Cup Spy - Day 12: Louis Vuitton Cup - Two teams survive to fight another day
by Richard Gladwell 16 Sep 11:54 PDT
INEOS Britannia and Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI) - Day 3 - Semi-Finals - Louis Vuitton Cup - Day 12 - September 16, 2024 - Barcelona © Ian Roman / America's Cup
In one of the more bizarre days in America's Cup history, not one, but two top teams failed to complete the course and were scored Did Not Finish (DNF).
Today was marginal for racing. Only one round of the planned two were able to be sailed. The second session was called off at 1500hrs UTC, and racing will continue on Wednesday.
The first match between Alinghi Red Bull Racing and INEOS Britannia got away after a few short delays waiting for the wind to reach the minimum 6.5kts, average over a five minute period. It looked as if a familar storyline was about to be played out once again when the Swiss Alinghi was lured into starting early by their British opponent.
They received a penalty for starting four metres early, allowing INEOS Britannia which had won the previous four races in the best of nine knockout series to get away in clear air, with a good chance of sailing their own race, and minimsing tacks and gybes to avoid coming off the foils - which as we saw in Auckland in the 2021 Cup - could be race determining.
Both boats were bouncing off the course boundaries, and the British did a good job with nice positioning to get around the first mark - with one less tack than the Swiss - and opened up a 400 metre lead as they rounded the Mark 2. But it turned to custard from there for the Brits who sailed into some soft pressure in the port (left) corner of the course, and couldn't hold it together as they tacked with their speed dropping to the marginal foiling speed of 16-17kts, and we saw the familiar sight of a British AC75 off its foils and looking very sticky. They kept up a reasonable boatspeed but couldn't get foiling.
The Swiss rounded the same mark, were committed to the same corner of the course as the British, and used all their lake sailing skills to hold their height and climb out to windward of the Brits. Enjoying clear air the Swiss were foiling at twice their speed and more significantly were sailing at 12kts VMG (Velocity Made Good to the next mark). Meanwhile the British were limping along at 1kt VMG, and trying to get foiling again, as the Swiss rounded Mark 3, now with a near 650metre lead.
By the time the Brits rounded the mark they were trailing by 2000 metres.
Long story short is that both AC75s sailed out the course at displacement speed, with the Swiss putting their lake sailing skills, this time at displacement speeds, to good use, in a race against the 45 minute time limit - which they made by four minutes on a shortened course. The Brits were 3,000 metres back and were scored as Did Not Finish.
The second match followed a similar pattern with American Magic fighting to stay alive in the Semi-Final against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli. The Italians got the better of the start and led around the first three marks. Approaching Mark 4 at the end of a downwind leg. The Italians came in from the Port boundary and the US team from starboard. The Italians made a strategic error of trying to exert their right to room at the mark, hoping to get a penalty on the fast approaching American Magic.
Unfortunately for the Italians their rounding, which involved a 270° turn and they were hoist with their own petard and wiped off too much speed, having to round the mark taking no more room than her proper course, required by Racing Rule 18.
American Magic, kept their speed, stayed foiling, and rounded clear of Luna Rossa, and stayed foiling for the rest of the course. Like INEOS Britannia in the previous match, the Italians were unable to get foiling and were also scored as DNF being 3200metres astern when the US AC75 foiled across the finish line at 25kts.
The racing confirmed the point that there is little real basic speed difference between Luna Rossa, INEOS Britannia and American Magic, and as American Magic's Tom Slingsby noted yesterday that it was small errors that were costing them race wins and points.
With fresh winds forecast and no racing on Tuesday, the predictions from the British team are for seastate of 1.5metres for the resumption of racing on Wednesday.
In the meantime the performance analysts will have a good 36 hours to overlay the sailing data from their competitors onto their own more comprehensive data, and re-mode the boats and extract improved performance - as they have been able to achieve on almost a daily basis since racing began three weeks ago.
Live Coverage - Day 3 Semi-Finals
Race Summaries:
Semi Final B: Match 6: GBR vs SUI Start: time to be announced. Entry: Port: GBR| Stbd: SUI
Race start 8m 30sec. Wind marginal at top of course 7.3kts from 205° (Port Gate); 7.0kts from 199° (Starboard) at the bottom 7.1kts from 187° (Port) and 7.0kts 203° (Starboard)
Wind now below the minimum limit (6.5kts) with 8m 42 sec to projected start. All recording positions below 6.5kts, however it is a rolling average over 5 minutes.
The Race Committee decided to stop racing for the day just after 1500hrs UTC to continue on Wednesday.
Semi Final B: Match 5: USA vs ITA Start: Time to be advised. Entry: Port: USA Stbd: ITA
Start sequence underway. Luna Rossa (ITA) fastest off the line to windward of American Magic (USA). Wind is claimed to be 10kts. USA have split tacks and ITA let them go and saved a tack for Mark 1.
Mark 1: 03m 45sec ITA leads USA margin 17secs or 140 metres on the water. ITA ease out to 200metres on the water, back to 150 metres as they aim for Mark 2.
Mark 2: 07m 26sec ITA leads USA margin 17secs or 120metres on the water. Boats take opposite boundaries ITA to port, comes back on starboard, and ITA crosses behind USA and is penalised for clipping the electronic boundary on USA. Quickly erased. lead swaps back when they re-cross. On second cross USA is again penalised and there is a lead change.
Mark 3: 13m 2 secs USA leads USA margin 3 secs. USA rounds the starboard gate, ITA the port. ITA protests on the cross, no penalty. Boats sailing to opposite boundaries on Leg 4. Wind shown as 8.9kts. USA clear ahead on next cross by 50 metres.
Mark 4: 17m 11secs, USA leads ITA margin 1sec. USA make approach to Gate 4 and swing wide giving ITA room as they went for the same mark. ITA first into the mark circle, but swung too sharply and came off their foils while USA stayed foiling. USA doing 27kts to ITA's 10kts lead out to 1,000 metres. ITA still off foils margin out to 1500metres USA completes foiling tack just.
Mark 5: 22m 53 secs. USA Leads ITA - still off foils in vicinity of Mark 4. Wind shown as 8.4kts. Margin 2500metres. American Magic completes foiling gybe to aim for finish line with another gybe. Margin out to 3200 metres.
Finish: 26m 45secs USA leads ITA. USA stayed on foils throughout the race. ITA scored as DNF.
Semi Final A: Match 5: SUI vs GBR Start: 12:10hrs UTC Entry: Port: SUI | Stbd: GBR
Both AC75s on J-1 jibs. Boats struggling to stay on foils after wind appears to be very light in the start box.
START Alinghi Red Bull Racing (SUI) judged to be 4metres too early and were penalised. INEOS Britannia (GBR) 150 metres ahead. Boats counting tacks on first leg.
Mark 1: 04m 21sec GBR leads SUI margin 17secs. Both teams take opposite gates and sides on Leg 2 - GBR opts for port side.
Mark 2: 08m 59sec GBR lead SUI margin 90secs. Swiss negotiate mark rounding and then chase GBR who have come off their foils and are 500 metres behind. Brits still behind on leg 2, but have closed down margin to 400metres, but GBR comes off the foils in the next tack after spinning out in the tack.
Mark 3: 16m 12sec SUI lead margin 8m 43secs lead by 1200metres. Brits off the foils again before reaching Mark 3. Swiss off foils - both boats off their foils. Time limit is 45 minutes. Swiss 2000metres ahead.
Mark 4: 22min 16sec SUI lead GBR who rounded Mark 3 just after Swiss rounded Mark 4. Wind still being shown at over 8kts. Both boats still off foils. Course shortened to finish at Mark 5. Swiss have to finish by 1305 UTC approx. Swiss using their lake sailing skills well. Swiss getting puff and are up to 10kts and aimed at the finish line. - have 4 minutes left to finish.
Finish: Swiss finished within time limit sailing at 10kts.
Pre-Race Commentary: Backs to the Wall
Two America's Cup teams face the firing squad in Barcelona in a few hours, if they fail to win both their races on the third day of racing in the Semi-Final phase of racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Two Challengers American Magic and Alinghi Red Bull Racing are in a must-win situation in both their races on Day 3 of the Semi-Finals, if they are to continue racing on Wednesday in the Semi-Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Sunday produced the best breeze and best racing conditions of the Louis Vuitton Cup. They are not expected to be repeated for Monday, win lighter wins are forecast. Regardless of the outcome of today's racing, there will be no racing on Tuesday, and 1.5 metre seas are expected by the INEOS Britannia team if racing is held on Wednesday.
Light winds are forecast for Monday's racing.
While American Magic are yet to win a race, their race finishes have been much closer than the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing Team. American Magic's largest losing margin has only been 513 metres, the rest are much closer at 130metres, 125metres and Sunday's 43metres.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing's Brad Butterworth a four times America's Cup winner did not waste time with pleasantries in his comments published by the team today.
“The sailors trained for a long time to try and not make these mistakes. So, when it does happen, it's pretty disappointing for everybody. When you get a bad result in a race, you really just have to put that behind you. Nobody feels more grieved or upset than the guys sailing the boat when they make a mistake. And you can't hide from it. You just have to move on to the next one, which is what they did going into the second match.
It’s not easy to be 4-0 down. It would be nice to see this team win a race against the British today. Unfortunately, the guys haven't raced against anybody for three and a half years. Up against Ben Ainslie, he's a pretty hot match racer, and for the guys it's hard to cram 20 years of experience into such a short amount of time.
For today (Monday), I’d say a little bit lighter air would be nice and we’d go for full-size sails. The boys sail the boat pretty well in that stuff. So, that's what I would hope for. But the writing's on the wall, obviously. We can't afford to drop another race.”
Newly promoted Skipper and co-helsman Tom Slingsby was reasonably positive about how the two days of the semi-finals had gone, but being four races down, realised that they were up against it. The loss through injury of skipper Paul Goodison came at the expense of losing 70days of training together in all weathers.
He spoke with Italian sailing media FareVela, after yesterday's racing, when they missed winning Race 4, by one of the tightest margins yet seen in AC75 racing - just 2 seconds.
"It's frustrating to lose two races, especially when they are so close," Slingsby told Italian sailing website FareVela. "We made a couple of mistakes, at important times. We fell off the foils in one at the bottom mark, when we were very close to leading Luna Rosa to the left. The wind got a bit soft, and we didn't lay in."
"We had to split to the other mark quickly, and didn't execute that gybe very well. So it's frustrating."
"But also a little exciting, that the changes we've made to the boat seem to be working. The boat seems to be a bit faster than it was.
"It feels like they (Luna Rossa) don't have much of a speed edge. Feels like if we sail well, we can win races.
"We've had a lot of changes in this program. Lucas Calabrese has done five or six days in these boats in his life, and he's been thrown in the deep end.
"He did an amazing job today, but I guess there's improvements to be made in the way the crew communicates with each other.
"We're not saying we had a great day - we made a lot of mistakes, but it's exciting to see that we can be that close after making that many mistakes. We had two good starts.
"I think we could have done even better, if I'm honest."
"I think the first start we did a good job. We executed well, and the second start, we could have actually done a better job there - we we turned up and we slipped sideways when we were trying to get on their wind - and that was a mistake there.
"We are very confident in our starting. We win most of our starts, and we've been doing a really good job of that. If we can, we got to try to lock the race down at the start.
"If we can get a bigger jump than we did today, we'll definitely take it."
American Magic's backup helmsman Lucas Calabrese, with just five days in the AC75 - and was doing very well going up a near vertical learning curve, against the Italian combination who are in their second America's Cup program sailing as co-helms.
Sunday's race was the strongest winds that Calabrese had sailed in an AC75 - and the US team came within 2 seconds of a race win.
Weather Information - Louis Vuitton Cup - Semi Finals - Day 3
Weather Prognosis:
America's Cup Weather Partner PredictWind has provided a dedicated Race Weather Center offering fans access to detailed daily weather breakdowns, live webcams and historical weather data to daily weather breakdowns written by meteorologists.
From: Arnaud Monges - Former America's Cup Team Meteorologist reporting for Predictwind: Monday 16th Sept In the morning, the wind will be offshore from the North-West. The afternoon breeze will have a hard time to establish, and we expect light and unsettle conditions for the racing. The forecast is for winds of 4 to 8 knots from a general Southerly direction with big shifts. Even though sea state will be calm, staying on foil may be challenging. Clear sky with temperatures up to 26 degreesC.
Course Location:
Leaderboard - Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals - after Day 2
Race Program:
Semi Final A: Match 5: SUI vs GBR Start: 12:10hrs UTC Entry: Port: SUI | Stbd: GBR
Semi Final B: Match 5: USA vs ITA Start: Time to be advised. Entry: Port: USA Stbd: ITA
Semi Final B: Match 6: GBR vs SUI Start: time to be announced. Entry: Port: GBR| Stbd: SUI
Semi Final A: Match 6: ITA vs USA Start: time to be announced. Entry: Port: ITA | Stbd: USA
Virtual Eye
Now, or after the racing you can replay the key points, or the whole race using Virtual Eye from ARL
You can go directly to the Virtual Eye America's Cup coverage by clicking here and click on "Watch Previous" then select the race you wish to view. This s 3D viewer so you can zoom in, out, around and up and down just like you could in a helicopter.
Semi Finals format and progression:
The Semi-Finals see Round Robin series winner INEOS Britannia pitched against the Swiss team Alinghi Red Bull Racing, who was the fourth qualifier. The other Semi-Final is between second placed qualifier Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and American Magic who finished third in the Qualifiers, which finished on Monday.
The winners of their Semi-Finals will be the first boat to win five races in the best of nine series.
Two races are planned for each pair, each day - making four races per day. The same wind limits will apply as for the earlier rounds of the Louis Vuitton Cup - a lower limit of 6.5kts and an upper limit of 21kts, measured at the top and bottom of the course (start line) using recording devices on each gate. There are a total of four devices, with the readings averaged over 30 second intervals over a five minute period between the 9th down to the 4th minute before the start. If the wind is within the allowed limits the Course Director will make a radio call (heard on the TV commentary) telling the crews that the racing is going to proceed.
If the go-ahead is given then the race proceeds regardless of what the breeze does regardless of the wind limits. Once the go-ahead is given, the only constraint on the race is that teams must make a first leg time limit of 12 minutes, and then a race time limit of 45 minutes. The length of legs, compass direction of the next leg and number of legs can all be altered by the race committee during the race.
To date no race has gone over 25 minutes duration.
The race director has the power to not start racing (even if the breeze is within the prescribed limits) if he considers the sea state is unsafe. He also has the ability to call off a race for safety reasons - a power which he came close to using during the lightning strikes on Day 5 of the Louis Vuitton Cup. However Emirates Team NZ's decision to drop out of their race and sail beyond the 100metre boundary line, triggering their disqualification, and the immediate awarding of the race to Luna Rossa, meant that the Chief Umpire's actions forestalled any action on safety grounds by the Race Director.
Crew Lists for Monday September 16th
Additional Images: