America's Cup: First the French coup, then crane shock and a provisional end for the Kiwis
Tatjana Pokorny
· 30.08.2024
After the opening day of the challenger round of the 37th America's Cup, three teams have the bow first. The sailing racing teams Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (Italy), Ineos Britannia and Orient Express Racing Team (France) were able to shine on the first of eight regatta days of the main round with one victory point each. The New Zealanders' victory over the Italians was one for the gallery, as the points scored by the defenders do not count towards the battle between the five challengers for one of the four semi-final places in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
France's "Orient Express" defeats "BoatOne"
The sometimes light-winded start to the challenger series served up a few surprises off Barcelona on Thursday. In the opening race, France's "Orient Express" shocked the Swiss team Alinghi Red Bull Racing as the underdog with a good start, the faster boat - and victory. Having just finished last in the pre-regatta for the 37th America's Cup, the French were now the first winners in the round robin series with a total of 30 duels until 8 September. By then, the first challenger will have already been eliminated.
"Orient Express" helmsman Quentin Delapierre's joy at the successful opening race was clear to see, as was that of the entire crew. Delapierre said: "It's only the first match, but honestly, it's such a great feeling! It's great for our team to fight so hard. And congratulations to our cyclists! There's still a long way to go, but the whole team, the technicians, the performance team and the cyclists have fought very hard for this and deserve it."
In the second encounter of the day, the Italian favourites among the five challengers were able to put defender New Zealand to the test in the starting phase. At the finish, however, Team Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli had to bow to the tactically outstanding Kiwis, who once again shone with perfect positioning and a strong overtaking manoeuvre in winds of around twelve and 14 knots and outperformed the initially leading "Luna Rossa". Former Cup sailor and TV commentator Peter Lester enthused: "My goodness, Team New Zealand's mainsail/jib combination looks beautiful." Lester suspected a new mainsail was in use.
"Patriot" botches the start
In the third match, the US yacht "Patriot" fell off the foils in the pre-start phase in a suddenly very windless area. "Patriot" was stuck in the doldrums for a long time, was forced to choose the early start for a long restart in order to get back on her feet, and then had to clear up. By the time "Patriot" finally crossed the start line correctly, "Britannia" had already drifted 700 metres away. It was impressive to see how all the AC75 foilers reached speeds well in excess of 30 knots, even in light winds of well under ten knots in some cases. Sometimes even more when the wind picked up a few knots again.
The fact that the duel between "Britannia" and "Patriot" was still exciting in the end was due to the US yacht, which was getting faster and faster in the end. Co-pilots Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison and their crew got everything they could out of the boat and suddenly made a strong comeback. They turned a 41-second deficit at the last turning mark into a 14-second gap at the finish in a final sprint that felt like they had been unleashed. Tom Slingsby said: "It's really frustrating. There were very light winds in the start area. The team did an incredible job to get us back in the game after that. In the end we just ran out of time."
A gift for "Britannia"
For Sir Ben Ainslie's Ineos Britannia team, the Americans' pre-start blunder was a gift. They converted the "penalty", but saw for themselves how frighteningly quickly the Americans closed in on them at the end. Ineos Britannia's CEO and skipper Ben Ainslie was correspondingly subdued in his delight at the important winning point: "It's time we got some points on the board. The Americans did a good job of getting back into the race. We need to see how we can improve. We'll take a close look at that. We've already improved, but we obviously still have some work to do."
In the fourth duel of the day, the once again confident French team lost to the confident Azzurri. The "Orient Express" had started fast, but too low, and then got stuck too much on the left side of the course. "Luna Rossa's" co-pilots Francesco "Cecco" Bruni and Jimmy Spithill did not have to wait long, turning on the "Orient Express" when it was finally forced to turn when it reached the imaginary course limit.
The challenger round continues on Friday with four more of a total of 30 duels in the double round-robin round, in which each team meets every other team twice. The weakest challenger will be eliminated on 8 September, with the other four advancing to the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
The kiwi shock in the evening
After a promising start to the Louis Vuitton Cup on the water, Emirates Team New Zealand received a shock on land in the evening. In a statement updated later that evening, the New Zealanders announced this about their accident, in which no one from the team was injured, but "Taihoro" was damaged:
"After the races on the first round robin day of the Louis Vuitton Cup, there was a problem with the crane when the team lifted their AC75 'Taihoro' out of the water. The boat landed heavily on its bearing pedestal.
The team has secured the boat with a mobile crane. It will now be safely returned to the hangar where the team will assess the full extent of the damage overnight. Following initial assessments, it has been decided that Emirates Team New Zealand will not sail tomorrow.
Once further investigations have been carried out over the next 24 hours and a full plan for the repair of 'Taihoro' is in place, the team will provide a further update on the duration of the team's absence from the water.
Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, said: "This is obviously a setback for the team at such an important time in the campaign. These are the moments that can make or break an America's Cup campaign. And we have an amazing group of dedicated and talented people who will be working around the clock to fix the boat.
One observer reported on the Brits' Facebook fan page: "I was there. It was the most horrible sound of carbon fibre breaking. I suspect we won't see it in races for quite a while. It fell a few metres onto the bearing pedestal, which appears to be partially broken. No doubt they need to do a full structural scan." Roy Thompson went on to write that the foils were seen touching the ground. Plus the front collapsed part of the bearing block.
