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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Artemis Racing helmsman Nathan Outteridge said, “The past two weeks have probably been the most fun I’ve had sailing in a very long time. These boats are amazing machines. It was only today on the final run where I finally felt like we were getting into the groove and no one was freaking out and panicking about things. It was amazing fun.”

Chris Draper, helmsman of Luna Rossa, said, “The team has taken a good few steps forward the past couple of weeks. For sure we’ve improved a lot, but we’ve all seen the Kiwis (Emirates Team New Zealand) are very, very solid. We’re going to have to sail incredibly well, and we need to get more performance out of our boat to be competitive with them. With regards to boathandling and that sort of thing, I think we’re getting a lot closer. But they’re still improving and that makes it hard for us to make up ground, it makes it hard for any of us. But we feel a lot happier racing the boat and feel like we’re properly racing now, I know it’s hard to believe. It’s amazing how unprepared you can feel, these boats are pretty humbling. For sure we keep pushing next week and fingers crossed we can be as competitive as possible and the hopefully the changes we’ll make to the boat will improve upwind performance as well.”

Louis Vuitton Cup Final schedule (best-of-13 series):
Saturday, Aug. 17: Final Race 1 (1:10 pm PT start time), Final Race 2 (2:10 pm PT)
Sunday, Aug. 18: Final Race 3 (1:10 pm PT), Final Race 4 (2:10 pm PT)
Wednesday, Aug. 21: Final Race 5 (1:10 pm PT), Final Race 6 (2:10 pm PT)
Saturday, Aug. 24: Final Race 7 (1:10 pm PT), Final Race 8 (2:10 pm PT) – if necessary

View photos from the semifinals.
>More information on how the Louis Vuitton Cup works.

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-ACEA
(Click image to enlarge)

The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals (Luna Rossa Challenge versus Artemis Racing in a best-of-seven series) will go on to battle Emirates Team New Zealand in the Louis Vuitton Cup finals (a best-of-13 series), which begins on Aug. 17. The winner of the finals will meet Oracle Team USA, the Defender of the America’s Cup, for a best-of-17 series for the America’s Cup from Sept. 7 to 21.

Click here for more on the America’s Cup.

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Tune in here to find out in the second race of the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals:

Click here for more on the America’s Cup.

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Ray Davies

Emirates Team New Zealand had a near catastrophe on Sunday in their sixth race of the Round Robin series in the Louis Vuitton Cup against Luna Rossa, losing their jib on the first upwind leg when a small clip that fastens the jib to the forestay broke. In a style that has become their own, the Kiwis calmly picked up the pieces – or threw the jib overboard as the case may be – without missing a beat, and stalwartly continued up the course to take the Italians by a hefty 2-minute plus delta. Here, Ray Davies, ETNZ tactician, explains what happened on Sunday’s race, plus he shares some insight into the magic of the foiling jibe…

What happened and how did you recover?

RD: The clip broke, and the jib started coming down. There was no way of rehoisting it because we don’t have a halyard on it. We just have it clipped to the forestay itself at the top of the jib. It’s the first time we’ve had that happen to us. Then, it was a process of deciding what to do. The first idea was just to leave it up because we figured there’d be less drag with it flapping than having it all bunched up on the deck. So we decided, “Let’s just pull it down a little bit but leave it on the forestay.” Then in that process of pulling it down the zipper came undone, and it just blew itself off the forestay.

The obvious decision at that point was to just get rid of it off the boat – we couldn’t contain it at that point. We literally cut it free, it wrapped itself around the side stay, so once we cleared it from there, we just jettisoned it off the boat and were able to get back into normal racing pretty quickly. These boats perform pretty well without a jib. It was a disaster in one sense but we managed to deal with it pretty well and get it off the boat without any further damage to the boat which was key. The loads on the wing increase quite a lot when you don’t have a jib up there, so we had to manage it so that we wouldn’t cause another problem by overloading the wing. So we had to back off somewhat.

What are the clips made of?

RD: It’s a stainless steel clip; it’s a pretty standard sailing item that all yachts use, and I think it’s maintained and serviced. But this one for some reason has failed, and we’re not exactly sure why it failed but there’s a big review going into that at the moment obviously.

How often are the clips replaced?

**RD: **They’re brand new with each sail we put up – you get a couple of months out of each race sail but normally a clip would last … well, in a Volvo race you’d normally get a couple of years out of them, but you do have to keep the maintenance up on them.

Was there any issue with your chase boat picking the abandoned sail off the water in Luna Rossa’s path?

RD: The commentators talked it up quite a lot, but there was no issue really. Luna Rossa saw that our jib was going to be thrown in the water behind us and we’d gone high and slow while we were doing that so LR was starting to fall into our dirty air anyway. They were setting up to tack away before the chase boat moved into the course area. If they weren’t going to hit the chase boat, they would have run over the sail, so it didn’t make any difference if the chase boat was there or not. The sail in the water was a bigger issue for LR – I’d say that’s the main reason why they tacked away so that they didn’t get the sail tangled around their daggerboards.

What did you lose in terms of time/speed without the jib?

**RD: **It’s hard to put a number on it because you do get a little bit limited without a jib – it probably cost us a minute or so around the course.

The Kiwis have nailed the foiling jibe – it looks magical. How long have you had the maneuver in your arsenal of weapons and how do you improve on it?

RD: It’s been on the table since we first started talking about foiling, for a year or so. Even on the team a lot of people thought we wouldn’t be able to foil let alone foil jibe but as it’s all evolved we are able to do these things and that learning curve is still pretty steep. We’re still learning all the time. We started foiling around the bottom mark for example. The better you get at it, the more reliably you’re able to do it with less warning. The next evolution I see [is] doing a few jibes down the run in succession … which suddenly creates options around the course tactically.

What’s the benefit time/distance-wise of a foiling jibe?

RD: The big benefit is keeping the speed up and not having a slow bottom speed. It gets you further down the tracks. You literally can gain or lose 100 meters in a good or bad jibe, so if you can bank that free 100 meters by doing a good jibe, we’ll take it.

Does it blow you away that you’re making foiling jibes on the 72?

RD: Oh, it’s very cool, no question. It’s a lot of fun. A few of us on the team have Moths and it’s the same sort of feeling. It looks amazing, it is amazing, and it continues to be amazing each time you sail it. Whatever foiling boat you’re on, it’s a whole new sensation, and with these boats, it’s a whole other level again. It feels so incredibly efficient and actually pretty easy to do once you get your head around it. It’s just a technique thing, and it’s easier sailing the boat foiling than it is not foiling.

What have you guys been thinking going into these one-boat “races” with your starting strategy?

**RD: **Yeah – we’ve won all our starts so we must be doing something right! Timing and having a good entry is important, where you tack or jibe is very important, and the timing back to the line and where the laylines [are] – even though you’re doing it by yourself the same communication has to happen. You can simulate a start … you’re just not talking about the other boat. It’s a shame that we’re not getting much starting practice in because it’s a very important stage of the race. We’re still learning but not at the same rate we would have if we had a tough competitor there. When we were up against Luna Rossa there was a lot more to talk about and the whole starting sequence changed dramatically from what we were doing by ourselves. We’re desperate for more pre-start practice.

How will this affect ETNZ’s performance against Oracle in the starts if you go through to the AC Finals?

**RD: **For sure that’s an advantage that Oracle has – they’re getting some great boat-on-boat practice and getting used to those close quarters, as well as insight into what each boat was thinking at the time so that they can have some pretty nice debriefs on those sessions. But, there’s only so many moves you can do in two minutes. It’s about being really accurate with where you [are] with laylines and your time on distance. We’re really not too worried.

How do you not show off all your “goods” too soon?

**RD: **I think it comes down to the fact that we’re still learning at the same rate, and if we have a little edge at the moment, potentially we can keep that edge going the whole way. We can’t slow down and stop developing or learning. We still have a few tricks up our sleeves, which we’ll keep up our sleeves until the end. A lot of it is still getting the boat around the track and practicing the maneuvers. If you stop doing the maneuvers you’ll be developing bad habits, so it’s all a process really.

How are you feeling about the conditions in SF?

RD: The racing conditions have been absolutely awesome. We’re going into a phase pretty soon where the racing will start later in the day so we’ll end up statistically in a bit more breeze, but it is just a fantastic venue. The reliability is the main appeal. We don’t have [to do] too much scheduling around the weather because you know it’s going to be good. It’s a great venue for the Cup.

Click here to read more America’s Cup interviews from Michelle Slade.

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Andy Green

**Andy Green (former match racer and well-known America’s Cup commentator) and Tucker Thompson (owner of www.t2p.tv/‎ video production and broadcasting) have the onerous task of commentating on the first “races” of the Louis Vuitton Cup. **It is a task unique in that, with the exception of one “real” race–which didn’t count anyway as the trailing team did not complete the race within the time limit–the remaining “races” have seen Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa solo it around the course. Bizarre but real, and looking at the AC schedule through the end of July, there’s plenty more one-boat racing to come. So just how do professional commentators take this “racing” seriously, and make it interesting for those wondering, “What the heck?” Here, the ever-gregarious Green (38) tells how it’s done.

What’s it like commentating on a one-boat “race”?
AG: First off, in both Auckland and Valencia, in the first month of the Louis Vuitton Cup there was similar public concern over the success of the event. In Valencia we had super light wind and a lot of the racing had to be canceled–it was like the next disaster of the America’s Cup; in Auckland not nearly as many people showed up in the early stages as they thought there would be, particularly during the weekdays. From that point of view, I see what San Francisco has done to encourage a reasonably healthy number of people to come visit the site.

As far as the one-boat races are concerned, Tucker and I have taken the view that we’re served with a plate, and we have to make the best meal of it that we can. What we’ve tried to do is bring in lots of guests, other experts, we’ve been able to get very comfortable with some of the rules and things that we will see on the racecourse. It’s an opportunity for us to educate the super keen fans who are watching about the racing. There are a remarkable number of people who will take anything from the America’s Cup. They’ll watch anything, including one-boat racing because they want to see the boats foiling, and they want to see the crew work. A lot of people have been very passionate one way or another about this new boat and the America’s Cup, so we’ve had loads of messages on Twitter and Facebook. The last couple of one-boat races we had Dave Carr (Luna Rossa) and Richard Meacham (ETNZ), both of whom have been our best guests, who provided some fascinating insight into what’s happening on the boat. The races are shorter, so when we get closer to “sporting” races with two boats and hoping that the races will be close enough, there won’t be any time to talk about the more intricate elements of putting the board up, the wing faring, the aero and hydro design packages.

What are you learning in this new AC?
AG: The fundamentals of sailing a boat are still the same. However, what is very clear about these boats is the coordination of crew work is critical, so things are happening so fast. They’re “under-staffed,” but there are lots of things that have to happen in a jibe or a tack: the boards up and down, the wing across, everyone traveling across the boat, grinding. It’s an extremely choreographed performance that requires all 11 people.

The other thing that’s clear is how much there’s left to do to refine the boats. The boats are traveling downwind sometimes up to 40-plus knots so the farings and aero packages that are on the beams are increasingly important. The aero refinement could mean another knot-plus for your boat. Certainly one of the teams are looking for another knot in aero refinement. That’s quite a lot.

Yesterday Luna Rossa came out with different aero boards on their front beam. They were about 2-3 feet longer on the beam, and that’s a good example of aero foil refinement. That was obviously an improvement.

The third thing we’ve learned is the very interesting trade off between how early you get the boat up on the foils and how much drag you generate underneath the boat. The crew work, aero and hydro and the foil element, which is rudder and daggerboard–specifically the angle at which the daggerboard comes into the water and how curved or straight it is–has a significant implication on whether you foil early or late, and how much drag you generate under the boat.

**Now you’re tuned into these details, how much of it can you observe while you’re commentating?
AG: **We can see some of it, as we did yesterday with our guest helping point out some of the details. Tucker and I are learning as each day goes by. We’re doing tours of the bases. We’ve got another tour booked in with Luna Rossa and Oracle on Friday, so that’s another chance for us to look at some of the developments and get answers to the questions we’re being asked by the public.

Do you think we really will see close racing? Do you think Luna Rossa is going to pick up their pace?
AG: I hope so. I know they’ve got lots of developments they can make. At the end of the day, I’m a big fan of the America’s Cup, and I just want to see good, interesting racing.

**What are you seeing with the boathandling that you can comment on?
AG: **Certainly, ETNZ is like a slick operation. I haven’t seen anyone yet show off their moves so publicly both racing and in media. Oracle have got some great media but haven’t shown quite the same extent of what they have. I can entirely believe that’s strategic, holding stuff back. The Kiwis don’t really have that luxury because they’re already in the Louis Vuitton Cup. It’s very hard to go out, even on a one-boat racecourse day and not race at pretty much your hardest. They’re out there practicing jibes and showing off their moves, and they’ve got some funky moves.

**The big deal this past week is the rate at which, and the stability at which, ETNZ’s been able to get through a foiling jibe. Comments?
AG: **As I said, ETNZ have shown some pretty slick moves. A couple of foiling jibes on the second race when they were just doing the one-boat race–no less than 30 knots through a foiling jibe, never coming off the foils. There’s a general feeling around the Challenger camp that’s pretty impressive. We had Murray Jones as our guest that day. He wasn’t shouting from the rooftops that Oracle had been able to do that for months already, he was more circumspect. If all the boats with the exception of Artemis are foiling jibing come the LV finals and the AC match, we’ll get some pretty cool racing.

Generally, what do you think of the boats?
AG: I think they’re amazing; I think they’re mesmerizing. They’re beautiful, which is one of the crucial elements of having an America’s Cup design. America’s Cup has been very lucky to have developed beautiful boats. The TV coverage makes them look even better. We’re still in the early stages, so there’s not as many cameras about as there will be, but all the bells and whistles on board will come. The TV is fantastic with the boats.

One big concern for me is that they’ve got rid of the spinnakers. You don’t get quite the same sense of upwind and downwind. You know the boats are going downwind because they’re foiling, but it’s a shame for the non-sailor not to see someone pulling a line and the spinnaker going up and rolling out. I really enjoyed that with the AC45s. My suggestion for the next go around would be to find a boat you can have a gennaker, but it’s hard to do that when the jibes are so fast on these boats downwind.

Do you think the starts will become exciting?
AG: You can’t win an America’s Cup race unless you know how to match race. With these boats, if you get ahead there are a loads of ways you can keep a boat behind you. You can’t win the America’s Cup if you get stuffed at the start in every match race. It’s hard to. The boats are amazing, and all previous America’s Cups have always delivered. The real America’s Cup fan will spend four years excited, upset, moaning, going through the roller coaster of emotions, and all they really want to see is the first two minutes of the first race of the America’s Cup. You have to be kind of crackers, but that’s the moment that’s so exciting.

Any other observations from where you sit?
AG: The facility here is amazing. I’m an independent commentator but part of me wants it to stay here. So much effort has been put into it that it’d be nice if it could stay in San Francisco and go around here, but that’s not the way of the America’s Cup.

Listen along as Andy Green and Tucker Thompson commentate on the Louis Vuitton Cup race between Luna Rossa and Emirates Team NZ on July 21_ [and don’t miss the disaster at 0:25:38!]_:

Click here to read more America’s Cup interviews from Michelle Slade.

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