Whatever you think of the route the 37th America’s Cup has taken, this particular edition is turning into a difficult America’s Cup to justify spending time with.
Starts are delayed on a rolling basis and the competitors spend most of the race in a non-foiling status.
Starting races in such conditions can hardly be justified by a short term wind gust reaching the required strength for a few minutes. Surely better to postpone for enough time to allow conditions to improve or abandon for the day.
The event also does itself no favours with the unnecessary inclusion of the defender, requiring the points scored in those races to be inadmissable.
Even to the point of Ineos Britannia having to start alone after Emirates Team New Zealand was sidelined with shore-side damage . . . Why, what was gained by such pedantic action?
Ineos lost an opportunity to compete against the defender, part of the justification for ETNZ being in this challengers event.
While following the abandonement for the day after that ghost race, Orient Express Racing could face ETNZ if they return to the event on Saturday . . . not that it matters really in this tangled web as again it will be a non-scoring race.
But, what would happen if it had been a challenger that was side-lined for the day?
Ineos gets a valid point for their no-show sail-over, while the race abandonment means Orient Express would have to race them the next day if they turn-out. So they do not get a free points win.
The logical (fair) thing would have been for the two scheduled ETNZ races to be moved to Saturday or probably more logical – as ETNZ had indicated they would not be racing – both the competitors be awarded a race win, even if non-scoring in this case.
Considering the millions that have been spent to get the teams to this point a fair playing field would seem essential (even if not traditional AC practice), for both them and us to know what is going on.
But, we are where we are and can only hope for the weather conditions to improve over the next nine days, and into the distant future as there are a lot of matches to get through.
Louis Vuitton Cup Challenger Selection Series after day 2
For clarity these are the results used to decide the top four challengers to move onto the Semi-Finals
Updated Schedule for Saturday 31 August:
The schedule to catch up on the two lost races Friday has been announced by the Race Committee with six races scheduled for Saturday 31 August with the two missed races to be raced at the top of the programme.
Conditions are forecast to stay light but slightly improve for Saturday’s racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup opening Round Robin with the first start scheduled at 13:00 UK (14:00 CET).
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