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.

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.”

The post Emirates Team New Zealand Two for Two in America’s Cup Opener appeared first on Sailing World.

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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Two races down and facing prompt elimination with a win for INEOS Britannia, expectations were high for more pre-start aggression from the Italians of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in the 11th and decisive match of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final. Yet, as they have many times in the Final, the Italians ceded control of the Match before the start, allowing the British to dictate the outcome of the final approach, and from there, the entire race.

Onto the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match go the British to face Emirates Team New Zealand, who have been licking their chops and sharpening their knives on the sidelines since the Louis Vuitton Cup’s Round Robins. Six decades have passed since a British team has sailed in the Cup Match, and it’s been 173 years since they first lost it, so the pressure is indeed now on the INEOS Britannia camp to finish to deliver and right the wrong of long ago. Oh, how the Royal Yacht Squadron would love to have the Cup returned to Cowes.

An America’s Cup Worthy Performance

It is said that the America’s Cup is a long march of progress toward perfection, and today on the waters off Barcelona INEOS Britannia took a giant stride forward. With winds holding in the 15-knot range, which was believed to be the sweet spot for Luna Rossa, port helmsman Dylan Fletcher kicked off the Race 11 with a high-speed port entry and a familiar approach of sailing high in the starting box, looping around and pursuing the Italians as they, once again, straight-lined to the right-hand start box boundary before jibing back.

After jibing around the bow of Luna Rossa and setting up comfortably ahead and to leeward, the final wind up was put into the hands of master Ben Ainslie who knew he was safe from any late charges. At 15 seconds, he put his foot on the accelerator, paralleled the line and turned up to start with a good 3-knot advantage and the ability to transition between high modes and speed modes until the Italians were forced to tack away 20 seconds later.

Following the Italians across the course, it was then Fletcher’s turn to show why he earned the starting helm opposite Ainslie. With a marginal cross and hardly a boatlength between them, Fletcher and the foil trimmers turned the boat and completed tack right where they needed to be positioned. Luna Rossa starboard helmsman, Jimmy Spithill, attempted to dive to leeward and get a hook but failed, and tacking away put the Italians promptly in a gaping 100-meter hole that was impossible to dig themselves out of.

INEOS Britannia, now having proved throughout the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals that they could preserve a lead when they had it, were then surgical with their defense, herding the Italians when they wanted and shutting down any and all passing opportunities. Leaning on their cyclors through every covering tack and jibe, bear away and turn up, the British boathandling was crisp for most of the race (but not perfect).

INEOS had essentially locked down the race until mid-way through Leg 4, when a split at the leeward gate gave Luna Rossa one final shot at making a pass. There was only a boatlength between them when INEOS crossed on port near the top course and rather than cover their opponents the British continued to the right boundary, allowing the Italians their first bit of real leverage.

Approaching the windward gate on starboard tack was the play they wanted, however, hedging on more wind in the top-right corner of the course. And in a show of confidence in their boat handling, Ainslie called for a tack-bear away around the right gate mark, a high-risk move given the wind was only 13 knots at the top of the course. But they pulled off the maneuver with Italians being able to bear away, less than a boatlength behind.

Jibe-for-jibe the British covered the Italians down the run, extending with each turn until leading through the final leeward gate with a 9-second lead. Another split for the Italians wasn’t enough, however, and over the course of the next two and final legs, INEOS would do no wrong to win the race by 17 seconds and let the celebrations begin.

The common theme of post-race interviews from both sides was that INEOS Britannia had made the biggest improvements since August. Ainslie had been saying all along that they would be bringing more improvements to their AC75, and the result was a reliable platform free of major breakages, and a sharper chemistry within the sailing team. Momentum begets momentum, and that had been advancing the British all along.

Did they have a faster boat? Impossible to say, but it wasn’t slow in the Final. Did they sail better?

Spithill says so. “The British out-learned the rest of the challenger fleet,” he said once ashore and amongst family and friends, goggles off and revealing the red-eyed sting of Luna Rossa’s 7-4 loss. “They took a bigger step than anyone else and peaked at the right time. We were beaten by a better team.”

It was a solemn interview for Spithill, who shared that he was “at the end of the line,” with his America’s Cup career, ready to pass the mantle to the next generation of Italian sailors that had won the UniCredit Youth America’s Cup a week ago. “That’s it for me,” he said.

Luna Rossa Team Director Max Sirena suggested that the team would continue with the blessing of its patriarch and patron Patrizio Bertelli. “The positive thing is that we keep going,” he said, with or without him. And his only hope was, should INEOS prevail against Emirates Team New Zealand, that they continue to improve the event and get more teams for the next edition, which will certainly remain in Europe with another cycle with the AC75s.

Bringing the Louis Vuitton Cup to eleven incredibly close races against the Italians has given the British squad a level of race preparation they require to meet the defenders on October 12, and that is the point, but concluding it before going all the way to 13 races also gives INEOS a larger window to reset and get on with the larger task at hand.

“We’re under no illusions of how hard it will be against the Kiwis,” Ainslie said. It’s back to work on Monday, added INEOS’s Luke Parkinson.

As Fletcher was concerned, “the pressure is high and we’re loving it all,” but more tellingly, he’s “looking forward to getting into the developments for the Cup and even bringing more speed there.”

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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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Back in August when the Louis Vuitton Cup got underway with the Preliminary Regatta and the early semis, the general consensus was that to get to the America’s Cup Match, the challengers would have to get through Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli. And while that may well still be true, today on the waters off Barcelona, the helms, trimmers and cyclors of INEOS Britannia saw it a different way: To get to the Defender, you just have to get in front of the Italians.

After five days and eight races, the series was tied with four apiece, the pattern of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final being that each team would win one of the two races, and each new day was essentially a new start to the series. That all changed today on the sixth day with INEOS Britannia posting two impressive wins, swinging the momentum firmly toward the Brits.

Having survived the over-range conditions of the previous day with two white-knuckle races testing the limits of the platforms, today’s races presented a far greater challenge with strong easterly winds pushing white caps and waves against and off Barcelona’s sea wall. This was the sort of sea state that earns the foil trimmers their paychecks and tests the power of the complete foil and hull package.

INEOS Sets The Stage in Race 9

Race 9, started in 15 to 17 knots with Luna Rossa on port entry with INEOS entering, jibing and following the Italians to the right side of the box. Once the Italians did their turn to run down the boundary INEOS set up the Italians right and at first denied Ainslie his attempt at a hook, and then pushed them deeper into the box before allowing them to turn up and make their run for the start. From behind, the Brits had 30 seconds to push the Italians to the line before they ultimately tacked away for a split start, the Brits jumping to an immediate 17-meter advantage and 8-knots better VMG.

From opposite boundaries they returned, the Italians having executed a better tack to own the first cross by a half-boat length. INEOS’s Ben Ainslie was happy to duck and get to the advantaged right side of the course. This time, off the boundaries, INEOS had the better of the tacks and crossed by the same boat length.

Bow-to-bow as they converged at the top of the course, both boats tacked and split, and here is where the British padded their lead with a smoother, deeper bearaway, a perfectly executed jibe at the boundary and consistently better VMG at the top the leg. At their next intersection, INEOS had stretched its lead to 100 meters and hooked into puff that shot them down the run and into the leeward gate with a 205-meter lead.

The Italians threw everything they could at Ainslie and his co-helmsman Dylan Fletcher, trying to bring the race to the middle of the course at times and creating wide leverages, but the wind shifts were subtle and, as Francesco Bruni would lament after the race, they were under range with their jib selection, which making the boat difficult and cranky to sail in the conditions.

Were it not for one anxious moment on the downwind Leg 6 when Ainslie lost control of the rudder, INEOS Britannia put up a stellar performance to take first blood for the day.

Race 10 Reboot For Luna Rossa

With a regroup and a jib change, INEOS had port entry for Race 10 and was well across the box before the Italians entered late, circling to leeward as the Brits sailed high, tacked and lazily circled behind the Italians to follow them to the bottom corner of the box. Jibing just to windward of Luna Rossa, INEOS was slow out of the jibe and Luna Rossa went for the hook but couldn’t make it stick, so instead, turned up to set up to windward of the British and push them down the line with 38 seconds remaining.

Once again, INEOS had the better of the starts, a knot faster and all the room in the world to sail whatever mode they wanted: building speed, then climbing and then doing it again until they were able to shed the Italians off their hip.

At the first intersection, less than 2 minutes into the race, INEOS crossed and faced the Italians, bouncing them to the right, while they smoked off to the left corner and into the next shift, a leftie that had them into the first gate with a 75-meter lead.

Jibing boundary to boundary with a downwind boatspeed advantage that appears to be their strength, the British more than doubled their lead into the next gate and essentially locked down the race from there, transitioning between sailing the course and covering when they needed to upwind, but sailing away on the runs.

“It was a fantastic performance by the team today,” said Dylan Fletcher after racing. “It’s been frustrating with this stalemate each day, and it feels like so many of the races were close to ours, so to break it today and have a nice solid performance against them feels good. The sea-state picked up quite a lot from the warm-up with the mistral blowing the swell in with waves that were really short, and quite breezy again so it was certainly a hard day for the pilots.”

Now facing a one-race elimination, Bruni told the media on shore that he was relaxed and focused on the next opportunity to even the score, which will come Friday afternoon, after a welcome chance to reboot, study their opponent, and prepare a strategy for lighter winds.

“We know the position very well. It’s not something that we like but sport is sport, and you have to accept it when you lose. Today we lost in the field, no breakdowns, nothing, we just didn’t execute a couple of things and then also didn’t sail very well. It was very close racing, really tough conditions but for me we still have a good chance of doing it and we definitely are not feeling the pressure. We know that we can do it and that we have to just sail the best we can now.”

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