The 37th America’s Cup brought a second edition and many changes to the AC75 Class Rule – the text that controls the boats in which the America’s Cup will be raced in 2024. And for one group of people there was one change that really stood out – and had a quite dramatic impact on their lives. “The [new] rule states that we can use any part of the human body to power the boat, where previously we were forced to use our arms as ‘grinders’,” explained Matt Gotrel, part of the elite and newly-labelled ‘cyclors’ group within the sailing team.
These are the people that provide the power to adjust the sails, and while in (all but one of) the previous recent America’s Cup competitions that power came from their arms, now the rules allow the use of the more powerful muscles in the legs. “It'll be a bit of a different look for the grinders of old, and we welcome a new era of cyclors,” added Matt.
Gotrel has the advantage of having already made significant switches in his sporting career – he started out in the British Sailing Team racing the Olympic Men’s Skiff (a boat called the 49er). He switched to rowing while at Loughborough University, a choice that led to ultimately winning a gold medal in the Men’s 8 at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Then he returned to sailing after getting the call up to join the British SailGP team in 2017.
One immediate impact is that a lot of the training has moved out of the gym, and into the countryside. “The coffee stops are a bit better,” said Gotrel with a smile. “Yeah, it's definitely different for sure… longer rides outside, seeing the countryside is pretty nice. The coffee stops are definitely a bonus, but there's a challenge… you get used to being pretty good at the grinding, and then we have start afresh. It's new for everyone…. but having the link with the [INEOS] Grenadiers means that we've got some good wheels to chase.” The INEOS Britannia sailing team have linked up with one of cycling’s top professional teams, the INEOS Grenadiers, to benefit from their experience in the sport.
“The biggest change is using different muscle groups, teaching your body to use its legs. So we'd got to a pretty high standard with our arms and trained pretty hard for that for the best part of six, seven years for the last two Cups. So it's a bit of a shock to the system having to teach your body to pump oxygen to the legs instead. So that's taken a bit of time. And then just the amount of time it takes to train. We can go out for six hour rides on a bike, whereas grinding with a slightly smaller muscle group, meant you get pretty fatigued pretty quick. So the training volume, the amount of time you have to spend training, definitely goes up,” explained Gotrel.
Other changes in the rules have come around through a drive to make the boats lighter and even quicker, and that has meant less crew. This was one of the reasons the rules also allowed the switch to using legs – as the power derived from each person would rise, and compensate for having less people on board. “We've lost a bit of power to the handles, which is why the cycling becomes more and more important. So we try to get a bit more power out of the body and hopefully have the same amount of power going to the boat.”
Another change is less driven by the rules, and more by experience learned from sailing the first generation of AC75s. “This time it's looking like we’re going to want to keep the people in the same place on the boat,” said Gotrel. “So there is likely to be less running around and crossing sides. The goal is to package up a bike and have it fixed in one place within the cockpit, and to move the aerodynamics of delivering that forward another iteration from AC36. It's going to be a big unveiling when we get to Barcelona and the race boats are launched, and we see how everyone's packaged up their new cyclors. We're focused on putting together the best, most efficient package we can to make sure the race boat's ready to go, and we can put on a good performance when we get to Barcelona.”