With the imminent Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta off Barcelona, we will see the first meeting of the six AC37 America’s Cup teams in their latest AC75 designs.
Apart from some recently authorised sessions, the teams were forbidden to sail their AC75s side by side, heading in the same direction for more than 20secs. Last week this restriction on such fraternising was lifted by Regatta Director, Iain Murray, much to the interest of the teams, and the excitement of the photographers.
Much has been made of the relative speeds being incredibly close across the fleet, and that there is now no obvious front-runner in all conditions, and every team is more than capable of beating the others.
But one thing that anyone who has followed the SailGP series – raced in a one-design version of an earlier America’s Cup boat – knows is that the winning margins of these supposedly equally matched boats varies widely from event to event and race to race.
In other words, it’s the crews, stupid!
Ok, if you really do have a dysfunctional design, you are not going to get it to the front on any regular or even occasional basis, as Ben Ainslie found on his previous AC75, but that seems to have been an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ moment.
This latest iteration of the AC75 has allowed the designers a second bite of the cherry, building on their previous efforts and apparently producing a more consensual design, although the British boat is still showing enough variation from the ‘new norm’ to gather comment, although this time it is not all bad.
The other left-field design is that of Swiss Alinghi Red Bull Racing, which came late to the party with a Marcelino Botin design that features a backless stern and the rudder deep on an extended skeg.
The AC75 Mk2 has produced enough design variations, small but significant enough to keep the mysterious challenge of the America’s Cup alive and well. Hopefully they will produce racing to match.
In match-racing starts are key, especially in the short track format, leaving little room to recover without the leader making a handling error. Again, the SailGP final podium races with just three boats demonstrate that on a regular basis.
This first stage of the Cup, the Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta, will involve all six teams in a series of match-races to decide two to face-off in a final match-race, winner-takes-all decider.
The inclusion of the defender in the event providing the Kiwi team with a useful event-spoiler/early warning system.
We can assume that unlike SailGP’s combative racing, the AC75 teams will want to avoid close quarter tactics and any damage at this stage, although accidents do happen.
And that they will concentrate on raising their handling and developing boat on boat speed comparisons in this first racetrack meeting of the second generation AC75s.
Ben Ainslie, CEO and Helm for INEOS Britannia, has warned that he expects all the teams to be still trying to find their optimum performance boundries, so they’ll be trying different strategies, potentially crew line-ups and no doubt some data deep dive analysis back at the design office.
Ainslie also warns that he does not expect the teams to necessarily bring their full race package to the competition at this stage and that all the teams will be developing hard trying to find that optimum performance.
Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton has played a blinder.
This regatta is the culmination of a long and sometimes fractious journey from victory in Bermuda ’17, via successful defence in New Zealand ’21 to this five event defence extravaganza in Spain ’24.
In the best tradition of defenders of the Auld Mug he has overcome any and all opposition at home and abroad, and pulled together this very personal version of what the 37th America’s Cup.
Delivering new venues and formats with a side hustle of AC40 development, while maintaining the ETNZ ‘home’ advantage with some clever rule tweaks.
The Preliminary Regatta at Barcelona opens with practice racing on Wednesday 21 August, followed by four days of racing.
Following very quickly will be The Louis Vuitton Cup – Challenger Selection Series from 29 August to 7 October to decide who will get to compete against the Cup holders, Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ).
The five America’s Cup challengers are:
- GBR – INEOS Britannia (Challenger of Record)
- SUI – Alinghi Red Bull Racing
- USA – NYYC American Magic
- ITA – Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli
- FRA – Orient Express Racing Team.
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