The 100 liter/hour watermaker for medium-sized boats
20 September 2024
INTERVIEW – What do America’s Cup sailors wear?
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We asked Øyvind Vedvik, VP Ski, Sailing & R&D at Helly Hansen, a Norwegian brand that has been responsible for the clothing of the U.S. American Magic team for the second consecutive campaign.
You may not imagine that the work and development behind an AC75 is also behind the clothing the teams wear, with constant improvement over the four years of preparation for the Cup.
If you read this interview you will discover-for example-that their clothing is much more similar to that of a skier than that of a traditional sailor. How and when did the relationship with American Magic begin? At the time of the last Cup it was Terry Hutchinson who chose us for the American Magic team apparel.
Of course we were, as a first thing, very honored that we were asked to participate in such a campaign, after which we had some meetings and invited the team to Oslo, dive discussed what we could do and what we thought was important.
The strange thing was that we had no idea what kind of boat the sailors would be on, so in fact we were trying to design for something still unknown.
Right from the start we found good chemistry and the same shared purpose and passion, so we were asked-at the end of the last campaign-to already think about what could be improved for 2024.
And then the cyclists popped up…. What is the difference between dressing sailors and cyclors? Let’s say that from the very beginning the team talked to us about cyclists, it’s something we addressed very early in the preparation for the campaign.
We don’t have a cyclor-specific consumer line, but we do dress some high-level athletes, so we have a good starting base for sure.
Even so, the cyclor one was definitely among the most beautiful challenges, especially because American Magic’s cyclors are the only ones that stand horizontally and not sit.
Cycling inside such a confined space, for athletes who have a very structured physique, is really exhausting.
At first, for example, we had planned for all cyclors to have butt and shoulder braces, which are practically “stuck,” but then when we learned about the cyclists’ horizontal position and reclining seats, we removed the butt braces because they were no longer needed.
Some crew members kept them, others decided to remove them.
For them, we thought of a special fabric to expel the sweat they produce during exertion.
We don’t have to think about classic road cyclists, these are much heavier cyclists who pedal in a kind of closed box, with very little room to move, without seeing what’s going on around them and in very high temperatures.
It is also completely different from indoor cycling. What is the work behind the clothing for an America’s Cup team? It’s a four-year job and you have to start with a boat that doesn’t exist, it’s just an idea.
The boat influences the design of the garments a lot, because the position of the crew members on board influences-for example-the position of the reinforcements and the most stressed areas.
First we try to understand the needs of all the team members, then we make a lot of prototypes, test them, start from scratch.
At some point in development we test directly with team members, and adjust based on their feedback.
We spent a lot of time in Pensacola, Florida (NYYC American Magic’s base to prepare for the America’s Cup 2024, ed.) and then several team members came here to us in Oslo.
Then we have the weight ranges and the rules imposed by the regulations….
This is also a very interesting aspect when working for the America’s Cup, because the rules are being discussed and enacted while we are already planning. What is the item you are most proud of? It is hard to think of a single garment that sums up all the work done on the collection.
Certainly the signature garment of the campaign is the Foil X Jacket, which in fact we provided to the entire team, on land and at sea, and it is the exact same jacket that you can buy in our stores.
Working on this campaign we focused on aerodynamics, to make the “faster” jacket from the last campaign even “faster,” and we worked on developing the fabric from scratch.
In fact it is very much like a ski jacket, super streamlined and lightweight, but also protective and breathable, with a very modern design.
It is very stretchy despite the fact that it is made of a very strong fabric, so we can tighten the body for less aerodynamic drag, unlike traditional jackets it does not have a double cuff but has a much more comfortable and integrated system to keep water and cold away from the sleeves.
In addition to the jacket, however, there is super specialized equipment, such as the life jacket designed for cyclists, which required a very high level of customization and is almost a one-design product.
Then we invested a lot of time on the first layer, because it is the most important one for keeping warmth and expelling moisture from the body.
We did a lot of testing on breathability and how moisture transport and heat management happens, until we developed a new technical fabric suitable for this use.
The secret is that we use a fiber on the inside that is called hydrophobic, and then we use a breathable yarn on the outside.
When you sweat, moisture is pulled from the inside to the outside, and then it diffuses very quickly to the outside, creating a cooling effect.
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This technology is featured in Helly Hansen’s LIFA Active Solen T-shirt, which you can purchase here
A very fun test to do is to put a drop of water inside the fabric and then see how it spreads and goes to the outside.
We had a chance to test this fabric with the team, and they said, “Okay, now we can do a 400-volt test. If you do 20 minutes, we have a place for you on the team.”
After a few seconds at 400 volts we collapsed on the floor…. What is similar between ski clothing and sailing clothing? You always have to protect yourself from the weather and outdoor elements, both in skiing and sailing, and then there are two constants: the wind, there is moisture.
The particularity of sailing compared to skiing and the outdoor world is that the water has a different direction and speed, because it comes from the sea and not from the sky, plus it’s salty.
So there is a whole series of specific tests that we conduct with salt water exclusively for sailing garments. Does the development of garments for professionals, such as those for the Cup, affect the collection for the general public? Definitely yes, much of the input that designers get from development for this grand challenge is then used to influence and create the consumer collections.
So it’s a huge source of inspiration in general, I would say. Is there any funny anecdote about the development of the collection for American Magic? There definitely is, and I would say it is always about the cyclists.
For the first test, we took our competition cycling gear , which we have used for several previous projects and also for the team members of the last edition, and sent it to the new athletes.
The first thing we were told was that everything was too tight.
“How is that possible,” we asked ourselves?
Then we went to Pensacola, saw the boys and thought, “That’s why.”
It’s amazing how strong, big and powerful these cyclists are!
So we had to do all the fitting again.
But that’s how it is, we are just one of the cogs in the America’s Cup machine, which needs all the cogs to work to get to compete at the highest level.
Federico Rossi
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