With racing cut short on the second day of the Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robins due to light winds, today was scheduled to be a hyperactive day on the Med for teams sailing rescheduled and scheduled races, beginning with the highly anticipated dustup between Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and American Magic.
Luna Rossa remains the dominant team of the challenger fleet thus far while the New York YC’s talent-laden effort has been frustratingly inconsistent, dogged by misfortunes, mechanical misfires and sail mis-calls. Today was the day for the Americans to turn that around.
In 7 to 9 knots, both teams nailed a perfectly timed starts, with American Magic enjoying starboard entry. Starboard helmsman Tom Slingsby liked the pin end and was happy to lead the Italians back to the starting line on the final approach. And lead they did, from the leeward position, forcing the Italians to start and promptly tack away.
When the two AC75s came back together for the first cross American Magic had the Italians right where they wanted them, flying across their bow with a 190-meter lead and then planting a tight covering tack.
But Luna Rossa’s Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni know how to turn things around.
Both boats split to opposite sides, with Luna Rossa taking a bite out of American Magic’s lead, which was shaved to 80 meters on the next meeting.
American Magic was first through the gate with a slim 2 seconds between them, both teams simultaneously rounding and splitting sides again.
On a course littered with light-wind holes and fast-moving puffs, Luna Rossa came out strong from the right side of the course and owned the first cross downwind by mere meters. The lead would change twice more before American Magic’s Patriot was through the gate with a 3-second lead.
The back-and-forth continued up Leg 3 until Luna Rossa ducked American Magic mid-course, got to the right side and then hooked into pressure and shift, turning the tables to a 160-meter advantage. Through the third gate with a 20-second advantage, the Italians continued to pile on the meters and cross the finish line to collect the day’s first point. Post-race stats showed that the Italians were fractions of a knot faster upwind and downwind, netting them a 24-second win.
Emirates Team New Zealand was back on the Barcelona course after a miraculous 48-hour rebuild of their boat, damaged after the first day of racing during a lift-out crane failure. Their match mate was Orient Express Racing Team, considered the dark horse of the regatta after a strong start. But the French were nowhere near the starting line at their entry time, parked with a technical issue and the New Zealanders were off on an uncontested lap that counted for zero points.
With that match cut short, the next with INEOS Britannia and Alinghi Red Bull Racing should have been a good one, but the race was won in the pre-start when INEOS Britannia planted a facing tack on the Swiss as they led back to start. Alinghi dropped off its foils and that was that. INEOS crossed the line at 24 knots with the Swiss stuck in the water, crawling at 9 knots trying to get on the foils. INEOS cruised around the track uncontested, and aside from one jibe that had them off the foils on the final leg, they crossed the line comfortably.
The majority of races thus far in the Challenger series have been won in the start—less than 2 minutes sealing the fate of one team, and that was the case as well when American Magic won a nerve-wracking start with Orient Express Racing Team.
American Magic, enjoying the starboard entry tacked high to attack the French from an upwind position. Leading the French back to the line, Slingsby defended their leeward position and got a bit fast, and both boats sailed past the line. Had Orient Express been able to start, the outcome would likely have been much different, but American Magic was better positioned to tack, dip the line, and restart for what should have been an easy wire-to-wire win.
Credit to the French, however, for progressively shaving the American lead to 60 meters by The French gave a strong chase, however, and the teams were within 60 meters. American Magic with port lay to the left mark, but Orient Express with a difficult maneuver to jibe and get around the left mark; come off the foils and American Magic run away, finishing the race with the French still stuck at the bottom of the course and netting a DNF.
The final race of the day with Luna Rossa on a winning streak and INEOS Britannia even on points, the start played out with INEOS Britannia in a strong position and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli happy to do a “lead-back tack” that created a split right off the start. INEOS owned the first cross, but one unperfect tack at the right boundary handed the lead to the Italians, who scorched through the weather gate with a 25-second lead.
With boats fairly even down the run, INEOS dropped off the foil as they approached Gate 2, and that was all the Italians needed to run away with the win. The silver bullet of Luna Rossa is certainly fast, but more importantly maneuverable and better able to handle the marginal conditions.
