed. “Shewas sitting pretty low in the bow and
her mainsail was washed over the side,
but the rest of her looked like she would
make a nice cruiser,” Caffari reported.
“We discussed salvage rights for
a while and estimated that the race
director would not give us redress if we
towed her to Auckland while racing. So
there she sits: a hazard to shipping, a risk
to islands, reefs and atolls and slowly not
going anywhere.
“We are grateful we saw her during
the day as this could have been a very
different story had we come across her at
night. She was floating stern to us with no
lights or signal being given out, so there
is no way we would have seen her.
“I just hope now we have given
authorities the position there is a chance
for salvage or for scuttling her to prevent
a far worse disaster in our oceans.”Volvo race crew encounter abandoned yacht
As the 2021 America’s Cup will be
raced in foiling monohulls and require a
very different direction of development,
there is no further use for T1 and the
donation to the Cowes museum is part
of Land Rover BAR’s pledge to repurpose
and recycle all their end-of-life craft.
The Classic Boat Museum opens on a
new site in West Cowes in April and more
than 50 yachts and motor boats will be on
display. Director Mark McNeill explains:
“T1 will become the first America’s Cup
boat ever to be put on display in Cowes,
and she will be the focus for a future
America’s Cup exhibition.”Ainslie’s foiler museum piece
D
on the wind
Sea Nymph was
not dismasted and
appeared soundThe yacht Sea Nymph was found drifting
four months after being abandonedBAR