With the final stages of the 2021 America’s Cup taking place out on the Waitemata, the Year 2 boys were lucky enough to test their skills at the helm on a visit to the America’s Cup Village at Auckland’s Viaduct yesterday.

As part of their learning journey into the inquiry of ‘Respect and Working Together,’ the boys were taking advantage of the current international sporting event happening on our doorstep, to discuss the various roles that people play to bring an event of this magnitude together. A class trip to the 5G Race Zone helped them to appreciate teamwork, sportsmanship and how the development of technology has facilitated the ever-changing face of the America’s Cup.

The Viaduct is only a short drive away from school so it wasn’t long before the first group of boys were waiting outside to fully immerse themselves in a number of exciting, interactive exhibits. How lucky are Class 2LB?! As they waited, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) CEO, Grant Dalton, a Saint Kentigern Old Collegian himself, spotted the Saint Kentigern uniform and came across to say, hello! He was most obliging about joining the group for a photo! Grant has had a long association with Saint Kentigern with his own children also attending both the schools and the College.

Class 2 KM were almost as lucky when they arrived for their session a little later, when team sailor, Steven Ferguson jumped into the photo too!

The 5G Race Zone serves to showcase how technology plays a significant role in putting ETNZ at the leading edge of sailing, from the design phase through to race day.

Entering through a wind tunnel, the boys stepped into a ‘visual slice’ of today’s wind relayed through dozens of sensors. Studying data from NIWA from across the region helps the team to understand the differing wind states and use nature to their advantage.
Racing in this America’s Cup has been spread across a number of courses on the Waitemata Harbour with course selection determined each day by forecasted wind speed, gusts, the state of the sea and the tides. The boys interacted with a floor map of the harbour that displayed a 12 hour forecast condensed to a three minute time lapse to understand how the course is selected.

Next, being immersed in a 360 degrees surround-video, the boys discovered what it must be like at the front of the action aboard Te Aihe, as they ‘joined the crew’ on a high-speed test run, ‘flying’ across the Waitemata, pushing the limits as the crew looked for more ways to make the boat go faster. It felt like being right on the boat!

Each boy had a chance to test their skills at the helm of the AC75 Simulator, aiming, as a team, to pass through the gates in the fastest time possible – this may just be a case where slow and steady wins the race, as there was more than one virtual capsize as the boys pushed the limits!

By far the favourite experience was the chance to virtually design their own high performance AC75 in a 5G streamed gaming experience that beamed their creations to sail across a big screen for their peers to see. Designing an AC75 is a careful balance of stability and speed. The Boat Builder game was built with the help of Dan Bernasconi, the lead designer for Emirates Team New Zealand, and with the use of mathematical algorithms, it contains thousands of potential combinations for boat designs – as well as a score card! The boys could be as fanciful as they liked in their designs, using a tablet to choose the hull, keel, sail, foil and paint job - but the algorithms also let them know just how successful their boats would be once on the water!

And what would a virtual world be without a selfie! On a number of interactive screens, the boys could dial up images of their favourite ETNZ sailors, or the America’s Cup itself, to join them onscreen for a team selfie – a great memento of the day!

This America’s Cup is fought in a virtual world as much as the real, with boats designed in a whole new way, taking into account many, many variables. This can’t be achieved without teamwork. The boys learnt that it’s not just about the boat, or the people, or the weather or the tides – it’s how many groups of people intersect to work as a team, taking nature and data into account, to make the boat go faster.

Our sincere thanks to the many parents who joined us to make this trip possible – and to Grant Dalton and Steven Ferguson for arriving by chance at just the right moment and being so patient with our boys!

Go Emirates Team New Zealand!

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