The scoreboard after the three days of races of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup’s Final Preliminary Regatta should come as no surprise to those who know the Emirates Team New Zealand story: the defenders remain unbeaten. What is surprising, however, is how fast and capable they are so early on. They will soon go away and await the Challengers to cull the best of them, but if the pre-season scrimmage hint anything, it’s that five teams better get their acts together.
After a rough two days of racing, INEOS Britannia kicked off the day with a strong win in its pairing with Alinghi Red Bull Racing which got underway with a clean start for both teams, with INEOS Britannia at pace and to leeward. With cyclors hammering and huffing, the Brits held high and fast enough to flick Alinghi off its hip, and with a simultaneous tack, the two teams locked into a straight-line speed test. This time Alinghi flicked the Brits, but when they met at the top of course, INEOS had the cross, a clean exit from the gate and a flawless defense plan that had them putting greater time and distance between them and the Swiss. Mark-rounding Deltas grew with every leg and with a clean race, INEOS bagged its only point of the day.
American Magic stepped into the ring for its next race, sitting on a 2-1 record and what should have been an easy match against the upstart French of Orient Express Racing Team. Into the start box they went, with Orient late as usual. Fourteen seconds later, however, American Magic’s Patriot was off its foils dealing with a critical rudder-system failure that sent them back to base to in crisis mode as they have a date with Emirates Team New Zealand on the final day; their last chance to get crack at the Defender before the real races get underway in the forthcoming Louis Vuitton Round Robins.
“It is a frustrating day for American Magic,” Hutchinson said in a team statement after racing.
As always, we’re balancing the reliability of our race shot and performance. And so when we have an issue with some of the equipment and developing that reliability, we have to take a good, hard look at it through the program, we continue to reinforce that, that methodology of checking the systems and going through the boat and making sure that everything is as reliable and as performance-oriented as possible.”
With the American and French race cut short the Brits were back at it for their second race of the day, this time against the formidable Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, which had three wins in the bag and a loss due to a control-systems failure on the first day.
Once again, INEOS popped an unforced error with an early-entry penalty; the length of their bow prod over the line a second early. Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni toyed with the Brits as they pushed and followed them across the line. But trying to scrub the penalty with a lower and faster angle got INEOS to the left boundary quicker, where they picked up another penalty. Mistakes made by inches.
From its controlling position, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli simply outpaced their opponents and extended on every leg of the course, confirming with certainty that they are the benchmark challenger today.
“It was a much better day,” was Ainslie’s assessment. “I felt like we were finding our groove a bit with how we were sailing the boat. A good race against Alinghi Red Bull Racing but a shame against the race with Luna Rossa with the pre-start entry – it was a nice pre-start – other than that I think it would’ve been quite an interesting race without the penalty as there was a difference in sail plan decisions.”
The day concluded with Alinghi Red Bull Racing up against the Defender, and here once again, Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge on Taihoro were simply bullies in the pre-start, pushing them hard to the line and splitting tacks as they both struck the line on time. Emirates Team New Zealand came back from the right side of the course in command and flawlessly covered their opponents for another easy win.
