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.”
