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.  

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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.

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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 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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No one ever bothered to check whether the coin was two-sided or not, but Jesse Tuke, brother of Emirates Team New Zealand’s Blaire Tuke, flipped it into the air for the ceremonial coin toss that would determine entry assignments for the first race of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona on Saturday, October 12.

The $1 coin with the adorable and flightless Kiwi bird side skied above the America’s Cup’s Auld Mug, freshly polished and sitting its Louis Vuitton display case, before landing on the stage, rolling underneath the chair of INEOS Britannia’s Ben Ainslie and coming to rest at the foot of the trophy.

Ainslie leaned over to his right and eventually confirmed it was tails, earning Emirates Team New Zealand port entry when the two teams meet tomorrow afternoon on the waters off Barcelona.

Most weather models are in alignment with 10 knots from the southwest, which should allow the first-to-seven series to kick off on schedule. Sunday and Monday’s wind forecast has all the elements of an October skunk, however, putting even great pressure on Challenger and Defender alike to make a statement in the opening races.

Those statements will have to be made on the water, as the opening press conference was a cordial affair between the starting helmsmen—Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge for Emirates Team New Zealand and Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher for INEOS Britannia. The Cup was carried into the auditorium of Barcelona’s World Trade Center and ushered in with a proper Maori Haka, a war dance that Ainslie and Fletcher were greeted to as they stepped onto the stage.

Was Ainslie intimidated by the hisses, the stomping, the tongue wagging and battle cries? “Not really intimidated,” he said when asked, “but it was a lot of fun.”

While able to brush off the Haka as standard New Zealand theatrics, there is, however, a true sense of uncertainty in going against the Defenders, who have been honing their craft and their playbook over the past several weeks while INEOS Britannia battled its way through the Louis Vuitton Cup. The British are battle hardened, but now face a new foe.

“We’re coming up against incredible defenders who are going for a third win in a row,” Ainslie said, “and in a way, for us, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

It was with this same mentality that INEOS Britannia eventually used to boss its way through the Louis Vuitton Cup Final races against Luna Rossa to win 7 to 4. Down the final stretch, the British team got the better of the Italians in the pre-start, showing a preference to lead to the starting line rather than push. That won’t be so easy against Team New Zealand, which in the Round Robins demonstrated that down-speed maneuverability was a strength. The Kiwis, now on their final (and smaller) foil package and rudder, have been seen pulling off a full foiling 720. 

“We’ve been watching pretty closely what Ben and Dylan and the team have been up to, trying to study their moves, trying to understand counter moves,” Outteridge said, “and I’m sure they’ll be trying to guess what we’re going to do come tomorrow as well.”
Ultimately, the starts will impact the races more than sail selection or anything else, Outteridge added, saying: “Being in front and in control is the most important.”

The last time these two teams raced each other was September 5, way back when in the second round of the Round Robins. Emirates Team New Zealand came out on top that one, but INEOS today, Ainslie says, is a faster and better boat, and development will continue through to the final match.

Still, there’s no denying the Defender has enjoyed the luxury of continued development outside of official measurement, as well as the ability to analyze a trove of race data that was available to all the teams throughout the Louis Vuitton Cup.

“In terms of who’s got the advantage, I would say for sure, Team New Zealand being able to take three weeks to look at the configuration of their boat and to get the data for competing boats,” Ainslie said. “So, there’s one team here who really knows the lineup of the competition. It’s team New Zealand. It’s not us. So that’s what we’re up against.”

Burling assured the world, with his characteristic chuckle, that Emirates Team New Zealand’s Taihoro will “definitely be quicker than when they last saw us, but I’m sure Ben and the INEOS team will be exactly the same. They’ll be quicker than when we last saw them. The America’s Cup, I think, very famously is a race to win the last race, and one of the few sporting events where you have to win the last race to actually win it. And our team knows that all too well.”

And with that said, and the softball questions answered, all four skippers were soon on board their respective AC75s for one final spin before the big dance. Let the defense commence.

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There’s perhaps no more astute observer of the America’s Cup currently than Grant Dalton. The Emirates Team New Zealand boss is even quite complimentary toward Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team and INEOS Britannia, which are staging a heavyweight fight for the right to face his two-time defending champion Kiwis in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup match starting Oct. 12.

Maybe Dalton is softening just a little bit or perhaps he’s just enjoying how the plot line has unfolded off Barcelona, where he moved the regatta for what he said was the financial survival of ETNZ. Since sailing in the Preliminary Regatta and the Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robins, the Kiwis have been training on their own while keenly watching as the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals have progressed.

A few weeks ago, “Dalts” said the Kiwis feared Luna Rossa, which is co-helmed by Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni. Whether that was sailing’s version of coach speak or his renewed respect for Max Sirena, you certainly wouldn’t have heard Dalton say that three years ago. Back in 2021, there was a rift between the Kiwis and Italians that was as hot off the water as it was on the water, where ETNZ prevailed 7-3 in the 36th America’s Cup match.

Dalton has also been hyper focused on the Brits as Sir Ben Ainslie’s crew has come on strong since finishing fourth in the Preliminary Regatta. Dalton lauded the significant contributions the British team has gotten from its partnership with Formula One team Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team.

But first, the Italians. There’s a long history between Dalton and Sirena, Luna Rossa’s team director and skipper; most of it good but in the last regatta, not so good. Dalton said a tiff between ETNZ as the defender and Luna Rossa as the Challenger of Record was so heated that his once-close relationship with Sirena became seriously damaged.

“I know that their game has lifted a lot and they’re a completely different mindset team than they were in Auckland,” Dalton says. “You know, that was just a combative bloody street fight, which they pretty much lost every time they tried to street fight. This time has been quite different. And frankly, the relationship, which was just burned, has completely reversed back to the way it used to be.”

Dalton, who is always straightforward and can be salty, said the “street fight” mostly concerned issues surrounding the protocol, rules and venue.

“In my opinion, it was just trying to use the influence of being major sponsor and Challenger of Record to re-tilt the deck, if you like,” Dalton said. “It is not like that anymore. It’s great. So, I think that makes them more dangerous. They’ve learned a lot, they’re quiet, they’re steady, they’re just getting on with their work. So, for that reason I think they’re very, very strong.”

After Luna Rossa withdrew from the 2017 America’s Cup, Sirena joined Team New Zealand in a management role. Dalton is pleased that their relationship has been patched up.

“As for INEOS, Dalton applauded team principal Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ainslie for going “so deep” in having the Mercedes F1 team design their yacht. Dalton says INEOS Britannia is more of a threat than it was early on because of the “incredibly good” analytical tools provided by Mercedes have allowed it to improve and change as needed to speed up the boat.”

“It’s just happened,” says Dalton, 67. “We’ve known each other for a hell of a long time. And it’s just come back together again. We used to ride bikes together, etc., etc. I’m just pleased that it has gotten that way. As I walk into the Twilight Zone, you know, it’s nice to not leave enemies behind.”

So, will they ever ride bikes together again?

“I don’t know. If he beats us, I won’t want to ride bikes with him,” says Dalton with a chuckle.

Luna Rossa and INEOS had gone toe-to-toe until the British boat took a 6-4 lead in the first-to-7 series on October 2. The Italians had to retire from two races due to damage to their silver-hulled yacht, handing the points to the British.

As for INEOS, Dalton applauded team principal Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ainslie for going “so deep” in having the Mercedes F1 team design their yacht. Dalton says INEOS Britannia is more of a threat than it was early on because of the “incredibly good” analytical tools provided by Mercedes have allowed it to improve and change as needed to speed up the boat.

“I also think that the team is sailing it a hell of a lot better. You know, if you have a fast car, but if you can’t drive it, it doesn’t make much difference,” Dalton says.

Dalton also says he’s felt for some time that INEOS Britannia partnering with Mercedes was the right approach. Ratcliffe is also a principal with the Mercedes F1 team.

“It’s 100 percent an F1 product. That boat was designed inside the Mercedes F1 team. There’s no naval architects buzzing around there,” Dalton says. INEOS had to start from scratch in developing its analytical tools, “So if they’ve made it that far in this cycle, they can go a long way in another cycle. If you can harness that into a yacht race, it’s going to be potent. And I think you’re starting to see that. So, win, lose or draw, the future is that way.”

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April began with new-boat reveals that highlight the innovations of the second-generation AC75s for the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup. While similar in size and scale, no one boat is alike. 

Alinghi Red Bull Racing, of the Swiss camp, was first to show its AC75, BoatOne, in a theatric soiree, giving observers and other teams a peek at the boat’s design traits. Its straight and narrow bow profile transitions to a long and tapered bustle that goes all the way to the stern. The walls of BoatOne’s tall crew pods stop sharply before the transom section, leaving what amounts to a long overhang to accommodate the internal rudder elements. Bumps sculpted into the foredeck are said to redirect wind flow into the jib and down the middle of the boat for aerodynamic gains.

America’s Cup defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, was next to reveal, with a soft launch, followed by a foiling session the following day. With a naming ceremony that came a week later, the Kiwis’ AC75, Taihoro, was blessed for action, and they went straight into sailing in Auckland. Unlike the high cockpit walls of Alinghi’s BoatOne, however, those of Taihoro taper down toward to the ­transom scoop, which houses the mainsheet traveler system in a trench, and the rudder assembly.

The following day in Cagliari, the Italians of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli rolled out their metallic silver AC75, a menacing-looking design that has its pronounced curves and a significant bustle which rises toward the stern. The boat’s tall cockpits produce a deep trench through the middle of the boat. 

INEOS Britannia was fourth from behind the curtain with a boat dubbed RB3. It’s different enough from Alinghi’s and ETNZ’s AC75s to be dangerous. The plumb bow starts sharp and maintains a steep deadrise before flaring out to a flatter bottom. A pronounced ­bustle tapers off near the stern and transitions to a thin skeg that ends short of the rudder.

The New York YC’s American Magic revealed its boat, Patriot, in early May, blessing it and going sailing on the same day. It’s certainly a different look, summarized by the team’s design coordinator, Scott Ferguson. “We followed our own design path with Patriot as we pushed the limits of the AC75 rule while tailoring for the Barcelona venue,” he says. “Our overall philosophy is minimalistic, as we’ve tried to squeeze down our volumes to the base minimum while still fitting the crew and systems into the boat.”

With the French Orient Express Racing Team pulling from Team New Zealand’s design package, there’s an expectation that its ­platform will not be too far off the defender when it comes to light soon enough. It had not yet been launched at press time.

In terms of crew-pod assignments, cyclors have now taken the back seats, mostly concealed and out of the airstream, while ­trimmers and helmsmen take the front seats for a better view of the action. American Magic went to the extreme, positioning three pods inboard, two well aft in the boat, with cyclors on recumbent bikes.

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