Q&A with American Magic fleet manager Revelin Minihane

From marine equipment to wearables, Garmin is proud to assist world-renowned American Magic sailing team and offer our products as they compete for the 36th America’s Cup.

We got a chance to speak with Revelin Minihane, the fleet manager for the team, to talk about what kinds of technology their boats are equipped with and how they utilize each piece when racing.

Garmin: How does the integration of boat data streaming to the watch help you in your position?

Minihane: The Garmin Panoptix and sonar technology allows the team to survey the sailing area for unknown underwater hazards.

Garmin’s platform does this much better than others, saving our team the cost associated with having someone else survey the ground.

Garmin: How does the mapping help you in the planning or execution of practicing for race day?

M: We use Garmin’s Quickdraw feature, which allows us to quickly get our bottom topography and contours. Also, having Garmin’s latest Navionics detailed charts for the sail area helps make sure we’re in the right area.

Garmin: What kind of data do you collect before setting sail on the water?

M: Before setting sail on the water, well, our Garmin plotters are integrated to our telemetry pieces, which show all the relevant AC75 data to the crew on the chase boats along with engine data, towing cameras, radar, AIS targeting of vessels on the water.

Also Garmin’s charts have local environmental data, tide and current data which help us throughout the day.

Garmin: In each level of support boats, how many are in each fleet? And what “job” does each level have?

M: We have a fleet of six chase boats in various sizes, and the main two chase boats are over forty-five feet. Those chase boats have three 16-inch Garmin [chartplotters] that are all linked via HDMI and NMEA networking, sharing various hardware from radar heading sensors GLONAS and NMEA external GPS antennas to rear-view towing cameras and Garmin Panoptix LiveVü and RealVü sonars.

And then we have two smaller vessels which are used for transporting the changeover sailing crew. They’re little 8.5 meter Ribcrafts, which have a 12-inch Garmin plotter with in-hull transducers, VHF marine radio and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) transceivers.

The other two vessels are support for carrying AC75 equipment, and they also have Garmin technology installed, from Panoptix to chartplotters.

Garmin: How do you communicate with the sailors and other team members while on the water?

M: We use an external voice communication product that is linked to the Garmin Fusion Apollo system on each of the chase boats, which is also linked into the plotters of each chase boat.

We can control using the touch screen, which is a really handy feature.