Cup Spy - Day 28: America's Cup Match - Day 2 - Drama and Niggle
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 13 Oct 15:06 BST
14 October 2024
Close call Emirates Team NZ and INEOS Britannia - Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup, Race Day 2 - October 13, .2024 © Ian Roman / America's Cup
The America's Defender continued their relentless march to retain the America's Cup with a third win in as many races of Barcelona on Sunday.
The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's team survived a day which had both drama and niggle.
The two AC75s were just four seconds away from a serious foil clash in dramatic pre-start incident. However it was a post race exchange between British skipper Ben Ainslie and a commentator immediately after the race which captured the newspaper headlines.
While many pundits were quick to dismiss Kiwi skipper Peter Burling's match racing ability, he and co-helm Nathan Outteridge have shown a very daring approach so far in this regatta, and they are yet to lose a start to the Royal Yacht Squadron's Challenger. The execution of their helming task may have been made easier with the additional area on top of the Kiwis latest rudder, which if immersed should facilitate the turning of the Kiwi boat in the pre-start. Being able to turn more tightly than your opponent has long been a vital asset in match racing, and the Kiwis have once again displayed some more out of the box thinking.
For a couple of 49er sailors, Outteridge and Burling are proving very adept at match racing and the Kiwi team is much stronger in this regard than in the 2021 Cup in Auckland.
Emirates Team New Zealand have never made any secret about what their management like to call a "brutal" post regatta review, after the 2021 America's Cup in Auckland, where the Italian Challenger took the Defender out to three wins apiece after six races, and it looked as if the Cup could have been Sardinia bound. The review put a lot of the "blame" on an initial sub-standard performance by the sailing team, despite having a boat that the team management believed was definitely faster than the Challenger.
The difference lay largely in the abilities of starting helmsman Jimmy Spithill, and coach Philippe Presti, who dusted off the playbook they'd been used with devastating effect in the 2013 America's Cup, when both sailed for Golden Gate Yacht Club and their team Oracle Racing.
In Barcelona, it wasn't until the Challenger Final of the Louis Vuitton Cup when we saw the clash of two of the titans of sailing, in Jimmy Spithill and Ben Ainslie - who ironically sailed together on Oracle Racing in the 2013, but just over a decade later found themselves entering the start box from opposite ends. Ainslie looked to be in top form in that series, clearly getting the better of his former skipper.
Much of that can probably be put down to the British coach, lawyer, rules expert, and seven-time world match race champion Ian Williams, who was still seething when asked to recount the controversial pre-start incident from today's race.
In the absence of post-race media conferences, which for the first time in 50years, are not part of this regatta, INEOS Britannia are filling the gap nicely with their always excellent Inside Tack sessions conducted live an hour or so after the conclusion of the racing. There, Williams, having already had the first of a couple of discussion with the Umpire team, attempted to dance on the head of a pin as he explained why a penalty should not have been awarded - and very nearly got away with it.
To recap, the start line altercation occurred 70seconds before the start (easily reviewed on Virtual Eye) when Emirates Team New Zealand on starboard tack bore away (turned away from the wind direction). The British on port (the give way boat) responded by doing the same maneuver which brought the boats onto a collision course. Their foil arms came very close to touching, as they slid sideways together, in an incident that would have been catastrophic had the two wing foils locked.
A likely outcome would have been for the foil arms to have been ripped out of the AC75s - as happened to Alinghi Red Bull Racing's AC75 during a training mishap after their elimination after the semi-Final stage of the Louis Vuitton Cup
What is not seen on the broadcast video, but is plain from the on-board video is that going into the incident INEOS Britannia had their port foil arm fully raised, and had just dropped it in preparation for a gybe to avoid the right of way boat. From the timing on the video (in slow motion) we can see that at 1m 16secs in the Brits foil arm is fully raised and ay 1m 20secs it is fully lowered and the Kiwis starboard, wingfoil, with its 4.5metre wingspan fills the airspace occupied just 4secs earlier by the INEOS Britannia wingfoil.
Both boats protested. Williams and INEOS Britannia felt Emirates Team New Zealand were "hunting" the Brits who were trying to give way He felt the Kiwis were altering course in such a way that the Brits were forced to make a more severe course alteration that would otherwise have been the case. For the Kiwis part they were on the right of way tack, and it was up to the port tack boat to keep clear.
On the computer replay from the Umpires booth, it was clear that there was overlap between the virtual boats and someone had to be penalised for not keeping clear - which usually goes against the give way boat.
From the on-board video, we can see that the only thing that averted a wingfoil clash was that the British lowered their port foil arm just four seconds before the raised starboard wing foil of Emirates Team New Zealand slashed through the same airspace. Even allowing for lens distortion on the stern camera which caught the incident, it was very, very near miss as the two AC75s turned away from each other sailing at speeds of over 25kts.
Other than a single expletive, there didn't seem to be any reaction other than normal sailing dialog aboard either boat.
Both onboard videos can be seen below with the action starting about 1m20secs into each.
Williams is a man who takes his match racing seriously. One of his pieces of advice to the INEOS Britannia crew is "never put a decision in the hands of the umpires". A reference to the belief held by many top sailors that you never really know which way an umpiring decision is going to turn out, and the best strategy is to outwit your opponent, get a good start, hit the front and stay there.
He seemed genuinely surprised that Burling and friends pushed the incident the way they did, forcing it to a point against his religion, where the umpires had to make a ruling based on the relative position of two virtual boats on a computer screen.
The upshot of the incident was that a 75metre penalty was imposed on INEOS Britannia, which they did well to wipe off while still keeping an attack mounted on the Kiwis. However it was never going to work on a course that the Brits claimed favoured one side - making it easy to defend a lead, and the outcome of the race was once again decided in favour of the boat who was first around Mark 1.
In this lop-sided regatta at was at least the 13th consecutive race, the boat that was first around Mark 1, went on to win the race.
After the race there was an exchange between INEOS Britannia Skipper Ben Ainslie and lead commentator Steven McIvor after Ainslie took an exception to a post race question, and then perhaps unaware that his microphone was still live, Ainslie called McIvor a "f***ing w**ker" as he climbed out of the starboard helmsman's cockpit, at the end of the short but waspish interview.
Ainslie's reaction was maybe not surprising given the tenor of some of the insensitive questioning that has been fired at losing skippers at critical points of this series.
Most have bitten their lip, but not on this occasion.
As the crews debriefed the breeze failed to meet the required minimum strength on several occasions, and appeared to be fading as forecast, and after several delayed start times, the racing was called off for the day. In the Inside Tack, double Olympic Gold medalist, and now Head of Sailing, Giles Scott said "we were told that the breeze was going to fall off a cliff around 3.30pm". And that is exactly what happened.
There will be one race attempted to be sailed on Monday, starting at 2.10pm CET.
During the time out overnight, and with a day off on Tuesday, there will be some more deep thinking by INEOS Britannia as to how they can reverse the Kiwis advance up the leaderboard. Giles Scott says there has to be a "momentum shift" and his gut feeling was that the gap that had to be closed by the Brits was not that great. From what we've seen of the plots of the performance data, given that we've now only seen four races, plus one in the Round Robin phase of the Louis Vuitton Cup, a couple of issues stand out. First is that INEOS Britannia, seem to be slower at the bottom of a tack than the Kiwis. In the Round Robin race, in light airs, this was a substantial amount, and from the data reviewed from Saturday's racing it would now seem to be a lot closer to the Kiwis, but the trend was still there.
Looking at Speed over the Ground the trend was again for the Kiwis to have an edge. However by combining a couple of the charts - Speed over the Ground, and True Wind Speed and Direction measured on the AC75s it seemed apparent that the British were superior in picking wind shifts and increases in pressure, or puddle jumping as they negotiated their way around the course. The conclusion being that when they had a speed blip, not reflected in the ETNZ data, that the Brits were enjoying an increase in windspeed. This can also be picked up in the onboard discussions on the British boat - particularly in their Final series against Luna Rossa.
Race 3: INEOS Britannia (GBR) (Port Startbox Entry) vs Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) (Starboard Startbox entry) Start: 1410hrs CET
Start:
Mark 1: 05m 17sec NZL led GBR margin 19sec
Mark 2: 09m 33sec NZL led GBR margin 27sec
Mark 3: 15m 16sec NZL led GBR margin 32sec
Mark 4: 19m 15sec NZL led GBR margin 33sec
Mark 5: 24m 00sec NZL led GBR margin 43sec
Finish: 27m 06sec NZL led GBR margin 52secs
INEOS Britannia Dockwalk
"Clouds" on today's weather forecast - what he's telling Emirates Team NZ: www.facebook.com/EmiratesTeamNZ/videos/856692886587974
Course Location:
Weather Prognosis:
America's Cup Weather Partner PredictWind has provided a dedicated Race Weather Center offering fans access to detailed daily weather breakdowns, live webcams and historical weather data to daily weather breakdowns written by meteorologists.
Current Forecast Race Day 28:
Forecasts for Sunday by Arnaud Monges, former America's Cup Team Meteorologist
Sunday October 13
Winds of 5 to 10 knots from the East are expected in the afternoon, along with a calm sea state.
The sky still covered in the morning should partially clear up in the afternoon, and temperatures will go up to 24 degreesC.
America's Cup Race Schedule - Races 3 and 4: Sunday October 13, 2024
- Race 3: INEOS Britannia (GBR) (Port Startbox Entry) vs Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) (Starboard Startbox entry) Start: 1410hrs CET
- Race 4: Emirates Team New Zealand (Port Startbox entry) vs INEOS Britannia (GBR) (Starboard Startbox Entry) Start: 1515hrs CET
Virtual Eye
After the racing you can replay the key points, or the whole race using Virtual Eye from ARL This is the tool that Inside Tack are using to demonstrate various points - using the actual tracks of the AC75s.
You can go directly to the Virtual Eye America's Cup coverage by clicking here and click on "Watch Previous" then select the race you wish to view. Virtual Eye is a 3D viewer so you can zoom in, out, around and up and down just like you could in a helicopter.
Crew Lists -
Additional Images:
Live race coverage - Louis Vuitton America's Cup - Day 2 of the 37th Match - October 13, 2024.