Cup Spy - Day 16: Louis Vuitton Cup - So near but so far - LVC Finals Day 2
by Richard Gladwell Sail-World NZ 28 Sep 2024 21:43 BST
27 September 2024
Luna Rossachases INEOS Britannia - Race 3 - Finals Louis Vuitton Cup - Day 16 - September 28, 2024 - Barcelona © Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
Most commentators would have awarded Race 3 of the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals to INEOS Britannia on the basis of bragging rights, even though the race blew out the time limit. However, in reality, there was one 20° windshift between the two teams.
The race finished with both INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli sailing across the course. However, they were unable to even point in the direction of the finish line and could only sail at displacement speed. Luna Rossa supporters were jubilant at the outcome.
However, it could have gone either way, and the outcome was determined on the first leg when the Royal Yacht Squadron team found a 20° windshift and picked up a 220 metre lead, leaving the Italians to sniff their exhaust.
The start was delayed for almost two hours due to the wind not reaching the minimum, finally getting underway at 1410 hrs UTC.
In the light wind, the priority for both boats was to stay on their foils throughout the prestart, with the safe option being to avoid gybing. Both stacked up to windward of the startline, with INEOS dipping around the starboard end of the line to cross, gaining the windward position. Luna Rossa came in through the middle of the line, dipped it, and then started, with INEOS Britannia to windward and given as 12 metres ahead.
The Brits picked up a 20° right-hand shift about two-thirds up the first beat, giving INEOS a big jump on the Italians. It was not clear if the Brits found the shift or the shift found them. Either way, it dictated to some extent how the race unfolded. The loss was magnified for the Italians as they were headed for the port layline and either in a speed build (ahead of an impending tack) or a header, they sailed to the port boundary while the Brits lifted.
Numbers don't lie and off Virtual Eye we can see that the VMG for INEOS was 20kts, while at the same time (2m 13secs) Luna Rossa was only making 7kts VMG. Deceptively the Brits sailing at 30kts, while the Italians were slightly slower sailing at 27kts. There was 17° difference in wind direction and only 1kt difference in strength.
Before getting on the escalator, INEOS Brittania led by just 48 metres, or a couple of boatlengths, however a few seconds later that had stretched to 220metres.
Both boats made the approach to the first Mark out of the top starboard corner, and by that stage Luna Rossa had halved the margin down to 108metres. But of course that got them into the Brits turbulence and they had to live in their exhaust until the mark. At the top mark while the wind recorders were showing the same strength there was a massive 18° variance in direction - and that was probably the story of the day. In other words it was a day of picking windshifts and VMG rather than boatspeed.
But of course it was the latter that caused the race to collapse eventually on the approaches to the final Mark 5.
They went on to lead around every mark - with the wind being highly variable in pressure across the course - if the displayed wind information is accurate. The Livewind reading was usually around 7.5kts, which was backed up with the AC75s both hitting a remarkable 35kts or almost five times windspeed.
Both boats came close to dropping off their foils during tacking and gybing, particularly as the breeze began to lighten in the latter half of the race.
The Italians were first to come off their foils after appearing to just run out of puff with the breeze. The Brits followed suit a couple of minutes later after their rudder appeared to wash out as the AC75 was being turned in a tack.
Both boats were still on Leg 5, with INEOS ahead. Co-helm Dylan Fletcher called that they had 16 minutes left to beat the 45-minute race time limit.
At that point, unless they got foiling, it was most likely that the race was headed for abandonment.
Without data from Virtual Eye [not available at the time of writing), it is not possible to deduce a lot about the relative performance of the two boats.
The performance data off the two boats shows little real difference between them, other than Luna Rossa on the port boundary splashing down two minutes ahead of INEOS Britannia, who was in a slightly better breeze on the starboard side.
In the run-up to their splashdown, Luna Rossa had trimmed the Brits' lead down from over 400 metres at the time they came off the port boundary to 135 metres as the Italians were making good VMG on starboard tack. INEOS was sailing across the course, maintaining a foiling pace but making little real gain towards the mark. They were clearly in trouble, with skipper Ben Ainslie calling for maximum effort, saying, "This is everything."
That was a characteristic of the Brits' day - they were reasonably comfortable spending their lead crabbing sideways across the course at near 0kts VMG to maintain foiling. It was a safe bet for both that once off the foils, they would never get back up.
Luna Rossa, having conceded distance in the first beat, through missing the 20° shift, occasionally picked up a header/slight increase in pressure downwind and could make brief inroads into the British lead. But when they too resorted to sailing across the course to maintain foiling, they just added to their deficit, while the Brits were just spending money they already had in the bank.
In the final accounting, when INEOS Britannia rounded the final mark, with 3,500 metres to sail, they led the Italians by 600 metres. Both boats hoped to sniff out a new, fresher breeze—which never arrived.
The hope, and forecast is that there will be more breeze on Sunday.
Louis Vuitton Finals Match 3: GBR vs ITA Start: 14:10hrs CET (12:10hrs UTC) Entry: Port: TBA Starboard: TBA
Mark roundings and margins - Final Race 3 (abandoned)
Boats started to weather of the start line, dipping back across to start in order to stay on the foils.
Mark 1: 04m 57sec GBR led ITA margin 19secs
Mark 2: 10m 06sec GBR led ITA margin 15secs
Mark 3: 15m 50sec GBR led ITA margin 88secs or 945metres on the water.
Mark 4: 20m 41sec GBR led ITA margin 73secs 0r 380meters on the water. Luna Rossa came off the foils in a tack off the port boundary. GBR came off foils a minute or so later tacking off the starboard boundary when their rudder washed out during the tack. both boats sailing at 4-6kts in displacement mode and pushing the 45minute race time limit to finish.
Mark 5: 35m 22sec GBR led ITA margin 359secs.
Race abandoned when 45 minute time limit ran out. All racing for the day subsequently abandoned much to the delight of the Luna Rossa supporters.
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.
Provisional Forecast Race Day 16, Saturday September 28, 2024:
From Arnaud Monges, former America’s Cup Team Meteorologist:
Saturday 28th
The morning will start with an offshore wind from the North-West and by mid-day the wind will die out. In the early afternoon a weak onshore flow from the East-South-East around 5 knots is expected to build during the afternoon up to 10 knots. As the wind speed increases, the wind direction should turn right to South-East, and later South direction.
Sea state will be calm at 0.6 meter from the East at 5-second interval.
It will be a sunny day but with colder temperatures than the previous day. The maximum temperatures will only reach 22°C due to a cold air mass coming from the North.
Sunday 29th
In the afternoon, a South-West wind of 10 to 15 knots combined with clear sky should make a great racing day on the water.
Louis Vuitton Cup Race Schedule, Pairings and Start Box Entry:
- Louis Vuitton Finals Match 3: GBR vs ITA Start: 14:10hrs CET (12:10hrs UTC) Entry: Port: TBA Starboard: TBA
- Louis Vuitton Finals Match 4: ITA vs GBR Start: 15:15hrs (CET) (13:15hrs UTC) Entry: Port: TBA Starboard TBA
Saturday's Live race coverage:
Pre-race commentary:
The Finals are modelled on the America's Cup - 13 races are scheduled, and the winner will be the first to score 7pts. Generally that will be the first to win seven races, however the International Jury may impose points penalties for infringements, on and off the water, that are not covered by the Racing Rules which are adjudicated by the Umpiring team.
Two races are planned each day. The same wind limits will apply as for the earlier rounds of the Louis Vuitton Cup - a lower limit of 6.5kts and an upper limit of 21kts, measured at the top and bottom of the course (start line) using recording devices on each gate. There are a total of four devices, with the readings averaged over 30 second intervals over a five minute period between the 9th down to the 4th minute before the start. If the wind is within the allowed limits the Course Director will make a radio call (heard on the TV commentary) telling the crews that the racing is going to proceed.
If the go-ahead is given then the race proceeds regardless of what the breeze does regardless of the wind limits. Once the go-ahead is given, the only constraint on the race is that teams must make a first leg time limit of 12 minutes, and then a race time limit of 45 minutes. The length of legs, compass direction of the next leg and number of legs can all be altered by the race committee during the race.
To date no race has gone over 25 minutes duration.
The race director has the power to not start racing (even if the breeze is within the prescribed limits) if he considers the sea state is unsafe. He also has the ability to call off a race for safety reasons - a power which he came close to using during the lightning strikes on Day 5 of the Louis Vuitton Cup. However Emirates Team NZ's decision to drop out of their race and sail beyond the 100metre boundary line, triggering their disqualification, and the immediate awarding of the race to Luna Rossa, meant that the Chief Umpire's actions forestalled any action on safety grounds by the Race Director.
Our coverage includes Weather, Live video, Updated images live from the race course, mark rounding statistics, rounding times, margins, and other commentary.
Course Location:
Weather Information - Louis Vuitton Cup - Finals - Day 2
Crew Lists
Virtual Eye
Now, or after the racing you can replay the key points, or the whole race using Virtual Eye from ARL ** Sorry there is no Virtual Eye for Race 3 (stopped). **
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. This s 3D viewer so you can zoom in, out, around and up and down just like you could in a helicopter.