America's Cup: The first dance - what the prelude already reveals about the balance of power
The winners and losers were quickly identified on day one of the preliminary regatta for the 37th America's Cup: three teams came through the first official races of the third and final Louis Vuitton Cup Preliminary Regatta unbeaten: Alinghi Red Bull Racing defeated the French Orient Express Racing Team, which fumbled the start and immediately conceded a penalty.
The New Zealand defenders and their Italian challengers from the 36th America's Cup then met in the first "giants' duel". However, an electronic blackout on Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli's silver-coloured AC75 spoiler ended the exciting match early and tipped the scales in favour of the Kiwis. In the duel between the US team NYYC American Magic and Sir Ben Ainslie's Team Ineos Britannia, the Americans made the English look slow in the third match of the day.
For the fourth and final duel, two of the six teams competed for the second time on the day. In the match against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the French team conceded two more penalties for entering the start box incorrectly and for sailing over the course boundary. The winning point went to the "Silver Flash". The Italians thus levelled the score at 1:1. The New Zealanders, the Swiss and the Americans lead the classification of the pre-regatta after day one with one victory point each. They are followed by the Italians and the visibly frustrated British. The French returned to the harbour in Barcelona having lost two races.
Electronic blackout stops Azzurri
The most important findings of the day: The New Zealanders, Swiss and Americans looked confident in their handling and fast on the course. For the Swiss on their "red bull", Sailing Team Manager Rodney Ardern said: "The guys realised that they had the start under control. They then executed their plan pretty well. They sailed the boat around the course quickly and with good communication and were able to extend their lead. So it was a good day."
Asked about new insights at the end of the first day of the pre-regatta, Ardern said: "We still have a few more races to go against all these challengers. So of course it's still early days. But we've got a bit of a yardstick. We can see that we're making mistakes and everyone else is making mistakes too. So we have to minimise them." Just like the three leading teams, the Italians were also performing confidently in principle, until their "Silver Flash" fell off the foils in the first duel with the Kiwis and the following could be heard loudly from on board: "We've lost the boat!" What was meant was the electronic blackout, as team members later explained.
Penalty hail for Les Bleus
Helmsman Francesco "Cecco" Bruni said immediately after the race: "It must have been an electronic problem. We had no functions on board for over 20 seconds." Coach Philipp Presti said a little later: "We had a disappointing problem in the first race. An electronic fault interrupted all the functions in the boat. It was nothing major. These boats are super complex, crazy overall."
Like the French, the Italians were also challenged twice on the first day of the Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta. The Azzurri redeemed themselves in their second race with a very confident victory over the Orient Express, in which they increased their lead to over a kilometre in places. Nevertheless, there was good news for the French Davids, who were beaten twice on Thursday in their battle against the Cup Goliaths: their boat, based on the design package developed by the New Zealanders and purchased by them, is fast, as the experts initially agree!
However, too many positioning and timing errors caused the French team led by helmsmen Quentin Delapierre and Kevin Peponnet to stumble several times. With a total of three penalties, Les Bleus, who started late in the 37-. America's Cup, Les Bleus initially robbed themselves of better chances.
Déjà vu for Ineos Britannia?
For Sir Ben Ainslie, the situation is almost the other way round after day one of the pre-regatta. His team's problem is possibly bigger. Worse still, what the skipper of Ineos Britannia said after this first day of racing and the defeat against the US team with SailGP dominator Tom Slingsby and Paul Goodison at the helm was a bit like déjà vu: "The start and the first 'cross' were ours. Then they got past us. It was a tough day for us. The conditions were just perfect, Barcelona did a good job, we just lacked a few horsepower. We'll now go back indoors and see how we can find a bit more speed."
Four-time Olympic champion Ben Ainslie and his team are chasing the America's Cup under the British flag for the third time in a row. In both previous attempts, the British Cup yacht proved to be too slow. The coming days and weeks will show whether the problem will arise again or whether the British team simply had an unlucky day. On the plus side, however, Team Ineos can enjoy an impressively stable position of their boat over the water. Starting and handling were not the concern of Ben Ainslie, who opened the Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta with Dylan Fletcher-Scott rather than Giles Scott as co-pilot.
The America's Cup on TV
The pre-regatta should also be a good test for the commentary, camera and TV teams for the coming weeks and months, in which the Louis Vuitton Cup, the Unicredit Youth America's Cup, the first Puig Women's America's Cup and the duel for the America's Cup are still to come. The live broadcast of the pre-regatta from Barcelona provided good information and a lot of background knowledge on the first day. Compared to the SailGP, where a lot of emphasis is deliberately placed on show elements and rather lurid and enthusiastic commentary, the commentators were pleasantly calm and fluent.
On the other hand, regatta fans of SailGP events are spoilt when it comes to graphics. Here the Cup TV makers still have some room for improvement for the upcoming races and decisions as well as in the sound quality.
The ranking of the pre-regatta after day 1
- Emirates Team New Zealand: 1 win
- Alinghi Red Bull Racing: 1 victory
- NYYC American Magic: 1 win
- Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: 1 victory
- Ineos Britannia: 0 wins
- Orient Express Racing: 0 victories
