It took a while, but Barcelona finally delivered what we had hoped to see, with the America’s Cup AC75 class providing an all-action day packed with lead changes, overtakes, and match-racing tactics.
An easterly breeze that oscillated around 10 knots allowed the teams to display the unique foiling qualities of their high-spirited craft not only for the Louis Vuitton Cup but for the upcoming 37th America’s Cup.
With all five challenger teams having completed four races Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli top the Challenger-only standings with a perfect 4-0 scoreline.
INEOS Britannia is in second with three race wins and NYYC American Magic third with two wins. As the scores stand at the halfway stage of the challenger selection series, Orient Express Racing FRA and Alinghi Red Bull Racing SUI are in the elimination zone.
But with all the challengers due to race against each other again in the second-round robin series there is still time to shake-up the order, and we could yet see some big names fighting to stay in the game.
We have seen that the weather conditions are a major factor for the foiling yachts, and the first series has also highlighted the fragility of the systems on these high-tech machines, plus some plain old . . . accidents do happen!
Day 4 opened with a good example of this with Alinghi Red Bull Racing being disqualified for failing to return to the racecourse in time after fixing a mast/sail problem. Fortunately for them a non-scoring race anyway.
In their second race of the day, the Swiss faced Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli who were not hanging about, leading from the first cross and around all five gates to take a 26sec win. Alinghi have yet to record a win and sit bottom without any points to date.
INEOS Britannia faced Orient Express Racing with both teams really needing the win to confirm their potential.
The Brits were over the start early and had to drop behind France, who took the gift to lead by 13sec at gate 1. Not the sort of start that Ben Ainslie had envisaged.
The pumped-up Brits came back to lead at gate 2 then picked up another penalty on the cross, allowing the French to take a 20sec lead at gate 3 and maintain a 12sec lead at gate 4. Upwind the Brits caught Orient Express, forcing them to tack away, and Ineos then rounding gate 5 with an 11sec lead.
That was it for Ainslie and Co who finished with a 16sec win and their best performance so far.
Best summed-up by Dylan Fletcher, port helm on INEOS Britannia, who was relieved with the win but also pleased overall with Britannia’s speed, saying:
“We made it quite hard on ourselves today – to be fair our starting coach (Ian Williams) was saying that we needed to have a good battle out there, so we gave him one of those! But it was nice to see Britannia going fast and we were confident out there, so we just need to keep building on this momentum and now it’s time for Round Robin 2.”
In addition to the challenger races there were two non-scoring races involving the defender, Emirates Team New Zealand. After the sail-over against the Swiss, the Kiwis faced American Magic in a close textbook match-race that saw lead changes aplenty before the Kiwis took the Win by 29sec.
Round Robin 2 is scheduled to start on Tuesday 3 Sep.
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