Challenging for the next edition of the America’s Cup is an all British partnership between Land Rover and the British challenger. A partnership that has generated the Land Rover BAR, an ultra-technological boat that will be presented officially in January as a participant in the most famous regatta in the world.
The America’s Cup is the longest-lived trophy in the history of sport, created by the British in 1851 (as the 100 Guineas Cup) and the first edition of which was won by the Americans. Britain has never won the trophy, hence the declared mission of bringing the Cup back home. Which also explains the hashtag #BringTheCupHome
Entrusted to the team of sailing Olympian Sir Ben Ainslie, the Land Rover BAR is a 45 ft catamaran whose top performance comes from leading edge technological solutions and the expertise of Jaguar Land Rover engineers who are actively involved in the project. Their contribution has been fundamental in structural modelling and aerodynamics: in this regard, the carbon sail which is, impressively, equal to the length of the wing of a Boeing 737, “the boat’s highly powerful engine”, explains Martin Whitmarsh, CEO of Land Rover BAR (and twenty years spent in Formula 1), “fundamental for a craft whose super-technological hydrofoils mean that it will spend much more time in the air than in the water”.
Management of data – collected on the basis of the infinite variables that can occur during a race – will be another key point in the challenge when it comes to optimising performance and the man-boat interface.
Meantime, as work continues on the catamaran, Land Rover has launched the new generation of its successful Discovery, unveiled in Paris and presented in Italy on 8 October in Trieste at the Barcolana, an appointment that sees more than 1500 sailing boats meet every year in a regatta of which the most recent editions have seen Land Rover as gold sponsor. In its next issue Auto&Design will be telling the design story of the new Discovery together with design chief Gerry McGovern.
