The 38-foot test boat that prepared American Magic's AC75
The AM38, nicknamed "The Mule" in reference to the test mules of Team Penske (Roger Penske, one of the three team principals of American Magic), is the reduced-scale test boat built by the New York Yacht Club / American Magic to prepare for the 36th America's Cup. The first challenger to equip itself with a surrogate yacht in full scale, the Mule was launched in November 2018, nearly two years before the team's first AC75.
Design: a McConaghy 38 converted into a foiler
The Mule started from a McConaghy 38 production hull, reworked by American Magic's design team — a group of forty people led by Marcelino Botin and Adolfo Carrau (Botin Carkeek), lead designers of the program. The AC75 class rule review began in March 2018, and the Mule's architecture replicated at half-scale the key structural choices of the AC75: a foiling monohull with cantilevered arms ending in T-foils on each side, plus two rudders with lifting foils.
Built in Bristol and first sails in Newport
The boat was built in Bristol, Rhode Island, a historic site for composite construction. At 11.5 m (38 feet) long, it complies with the size limit imposed by the America's Cup Protocol for test boats. Christened on November 9, 2018, it flew for the first time in Narragansett Bay, near Newport.
Pensacola, dry laps and 40 knots
From December 2018 to May 2019, the Mule was moved to Pensacola Bay (Florida) — the first America's Cup team to train on the Gulf Coast since 1970 — to take advantage of sheltered waters and steady breezes. The published results of this campaign:
- top speed reached: 40 knots sailed on the Mule;
- full dry laps on a course of approximately 6 miles by 2 miles, hull never touching the water;
- 92 days of sailing in Florida, fine-tuning the flight controller developed in-house with Airbus as innovation partner.
The data collected from the Mule then fed into the construction of the program's two AC75s, Defiant (launched May 2020) and then Patriot (October 2020). American Magic competed in the Prada Cup in Auckland in January–February 2021; eliminated 4–0 in the semifinals by Luna Rossa, the syndicate failed to qualify for the 36th America's Cup match.
