On the eve of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match, the America’s Cup Media Center on the ground floor of Barcelona’s World Trade Center is relatively empty. Both challenger and defender alike are hunkered down and most of the accredited media are off exploring cultural gems of the city or taking a breather before the Cup rush.

The only action is the Puig Women’s America’s Cup qualifying races, and while I sit awaiting the delayed start I get a text message from Sabina Mollart-Rogerson, the international media liaison for the French Orient Express Racing Team. They’re taking guests sailing on its AC75 and there are two spots for journalists. Do I want to go?

She does not need to ask twice. “Must be present to win,” I mutter to myself.

With my laptop briskly shoved into my backpack, I hustle to meet Mollart-Rogerson waiting in a team courtesy car, hastily board a RIB at the base and then transfer to a chase boat sitting along the AC75. Alexander Smith, of Reuters, is getting his safety briefing from the team’s paramedic—a quick tutorial on how to use the PFD’s spare air system and the hand signals should the boat capsize and we end up in the drink.

Smith is first to get into this rare AC75 joyride and as we follow alongside I meet Enzo Balanger, the mustached young Frenchman who skippered the team’s AC40 in the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup. Today will be his first time onboard the AC75 and his first shot at driving the big beast of a foiler. He’s had a few runs in the simulator, but he tells me he’s eager for the real thing as he observes the boat intently from his seat inside the RIB.

After 20 minutes or so, the boat comes to a slow stop and parks head-to-wind. Smith gingerly steps off the foredeck and onto the RIB with the expected ear-to-ear grin. I take his helmet, slide it on, adjust it and clip the chin strap. It’s a heavy, bobble-head like feel. With my PFD zipped and snugged, I move to the front of the RIB and before I board I’m warned several times about the slipperiness of the foredeck, and not to step on the deck area above the jib track–it will break.

With bare feet on the polished white deck it is indeed slippery, but I find awkward footing on the non-skid decals and crawl crab-like toward the mast and into the port-side opening behind the helmsman’s cockpit. The cycling apparatus that once served to power the boat through the Louis Vuitton Cup races has been removed. What remains is a bike saddle on a post, foot pads and forearm handlebars with grip tape worn thin and shredded by cyclors giving their all. A puddle of water sloshes around in the bilge and in front of me is a small LCD screen and a laminated list with checkboxes and instructions in French that I cannot decipher. I can only assume it’s the cyclor’s pre-flight check list.

To be honest, I was hoping to push some pedals to see how hard it could really be, but I’m OK with the cruise.

Behind me is one of the team’s cyclors, and helming in the opposite side of the boat is starting helmsman Quentin Delapierre. Balanger slides into the cockpit in front of me and scans the many displays in front of him, presumably doing his pre-flight checks and orientating himself. He slides his goggles down over his eyes and adjusts his facemask as the boat bears away and starts sailing on port tack.

All I can hear over the headset built into my helmet is the chatter among the cyclors. I’m on a closed loop between them, and even if I could listen to Delapierre coaxing Balanger, I would have no idea what was being said. I don’t do French, so I’m well and truly along the ride.

As the boat slowly accelerates, both foils in the water, a rush of wind across the deck is immediate. Hydraulic pumps inside the boat groan and I can hear and feel the whir of the cyclors pushing oil throughout the boat. The jib tack slides out to the outboard end of the recessed foredeck track, the foot deepens and rounds, the luff slides up the forestay and powers the front of the jib.

A small green box on the LCD display in front of me reads 12.3 knots as the boat heels briefly to weather and then comes level as the boat lifts free of the surface. The jib clew quickly comes inboard, the leech hardens, and what was once a deep-cambered sail is now board flat. I peek over the rail and stare with wonder at the foil wing gliding just below the surface, its pointed upward-curved outer tip zippering the water.

From my vantage point, I can easily see approaching puffs through the jib slot, and find myself counting them down in my head and watching how the boat and the sails react. The jib car is constantly moving inboard and outboard, inches a time. Behind me, the traveler is hyperactive.

In a blink we’re doing 28 knots in 9 knots of wind before Delapierre drops the windward foil and starts the turn through our first foiling tack. I watch Balanger scan his displays through the turn before looking forward over the bow and at the straight horizon. I can see video screens showing camera views of both foils, but there are other displays in front of him with a jumble of numbers.

Once settled on the new tack the windward foil rises free of the water and the speed loss is barely noticeable. With Balanger now on the helm the boat lumbers and bounces like a large prop-plane through turbulence. At full tilt, there’s just wind noise through my helmet, the hum turning cranks and pumps pushing oil. Telltales along the bottom of the jib and mainsail stream straight back as if glued to the sails.

Balanger seems plenty smooth on his first long port run, the windward board’s tip only dipping occasionally. The display in my cockpit is blinking with colors, numbers I don’t understand, power data from cyclors, and percentages for the jib sheet and the mainsail traveler as the true-wind angle bounces between 40 and 50-something degrees.

After a few minutes of straight-line sailing at 29 knots it all starts to feel pretty relaxed, and it’s only when we bear away to somewhere past 100 degrees true that the rush of the AC75 becomes real. Suddenly, it’s 37 knots, a cheeks-flapping, head-swaying sort of pace, a sense of floating on air.

We glide through a few more jibes and speed runs before turning into the wind and coming to a slow stop. The ride is over and with it, the same sort of let down that comes after an epic roller coaster ride. That feeling that you want to jump right back into the cue, no matter how long it is, for another go. According to my Garmin watch we’ve covered 6.87 miles in 20m:38s, at an average speed of 20 knots. Somehow, I’ve burned 127 calories just sitting on my saddle, a mere fraction of the cyclors who were doing all the heavy cranking.

Mine is the last ride of the day and after a fast and short tow back to the base, I get 5 minutes of one-on-one with Balanger before he’s whisked off to the debrief. While it seems to me his turns were just fine for an AC75 first-timer—no splashdowns or touches—he confesses that it was far from good, but it’s all part of getting up to speed and hopefully into a starting role when the French challenger returns to the next Cup.

“During my first tack, the traveler was a bit stuck in the middle,” he says with a chuckle. “I tried to turn the wheel but the boat didn’t turn.”

He was out of sync with the trimmers, but the next one was better: “When I didn’t get my first tack well, I just watched how Quentin did the next one, and then I just did the same. There is a lot of precision and coordination, and it is not easy.”

Recalling this first few minutes on the helm of the AC75 Balanger says that while it would have been tempting to focus on the array of displays in front of him, he instead drew upon his instincts gleaned from his high-level Moth sailing.

“I wasn’t too focused on the data,” he says, “just the heel and the feel of the boat and the wind. Of course, I was nervous but everyone was supporting me, the cyclors telling me to push a bit more, saying, ‘we have some power for you.’”

Although I could not hear Delapierre mentoring from the opposite cockpit, Balanger says, he wasn’t telling him whether he was doing well or not. “He was just telling me that it was my first time and that everyone wants to perform. He was giving me a lot of advice and told me it was good—but only at the end.”

The post Taken For a Ride on The AC75 appeared first on Sailing World.

Along the beach fronts of Barcelona and the harborsides of Port Vell, remnants of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup villages linger in stark contrast from a week ago. The racing is long over. Team bases are packing, the Estrella Damm container bars shuttered, the staging deconstructed, banners struck. The crowds have dispersed and the Catalonians have their waterfront back.

By all accounts, the America’s Cup summer was a fruitful one for the city of nearly 6 million residents and the government that forked over a reported 70 million Euros to host sailing’s pinnacle regatta. They may get their projected $2 billion in revenue, but whether they get the Cup back for AC38 is a question that lingers among those who want to know. And that includes the teams themselves.

Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton, cagey as usual with the Cup’s next steps as he and others plot how to make the event more commercially viable, has indicated that he wants a quick turnaround—2026—making quick use of the hard assets that the six remnant teams now possess: AC40s, AC75, hydrogen chase boats, simulators and gym equipment. Never mind keeping the respective talent on retainer.

Barcelona remains a potential host candidate, but those in government may be less willing to accept a similar host fee arrangement for the second dance. Valencia, down the coast, is another strong contender having hosted twice in the past and reported to be eager, and the Middle East—perhaps Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which hosted a preliminary regatta—is willing to pony up for the taking.

“The Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup has confirmed the America’s Cup as one of the unique properties in international sport, so it is our objective to build on the success of AC37 and continue the growth we have been seeing since we first won the America’s Cup in 2017,” Dalton said in a team statement issued several days after the team defended the Cup for a third time. “We are looking to increase audience and engagement across different regions, territories and demographics.”

Dalton is also expecting, or hoping for, additional teams in the next cycle, which would be difficult in the port space currently available in Barcelona. “We now have a number of valuable properties that we wish to continue building,” he said, referring to the well-received but flawed Youth and Women’s America’s Cup events. “We are keeping an open mind on how best to achieve this with a venue, or different venues, that can supercharge the 38th America’s Cup with increased global footprint, more teams and increased overall expansion opportunities.”

The statement issued by Emirates Team New Zealand reports that the regatta attracted 2.5 million attendees between late August to mid-October (a 59-day count). “These numbers are well aligned with those that were projected and estimated before the event and from initial indications we know we are well on track to reaching our growth targets of a 50-percent increase on total broadcast and media audience from the 36th America’s Cup,” Dalton said.

Talks between the Defender and its Challenger of Record, The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Ltd., will bear the next venue and details soon enough, and while the two played nice in the lead up and through Barcelona, several inside sources say it will be different this time around with British team principals looking for more say in how it all plays out.  

The post Where to Next with America’s Cup 38 appeared first on Sailing World.

Seven to two—that is the final outcome of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona following a decisive win for Emirates Team New Zealand, now third time defenders and supreme masters of the AC75 America’s Cup class of their design. While INEOS Britannia had high hopes and no lack of effort in trying, the Auld Mug remains firmly in the hands of Team New Zealand, now awaiting the next challenger and the next chapter of its dynasty.

On a warm and sunny afternoon on October 19, the New Zealand sailing powerhouse delivered its final and convincing blow to the British Challenger of Record on the sixth and final day of racing, stirring a black swarm of New Zealand fans into a frenzy along Barcelona’s waterfront. There were two races scheduled, but the Kiwis only needed one, and it was theirs from the first cross onward.

Scripted to perfection for a Saturday final race, the wind forecast was questionable with the remnants of the previous day’s northerly fighting the arrival of the sea breeze. At the morning race briefing, race officer Iain Murray alluded to the potential of a hard 3:30 cut off, but with only a slight delay, the sea breeze found its footing to the delight of crowds that worked their way to vantage points along Barcelona’s waterfront. To borrow a oft-heard phrase of Emirates Team New Zealand helmsman Nathan Outteridge it was, “all good.”

Going into today’s do-or-die race, the British knew their fate was not with better boat speed, but rather a bare-knuckle approach to the pre-start.

And with 8 knots of breeze, Emirates Team New Zealand entered on port with INEOS on starboard entry going immediately on the offensive, chasing the Kiwis to the bottom of the starting box. New Zealand was ready for it and knew a jibe and tack would set them up for INEOS’s next move.

The British came at the New Zealanders once again, but with the maneuverability that has been the hallmark of their series, the Kiwis tacked and then went right back at them. After a Kiwi push to the line, INEOS was just ahead off the start, but with a slight right the New Zealanders promptly tacked and went for a bigger piece of the shift.

The Kiwis on Taihoro had the first cross by 24 meters, and while the chase was on and close at times over the six-leg, 26-minute race INEOS had no passing lanes. It was wire to wire again for Team New Zealand.

“It’s a surreal feeling, to know we’ve won it again, and seeing the crowd and the cheering,” Burling said after racing. “Our whole team is incredibly competitive and we get along and get the best out of one another—everyone pushing forward and that showed on the racecourse.”

The push to seven started with four straight wins early in the series before the Kiwis stumbled on the fourth day of the regatta with two surprise losses. The team’s regroup from those missteps, Burling said, was his personal highlight of the Barcelona experience—he was happy to silence the critics and get the job done with authority.

Much will be debated and analyzed once the champagne has been sprayed and the sting of the loss fades for the British outfit, but if there’s one undeniable fact of this regatta—Team New Zealand’s Taihoro was the fastest boat of the third-generation AC75s.

Emirates Team New Zealand’s Dan Bernasconi, architect of the rule that produced the most technical sailing craft of a generation says there’s still more to come with the big foilers, whenever that may be.

“With the performance of these boats you’re fighting over 10ths or hundreds of knots, but the way you can sail them can make a huge, huge difference,” Bernasconi said about the team’s developments through the Barcelona series that began back in August. “We’ve made real steps forward between the round robins and the final: how to minimize the losses in tacks and jibes, roundups, bear-aways, what you do in situations where the winds in a different direction for the waves, how you trim the sails, high modes, low modes, and positioning on the racecourse.”

Earlier in the series Burling had said they’d been modifying how they use the power team’s input and while Bernasconi declined to share specifics, he said, “there are a lot of decisions about where we direct the power. There’s a very tight limit of power to use, and you’ve got about 20 functions controlling the sails. There’s a lot of complex logic there, and we’ve been working on that way all the way through. It’s one of the few things you can change right until the end of the Cup, as to how you direct that power.”

Was maneuverability a real strength of the platform? “It’s been a massive learning curve for all teams where being able to minimize losses in tacks and jibes. I think we’ve seen these boats match raced very hard, and if you can save 5 meters in every tack compared to the other guys, that makes a massive difference.”

While much lip service had been given to the similarities of the boats in terms of all-around performance, Bernasconi—understandably—was perfectly happy with the package that got the job done in a wide range of conditions, but especially in the America’s Cup matches themselves.

“I think we had a slight edge in the conditions that we raced in,” Bernasconi said. “I think the two boats did target slightly different conditions. If every day had been in 18 to 20 knots of breeze would the results have been the same? I don’t know. You’ve got to pick your design and you have to put the target somewhere. Of course, we knew it could be 18 to 20, and we designed a boat which wouldn’t be bad in those conditions, but we wanted to be absolutely the fastest boat out there in 8 to 12.”

While the tradition of the America’s Cup is to have the next Challenger of Record step forward as soon as the Match is won, there were no such formal proceedings made known. Instead, the parade of yachts and small craft that had lined the racecourse to witness Team New Zealand’s historic third win on the water followed them into Port Vell, for the speeches, the champagne and the party over Kiwi Corner that will no doubt last until the sun rises again over Barcelona.

Whether the next Cup match remains in Spain or moves to the Middle East, as some rumors claim, is unknown, but one thing for certain is INEOS is not going anywhere, or at least not Ben Ainslie, who said, “See you next time.”

The post Emirates Team New Zealand’s Dominant Third Defense appeared first on Sailing World.

Simple, but race-defining mistakes got the better of Emirates Team New Zealand on Race Day 4 of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup, bringing the series to 4-2 before the reserve day on Thursday, but today on the waters off Barcelona the Kiwi unit promptly snuffed the British momentum with two decisive wins that now has them one race away from a three-peat defense.

With the winds blowing offshore (northwest) for the first time in the America’s Cup Match, over the high hills on the outskirts of Barcelona and through the city of 6 million, conditions delivered a different sort of racecourse with flat water and the unpredictability that comes with an offshore wind flow. Ten-degree shifts and skittering puffs put a premium on being in phase, and more importantly, being out front to cherry-pick the shifts.

As it has been thus far in the Match, the first cross came down to the start, and once again Emirates Team New Zealand got the starts right and led both races wire-to-wire. In the first of the day (Race 7) INEOS Britannia had port entry and just got across the Kiwis as they entered from the starboard end and went straight into the chase, jibing to follow. Pulling off an impressively tight figure-of-eight, INEOS reversed roles and played the pusher as New Zealand dragged them into the bottom right corner of the start box. INEOS turned back to the line early, leaving plenty of opportunity for Emirates Team New Zealand to start at the weather end with plenty of space between them. Starboard helmsman Peter Burling knew the right shift was coming and they owned it when it came.

“The pre-start meant getting to the first shift,” Burling said after racing, “and INEOS made it easy for us.”

How easy was it? According to data from the boats, the breeze blowing across the Kiwi bow as they started was about 288 degrees true. Twenty seconds later, the true wind was wound up to 311 degrees and Taihoro was shearing off INEOS to leeward. When the British came off their left-boundary tack the New Zealanders planted a hard cover, bounced their opponents back to the left and a 60-meter lead grew to 240 at their next intersection.

While INEOS sniffed out a good shift at the top of the beat to close the gap, the New Zealanders were easily across into the first gate and connecting shifts and puffs down the run to pad their lead.

“These boats go quick,” said INEOS coach Xabi Fernandez after racing, “so if you go the right side, you get there fast, and if you go to the wrong side you also get there fast, so the shifts were super important today.”

—INEOS Britannia Coach Xabi Fernandez

There was nothing INEOS could do except try splits and get out of phase as the distance grew and were able to keep the race within a few hundred meters, but on the upwind Leg 5, Emirates Team New Zealand locked into a puff had that them charging upwind a good 10 knots faster at times to grow their lead to a punishing 700-plus meters.

“These boats go quick,” said INEOS coach Xabi Fernandez after racing, “so if you go the right side, you get there fast, and if you go to the wrong side you also get there fast, so the shifts were super important today.”

Exiting from the final windward gate, the Kiwis jibed onto a puff that carried them down the middle of the course to nearly double their lead, and two jibes later they were across the line with the British chasing from more than half a mile behind.

To say Emirates Team New Zealand made it look easy would be understatement, but the precision and consistency of their flight throughout the race was apparent. For that, Burling credited his four teammates pounding away on the pedals for 27 minutes, putting plenty of oil in the tank to allow for the constant adjustments to the sails through the wind speed changes.

“It was a shifty, dynamic offshore day and I think one thing that stood out to me is how good our power train is,” Burling said, giving a nod to the power team putting out the wattage required to keep the boat on rails and fast out of every turn. “How we use our power, that’s been improving all the time and made our lives easy today.”

With one win in the bag, the Kiwis went right back to work in the pre-start of the next race, this time entering on port, getting clear across and jibing back to the line with the British sailing past them and setting up well behind. It was a free pass that allowed Team New Zealand to control the charge into the start and control the race from there.

“It was satisfying to have them go past us, and for them to try and push us back to the line,” said Emirates Team New Zealand trimmer Andy Maloney after racing. “We did a good job defending that push from them and leading off in a tight position to leeward.”

That strong position set them up for the next big advance. INEOS’s clearing tack had them 140 meters behind after only 2 minutes of racing and early into the downwind leg, the British battled through rudder control issues that trimmer Leigh McMillan later said were “distracting” but not consequential.

“We managed it as best we could,” he said, “but it didn’t affect the outcome of the race.”

One touchdown had INEOS’s speedo plummet to 27 knots, momentarily, while the Kiwis extended away at 44 knots, doubling their lead to 400 meters in a blink.

The distance between the two boats never dropped below 300 meters, and on the third leg (downwind) Team New Zealand locked into a puff that had them streaming down the middle of the course and boosting the lead to more than 700.

Sailing the course as they wished, the Kiwis put another point on the board, and that was that.

“Our biggest issue was they got the critical first shift right,” McMillan said. “We came out strong in the pre-starts and showed we’d made some big gains there, but once they got control it was incredibly difficult to get past. Frustrating.”

It’s clear what the British challenger must do, should Saturday’s light-wind forecast allow the Match to continue, McMillan said: “We’ve got to win every race and the only way we can do that is to really take it to them. We’re ready for that.”

And so too are the defenders and the swarms of black-shirted fans that are swarming Barcelona’s waterfront. They can smell victory, and it’s only one race away.

The post Emirates Team New Zealand On the Cusp of Three appeared first on Sailing World.

While the America’s Cup has always been about the fastest boat, it is ultimately the people that make this ambitious event what it is—the captains, the sailors, the designers and engineers, the builders and the sailmakers, the storytellers and all those behind the scene. And each year since 1993, the Herreshoff Marine Museum, in Bristol, Rhode Island, has acknowledged the greats of the world’s oldest sporting trophy with its America’s Cup Hall of Fame. This week in Barcelona the selection committee inducted four new members.

At the ceremony, held during the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match at the Museu Martim de Barcelona, Herreshoff Marine Museum’s President and Executive Director, Bill Lynn, along with Hall of Fame Selection Committee Chair Steven Tsuchiya, and emcee Gary Jobson, presented the new class: sailors Josh Belsky, of the United States, Juan Vila, of Spain, Kevin Shoebridge, of New Zealand, and the late yachting journalist Bob Fisher, of the United Kingdom.

The Hall of Fame also recognized the contributions of Louis Vuitton and Italian sailor and team principal Vinceno Ricci, of Italy. Both were presented with Sir Richard Francis Sutton medals, created in 2018 to recognize individuals and entities that “exemplify the spirit of the America’s Cup.”

Ricci, the skipper and project manager of the first-ever Italian America’s Cup challenge in 1983, the campaign of Azzura, which finished third in the Louis Vuitton Cup during the famous Cup summer of Australia II’s historic win. Now 90 and unable to attend the ceremony, Ricci is said to have inspired Italians to pursue a Cup victory over a span of 40 years.

Louis Vuitton, title sponsor of the Barcelona edition of the Cup, as well as the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series has been synonymous with the Cup since 1983, a relationship that started with a $75,000 sponsorship and the now iconic Louis Vuitton Cup Trophy. The luxury goods giant has sponsored every challenger series since then, with the exception of the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland 2021.

Pietro Beccari, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, shared his gratitude in a pre-recorded video message to induction attendees, saying, “I am very honored, humbled and proud to receive the Sutton Medal in the name of Louis Vuitton and personally. We are proud to have accompanied the history of this legendary trophy, sharing the same values as the America’s Cup: the ambition to surpass oneself and the continuous quest for innovation.”

Cup icon Bruno Troublé (inducted into the AC Hall of Fame in 2007) and instigator of the Louis Vuitton partnership has said, “Louis Vuitton has been the guardian of the temple…and if the America’s Cup has managed to preserve its character intact, drawing people and partners of high quality, while greatly expanding its aura, it is thanks to Louis Vuitton, which has in many ways protected it.”

Belsky, present to acknowledge his induction in Barcelona and surrounded by many of his peers in attendance, spent his formative junior sailing years in US Northeast, where he was first exposed to the Cup in 1974, but it was his post-collegiate sailing exploits on the international big-boat scene with American owner John Thomson’s Infinity programs that eventually propelled him to the Cup in San Diego in 1992, running the pit with Bill Koch’s America3 defense. That campaign was followed by an unsuccessful defense trials run with Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes in 1995, the year Team New Zealand’s Black Magic stunned the field and emerged as the force it is today.

Belsky’s legendary exploits in the Whitbread Race with Paul Cayard’s winning EF Language program then parlayed to Cup campaigns with AmericaOne in 2000 and both of Alinghi’s Cup wins in 2003 and 2007, earning him due recognition as one of the greatest pit bosses of all time.

Belsky, who now lives a mountain lifestyle in Colorado, acknowledged the value of relationships and connections that furthered his amazing career. “All of the people in here that I’ve sailed with I’ve taken something from you,” he said, before sharing a story from the 1995 Cup. “During the Challenger Series with Dennis, we had a windy day, the day that the OneAustralia sank. Our keel snapped off, was hanging by a thread, and we got towed in sinking.

“A bunch of us worked through the night to change keels, and our fearless leader, Dennis Connor, stayed behind with us and hung out on Betsy, the tender, and had a few adult beverages during the night. About four in the morning, we heard the scissor lift come up, and we heard somebody on deck, and that was Dennis. And he poked his head down below. He looked at us, covered in carbon dust and blood and sweat getting the keel off. And he said, ‘God, I love you guys working this late, it’s fantastic. We’ll get on the racecourse tomorrow. And just remember one thing, the more hours you work, the less I pay you per hour.’”

Vila, in Barcelona with the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Team for this Cup cycle, is a Barcelona native who is recognized as one of the greatest navigators of modern sailing. His affinity to mathematics and race electronics has allowed him to adapt to the fast-changing tools and software employed at the highest levels of the sport. His Cup career spans from 1992 with the Spanish challenger Espana ’92 to today with Alinghi Red Bull Racing. Vila has competed in five America’s Cup Matches, winning three times—twice with Alinghi and once with Oracle Team USA and his accomplishments span deep into the offshore and grand-prix racing realms, including the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race, which he won onboard the Whitbread 60 illbruck.

“In 1992 we were kind of a bit of a new team, young and inexperienced,” Vila shared. “It was our first time and we were a bit scared of the world and what was happening and paid our price for being newbies in the game. Quite a few of the crew were smokers and first thing we know we’re reading in the press that all of our competitors had figured out when we were going to tack or jibe because everyone was throwing their cigarettes away.”

Vila says his “big moment” and step up in his career was with Alinghi in 2003 in Auckland. “I was new to a winning campaign and didn’t know if I’d be up to the level required,” he said, “and they made it easy for me so that in the end it was like being at home. It allowed me to be able to continue and be involved in every edition of the cup afterwards.”

Kevin Shoebridge, a four-time winner of the America’s Cup, took the evening to step away from the management of Emirates Team New Zealand’s defense of the Cup against INEOS Britannia, an as expected, the ceremony crowd was dense with teammates and admirers from an incredible Cup career that has spanned more than 40 years.

Shoebridge stepped off on his long America’s Cup path as a sail trimmer with the Kiwi Magic syndicate in 1987’s edition in Fremantle, Australia, where the New Zealanders won 38 straight races before losing to Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger finals. That career has spanned through every New Zealand campaign ever since, with his role advancing beyond the sail trimming team and into the management of the most successful dynasty in Cup history.

“The Fremantle campaign was amazing,” Shoebridge said of his introduction to the crucible of Cup racing. “It taught us a valuable lesson…we were naïve and young. We won a lot of the pre-races, but we didn’t win the races in the end when we were taught a lesson by Stars & Stripes. But it certainly set us on a course. The America’s Cup is won by people, the team is everything and I’m lucky enough to have worked with the best in the world.”

The legacy of Bob Fisher, one of the greats of yachting journalism and a prolific chronicler of the America’s Cup, culminates in his two-volume work, An Absorbing Interest, published in 2007. The 544-page history became an authoritative work for every Match from 1851 to 2007.  It includes exhaustive extracts from correspondence between many Cup competitors, some made public for the first time thanks to Bob’s 15 years of diligent research in archives and interviews.

Fisher, a long time Sailing World contributor, was honored and two daughters who said, “Dad was dedicated to the Cup and therefore it is befitting that, being fortunate enough to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, he now be amongst those he revered the most.”

The L’Oreal Group, a sponsor with the French challenge Orient Express Racing Team was also acknowledged for its support of the gathering and for its legacy in the Cup with the America3 women’s team in San Diego in 1995. “Mighty Mary” crew members Linda Lindquist-Bishop and Suzie Leach were in attendance to share insights of the campaign and mark the importance of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup, along with the women’s sailing team with Orient Express Racing Team.

The post Legends and Louis Vuitton Get Their Due at America’s Cup Hall of Fame Night in Barcelona appeared first on Sailing World.

When Emirates Team New Zealand entered the start box on port entry of Race 5 of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup, INEOS Britannia was charging at them in a good puff, with 30 knots of boat speed and their target locked. And in the split-second decisions that these AC75 helmsmen must make, there were only two choices for port helm Nathan Outteridge—go for the marginal cross or jibe for safety.

And it was Option B that was the New Zealander team’s undoing, entering the jibe below target speed, turning straight into light spot and through their own disturbed air.

“It was a downwind spiral once we knew we weren’t crossing,” Outteridge said after racing, admitting that they were a few seconds late and slow to enter, which set up the chain of events and had them off the foils and watching INEOS Britannia sail circles around them before starting alone and sailing to their first race win and halting what was fast becoming a Kiwi sweep.

It was the start of a momentum-shifting day for the British Challenge of Record, desperate to turn their series around and rewrite their Barcelona story. And while a win is a win, it was also a day where the New Zealanders can look back at the obvious mistakes.

Self-inflicted wounds aside, the Kiwis are plenty fast.

INEOS Britannia was a third of the way up the first leg by the time Emirates Team New Zealand was up to speed and chasing. The delta through the first gate was a healthy 2m:15s, by far the biggest lead of the America’s Cup matches. With both boats free to sail the course as they wished, it was, as INEOS’s Dylan Fletcher told his teammates mid-race, a “time trial.” In other words: sail the course as fast as possible.

“Once you get to a certain point ahead of the other boat it’s challenging to control them,” said INEOS trimmer Bleddyn Mon. “So, you have to race your own race, which is especially hard when it’s tricky conditions like we had today; that means looking for the pressure and getting on the right shifts as nicely as you can.”

It was the same time trial for Emirates Team New Zealand, which shaved 16 seconds off the British lead on the first downwind leg and then another 22 seconds on the next, and then 8 more by the time they were through the final gate. When it was all said and done, INEOS’s 4-minute head start was reduced to 1m:18s.

A Momentum Shift for INEOS

With a wind increase to 12 knots for Race 6 of the Wednesday doubleheader, both teams delivered another interesting pre-start, one that Mon said they had practiced in the simulator, one of the hundreds of possible starting scenarios.

This time, INEOS entered on port and Emirates Team New Zealand went straight from starboard entry into jibing and pursuing the British. INEOS tacked high then tacked again with the New Zealanders mimicking their every move. As both boats paralleled to the right boundary, INEOS pulled off a quick jibe that the Kiwis were late to respond to, opening up the door for the British to roll the Kiwis and make a straight and clean run to the start.

It was a humbling moment for the New Zealanders, but they knew exactly how they’d let their rivals get off the hook.

“What we saw today was how difficult it is to win races,” Outteridge said after racing. “If we had just jibed half a second or a second early, and they can’t roll us, then we’re luffing them out of the start. “So, they did a great job to pull off the jibe and build speed quickly to get across us.

“We were a little bit late on our jibe and our timings to defend that,” he added. “We’ll review that and next time make sure we’re on the good side of that one.”

Immediately tacking away, the early advantage went to the British, winning the first cross by nearly three boatlengths. The next cross was a similar margin, and a good indication that this race had the makings of another sword fight.

With a split at the first gate of only 6 seconds, INEOS doubled their lead initially on the first downwind leg, but there was only 9 seconds between them through the next gate. As both teams worked the wind shifts up the beat, each essentially sailing their own race to minimize maneuvers in the confused and steep waves, there was still only 9 seconds difference through the windward gate once again.

It was 16 seconds at the bottom of the run when Team New Zealand lost control of their rudder through the split turn, but with one favorable shift that went their way they were breathing down the necks of the British again, bringing the race back to boatlengths.

On this seventh of eight legs Emirates Team New Zealand well and surely had Ben Ainslie and his co-helm Dylan Fletcher looking over the shoulder as they loosely covered the Kiwis who were goading the British into a tacking duel.

Only 7 seconds separated the two through the final windward gate, and following a split, the jibing duel was eventually brought to the middle of the course with the Kiwis gaining on every exchange, reducing the British lead to two boatlengths until INEOS was able to clear the finish for a 7-second win.

“We’re back in it,” Fletcher said in celebration.

“We really needed that,” Ainslie said after racing, acknowledging that it has been 90 years since a British team had won a race in the America’s Cup Match. “It’s a long way to go in this and we just want to make sure we keep that momentum going now and keep making gains, and if we can do that we can take it all the way.

“We’re not here to just win races, we’re here to win the America’s Cup.”

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The 37th America’s Cup final between the Challenger, INEOS Britannia, and the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, is currently underway and revealing a few tactical trends over four races thus far. Let’s take a look at the key decisions teams must make and which strategies are being employed to attack from behind or defend when leading.

Pre-Start Positioning

At the press conference ahead of the 37th Match, a coin flip determined that Emirates Team New Zealand would start the first race on port, while INEOS Britannia would start on starboard. In the age of AC75s, where the priority is to remain on the foils, some of the traditional moves are no longer applicable.

In general, the boat that enters the start box on starboard 10 seconds later and from behind controls the pre-start and is better positioned to attack. Normally, if the starboard-entry boat executes standard pre-start maneuvers, it will end up to windward of its rival during the final starboard approach to the starting line. This gives it the power to decide how to proceed in the final seconds, based on its strategy and race plan.

Regardless of whether the boats approach from deep in the start box or higher than the starboard end of the line, the windward boat can choose whether to push the rival to bear away toward the leeward end, hook them from the leeward side, or stay far to windward to start on the right side, based on various tactical reasons. Only a few races in the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series saw the port-entry boat gaining decision-making power in the box, though this didn’t always materialize into a starting advantage.

After the start: Push to the Boundary or Split

Starting to windward generally provides control, allowing the boat to either sail on starboard tack and push the opponent toward the left boundary, or execute an early tack to head toward the right side of the course for a strategic advantage, such as more wind or shift. The latter option is typically favored in southwesterly Garbi sea breezes, where the right side of the course often proves advantageous.

On the other hand, starting to leeward reduces the risk of a poor start, as no other boat can disrupt acceleration or changes in speed at one of the most critical moments of the race. Once across the line, the leeward boat can control its sailing mode toward the left boundary until the windward boat tacks. However, the distance from the start to the left boundary is much shorter than the one the leeward starting boat will have to face after the first tack on the left boundary, all the way to the opposite one.

Consequently, after the tack, the boat going for the leeward start, must commit and be confident that after the first tack will achieve a comfortable relative position to sail potentially from boundary to boundary. Being lifted from leeward by the opponent early after the first tack could result on two extra tacks when close to the port side boundary, that could result on irreversible differences in a very early stage of the race.

In the Louis Vuitton Cup Final, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli often opted for a windward start, while INEOS preferred the leeward position. Both took advantage of their respective positions without much interference.

Upwind Tactics: Cover or Stay in Phase

Once a boat establishes a lead, the primary goal is to cover the opponent, either pushing them toward the unfavored side in terms of wind intensity, wind shifts phase or toward the nearest boundary, which could force them into two extra tacks on the upwind leg.

Meanwhile, the trailing boat aims to minimize damage by staying in sync with wind shifts and looking for an opportunity to create a split, either on the same upwind leg or during the top-mark rounding. Though a split often only requires one additional tack, if mistimed with the wind shift, it can lead to costly losses, so waiting for the right moment is crucial.

After the Top Mark: Downwind Tactics

Downwind tactics depend on whether the trailing boat rounds the same top mark as the leader or a different one. If both round the same mark, the leader can simply mirror the trailing boat’s moves and stay between them and the next mark. The high speeds of foiling boats also mean the boat behind cannot disturb the leader’s clean wind.

However, if the trailing boat achieves a split at the top mark, and both head toward opposite boundaries, the leading boat will have to execute at least one extra jibe to align and regain control. In conditions where wind pressure and shifts vary across the course, this is a common strategy. In contrast, in strong winds and choppy seas, minimizing maneuvers becomes the priority, allowing for sailing from boundary to boundary with minimal interference from the opponent.

The Final Stages

By the second lap, one boat is usually clearly ahead, while the other attempts to create a split to gain leverage and increase the chances of a comeback. In windy or rough seas, the leader often avoids engaging directly, focusing on sailing cleanly from boundary to boundary, minimizing extra maneuvers and concentrating on boat handling.

In more variable conditions, staying close to the rival becomes more important, even if it means executing additional tacks.

Racing these high-speed foiling boats requires thinking two to three steps ahead before execution and anticipating multiple scenarios that could unfold during critical moments, especially when crossing paths with an opponent, easier said than done when the world is watching, the racecourse is small, and the pace is rapid.

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The Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match was envisioned to be a marathon to seven wins, with a calendar of potential race days stretching into October 27. But only three days into this regatta, it’s looking as though the base pack-ups for challenger and defender alike could very well be happening sooner than later.

With another convincing defeat on the waters off Barcelona, Emirates Team New Zealand has brought the series to 4-0, leaving INEOS Britannia with an impossible task. Yes, the British Challenger of Record can and will get faster, and that’s all fine and good, but therein lies the rub: Emirates Team New Zealand can and will too.

The race statistics don’t lie—Emirates Team New Zealand’s Taihoro is a faster boat. And the visuals from the water paint a vivid picture of a lethal package—the Kiwi AC75 is a low-flying “aeroplane” that helmsmen Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge with trimmers Andy Maloney and Blair Tuke can throw around with ease and confidence—as they’ve done since the day they launched the boat in April. The boat is rock-steady in a straight line and tack losses are a sniff, and this is no hyperbole.

Today’s one and only race provides compelling proof.

With both boats getting across the starting line relatively evenly—Emirates Team New Zealand at the port end and INEOS at the starboard end—a small wind shift gave the British initial advantage as both boats tacked off the boundary. INEOS planted a proper lee bow tack and Emirates Team New Zealand waited just long enough to open up a bit of runway along the left boundary.

Here’s the impressive part: Consider that the Kiwis first tacked off the boundary 50 seconds into the race, then tacked away from INEOS’s cover 20 seconds later, and then tacked back off the boundary with roughly 20 seconds of speed build. The simple math is this: three tacks within the span of 40 seconds—with 29-knot entry speeds and 24 knots at the bottom end—and when it was all said and done they were still only a boatlength behind.

So much for pinning the Kiwis against the boundary.

“They were in a strong position off that first boundary and we had to wiggle our way out of that situation and had two pretty nice tacks to keep it close,” said Emirates Team New Zealand trimmer Andy Maloney. “One of the cool things about these Version 2 AC75s is that they tack extremely well with the bigger span foils and you can build speed and get up to your tacking speed pretty quickly, so it does give options when getting squashed against the boundary.

Once on the open course the New Zealanders put the throttles down and ducked INEOS in their next intersection to set up for the next intersection at the top of the course. Now on starboard tack, they executed a perfect leebow tack that set them up for an easy layline through the gate, forcing INEOS to tack away to the unfavored left gate.

At the first downwind cross, Emirates Team New Zealand had starboard advantage again, forcing the British to duck. While still close at the second gate the New Zealanders were in complete control of the race, sailing the course as they wished and piling on the distance leg by leg until finishing a good 350 meters and 23 seconds ahead.

With a welcome reserve day on tap for INEOS Britannia on Tuesday, it’s back to the data analysts said trimmer Bleddy Mon after racing when asked whether it would be a sailing day or a date crunching numbers with the performance team. “We don’t need more time on the water at this point,” he said. “We just need to work on the last bit of details.”

The teams are set to meet again on Wednesday for two more races and the forecast is similar to the races thus far, 6 to 10 knots. Should the Kiwis continue to march toward a sweep, the regatta could well be done by Friday, October 18.

“I think we’ve made a step forward again with the performance of the boat and are attacking nicely,” Outteridge said after the race. “So, we are going really well upwind, obviously we are very happy with that but plenty more to come still.” 

The British are confident they can find a way to get more performance out of their craft as well, but at this point, details may not be nearly enough to stop the bleeding. Slow it, yes. Stop it. Not likely.

The post Emirates Team New Zealand Add Another Point, INEOS Britannia Scrambling For Speed appeared first on Sailing World.

It is said that sailboat racing is a game of chess on the water. Match racing is all of that and then some, a game of practiced moves and countermoves, of studying and knowing one’s opponent and eventually exploiting their tendencies.

In match racing, however, repetition is the kiss of death and INEOS Britannia is certainly guilty of in their pre-start approaches in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup: enter, tack high and pursuit. This execution worked surprisingly well for the British Challenger of Record in the Louis Vuitton Cup Final matches against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, but Emirates Team New Zealand has studied the Challenger of Record enough to pad their simulator and playbook with all sorts of kill scenarios.

Twice now Emirates Team New Zealand has targeted the British at the bottom of their first circle. In the second race of the series, INEOS was able to just cross ahead of the Kiwi starboard attack and get away, but today, in Race 3, Team New Zealand lined them up and went for the jugular, hunting the British on starboard as they were exiting their jibe at the bottom of their circle. Out of the turn, port helmsman Dylan Fletcher saw himself bow-to-bow with Taihoro, with a closing speed of roughly 50 knots. He chose to dive low, and seconds later the British team’s fate was sealed, giving the umpires their first and only penalty call of the day.

“We have a tactical app so we can see what they’re doing,” Ainslie said after racing. “Dylan felt that when we came out of the jibe and the Kiwis turned down his only option was turn down to keep clear, which is what he did, but the umpires saw it differently for whatever reason.”

Ainslie compared it to a similar dial-down incident in the Semi Finals with Alinghi Red Bull Racing (Race 3, September 15). “It was quite similar and normally the umpires give leniency to a give-way boat to have the opportunity to keep clear, which is kind of what happened in this one, but obviously they felt that we took too much time.

“Dylan did the right thing. As soon as they started pointing at us to turn down that was the only thing to do and normally we feel we have some protections against that…but will have to have a chat with the umpires to see how they saw it.”

Dinged in the pre-start, the British were there scrambling to shed the penalty as they crossed the starting line on port at the pin end with the Kiwis turning up on starboard at the opposite. The typical option of scrubbing the 75-meter distance penalty would be pass to leeward of Team New Zealand, but that option was taken away when the Kiwis promptly tacked to cover off the start, forcing INEOS to tack away for clear air.

With only a minute to clear the penalty, the British were in real danger because, as both boats sail up the course on opposite tacks they’re essentially climbing the ladder at the same rate, which makes it difficult to giveaway the 75 meters.

After tacking at the left boundary, INEOS had to then sacrifice VMG in order to clear the penalty. Once it was finally cleared the Kiwis were tacking off the opposite boundary with a 100-plus-meter advantage. To make matters worse, the New Zealanders were now in better breeze and in full control of the race, able to tack and cover through every exchange in the first leg, bouncing the British to the unfavored left each time, before leading through the first gate with a comfortable lead.

Team New Zealand doubled its advantage on the next leg, padding it to nearly 300 meters and 27 seconds at bottom of the course, and halfway up the third of eight legs INEOS’s Fletcher summed up the British team’s fate: “Don’t think there’s anything we can do, lads.”

The Kiwis simply extended over the following legs with a wide-open course, sailing the shifts and strolling through their maneuvers to pile on the pain and a final race-win delta of 52 seconds, the biggest margin of the Match thus far.

The fading breeze brought an early end to the day, and Monday’s reserve day now has one race on the schedule.

Down 3-to-0—or nil, as the British press prefer as they begin to skewer the hometeam—Ainslie and his longtime trimmer Leigh McMillan, marched to the party line in post-race interviews: they’re not out yet, they’ve got cards yet to play in their hand, and they can dig themselves out of a deep hole. It’s a hole they’re plenty familiar with, but a flawless Team New Zealand outfit is standing atop it, shovels sharpened and ready.

“Now seeing what the Kiwis are doing and the way they are approaching the starts and races, we can learn from that and come up with another plan,” McMillan said. “We have slightly different options under our hat that we have not pulled out yet and we’ll find the right time to do that.”

The post Emirates Team New Zealand Delivers Third Blow to British Challenger appeared first on Sailing World.

There can be a knock-on effect in every sailboat race; a winch override, a stuck jammer, a slip of the sheet, or any other countless things that can lose a lane or a shift, but a faulty lithium-ion battery in the first race of the America’s Cup is kind of a major knock.

That’s where INEOS Britannia found itself in the stressful minutes ahead of its first match of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match, with its electronics team scrambling to replace one of the British boat’s batteries, which then had them rushing with their chase boat tow into the pre-start and ultimately 40 seconds late for their starboard entry.

“Right at the last minute, the battery started giving faulty readings, which means it’s not safe,” INEOS Britannia skipper Ben Ainslie said after racing, pointing to a temperature warning. “These lithium-ion batteries are generally reliable, but trust me, as we’ve seen before, you don’t want one of those going bad.”

Fortunate to complete the battery swap in time and with the wind hovering just above the bottom of the wind range in the starting area, the British struggled to take off after cutting the chase boat tow.  

“We were in a massive lull so that kind of set us back even further,” says INEOS Britannia cyclor Neil Hunter. We were definitely up against it and were lucky to be able to enter at a half-decent time. Definitely not the way we wanted to start and this boat has been—touch wood—incredibly reliable and that’s the first little issue we’ve seen.”

Emirates Team New Zealand Clinical In Race 1

But by the time INEOS entered they were adlibbing through an unfamiliar pre-start engagement with Emirates Team New Zealand, which had cruised in on time and tacked in front of the British while they were still trying to complete their entry. So much for the starboard advantage.

The New Zealanders played fast and loose with the British in the final minute and had an immediate jump off the start, a good 2 knots faster, and controlled the match from there, covering and bouncing INEOS to round through the first gate with a 24-second advantage. That advantage quickly turned to a 300-plus meter lead that INEOS was able to cut into with a streak of breeze on the right side of the course (looking upwind).

It was 15 seconds at the next gate, and Ainslie followed and split.

“When bounced out of phase we can’t do much except to stay calm and sail the boat well,” Ainslie said. “If we get a difficult spot and get out of phase and not in the best pressure it can snowball if you’re not careful, so the priority is to sail the boat well and look for the opportunity to find some better pressure and a chance to split.”

After eight legs and no lead changes Emirates Team New Zealand had its first win of the day, a 41-second victory, which is roughly the amount of time they were late to enter. There was certainly a lot that happened between the start and finish, but surely that was 41 seconds that was easy to identify.

With a Better Start INEOS Britannia Finds Its Pace For Race 2

After a long break while the Puig Women’s America’s Cup teams of Athena Pathway and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli sailed their final match race, the defender and challenger were at it again, this time in slightly more wind that streaked down opposite sides of the racecourse. The America’s Cup broadcast’s slick new WindSight IQ technology painted the picture well of what the sailors were seeing on the water: there was better wind along the boundaries, and the middle was full of holes.

With INEOS on port entry, and on time, for the second race, they did well to control their fate, setting up to leeward, but allowing the New Zealanders a stronger position to leeward, which they capitalized on with a fast start and a quick tack away to the right, the frequent winning move on this Barcelona racecourse.

New Zealand owned the first cross, but only by a half a length, and INEOS’s duck allowed them to get right. The Kiwis, however, controlled the next cross by half a boatlength, which set them up for a straight shot into the gate on starboard, rounding the left gate and continuing on toward lighter breeze. INEOS, only 11 seconds behind, rounded the opposite gate and hooked into a wind line that gave the British control of the race at the next intersection.

The better move, Moloney confessed after racing, would have been to jibe sooner after the rounding. “In hindsight, we probably would have done an earlier jibe,” he said, “and that was definitely a mistake, but it was hard to get it all right today.”

But INEOS’s lead was fleeting. New Zealand owned the next cross and led through the first leeward gate by only 9 seconds. Bouncing boundary to boundary, Team New Zealand had firm control of the race, with INEOS making gains wherever they could, narrowing the Kiwi lead to a half-boat length at the second leeward gate.

Ainslie shared that they lost control of the rudder during rounding as they jibed and tried to create another split. New Zealand, showing an even better ability to maneuver without much speed loss, was able to then cover and truly lock down the match from there.

“We’ve been working on the tricky maneuvers and we executed them well,” Maloney said, “but today was about being in the right place on the course at the right time rather than boatspeed or foil-package differences. It would have been very hard for us to get past them if they were ahead of us off the line and sailing better than us.”

Ainslie said his team had their moments and that “we showed that if we sail well and can get ourselves stuck in we can beat them. It wasn’t the start we wanted. The performance was close enough that we can make some gains in areas where they are perhaps doing a slightly better job than us, make those gains and get some wins on the board and take this series all the way.

“Their maneuvers, their tacking, was good, they look pretty slippery. They are doing a better job of getting up to speed out of the tacks, but we’ve shown as a team that we are good at learning and if there’s something we need to improve on we can figure that out.”

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