America's Cup: The Kiwis fly high, Azzurri impress, "Britannia" still without a win
The second day of the third and final pre-regatta for the 37th America's Cup offered more exciting suburban action than the opener. Emirates Team New Zealand finished the race day off Barcelona with two victory points. One was given away without a fight by Team Orient Express Racing: the French team gave up shortly before the start with technical problems. "We prefer to withdraw from this day and have our boat back in good condition tomorrow," said helmsman Quentin Delapierre, ending the duel before it had even begun.
Kiwis in a flying mood
The Kiwis were thus the only team still unbeaten on Friday evening at the halfway stage of the America's Cup pre-regatta with 3:0 points. They made sure of this with a gala performance in the match against Ineos Britannia, forcing the British team off the foils with textbook match race manoeuvres in the pre-start phase. Emirates Team New Zealand started the race with good timing, while the Brits had to work hard to pick up speed. At the first turning mark, the New Zealanders already had a 38-second lead.
At the halfway point of the race, New Zealand's helmsmen Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge and their team had extended their lead to 55 seconds. On the water, the humiliation of the British meant that there was almost a kilometre between the leading "Taihoro" and the chasing "Britannia". The Kiwis performed flawlessly right to the finish. They reached the line with 52 seconds and a 950 metre lead over "Britannia".
The pre-start phase in the duel between Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and the US team NYYC American Magic was also exciting to watch. The Americans, who had previously dominated Alinghi Red Bull Racing in the first match of the day with a 56-second lead at the finish, were outperformed this time by the Italians and their strong co-pilots Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli puts "Patriot" out of action
Paul Goodison had brought "Patriot" into the starting box on time for the countdown of 2:10 minutes. However, the Italians managed to "lock out" the Americans from the start in textbook fashion. Whilst they got off to a good start themselves, Tom Slingsby, Paul Goodison and their team initially had to drop off sharply to reach the start line from the windward side for the necessary "dip start".
The Americans are hard to beat as a team. That was a very important point today." Francesco Bruni
The US team on "Patriot" was unable to turn around the deficit after the forced false start, even with persistence, a series of split tacks and a J2 jib in contrast to the J3 on the Italian "Silver Flash". Francesco Bruni, Jimmy Spithill and the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team raced to the finish line with 44 knots of speed and a 40-second lead. There, "Cecco" Bruni enthused: "Jimmy and the whole team did a fantastic job. We are super, super happy."
British coaching from the match race world champion
Conclusion of the second day: In slightly less wind than the day before, the overall picture of the challengers and the New Zealand defenders continued to sharpen. The Kiwis look confident and have everything under control so far with their co-pilots "Pistol Pete" Burling and Nathan Outteridge.
The Italians, who conceded their only minus point as a result of an electronic blackout in the opening duel with the Kiwis, were equally impressive. On day two, they impressed with successful match racing and plenty of speed. The US team, on the other hand, who had previously dominated twice in a row, suffered their first defeat against the Italians on Friday afternoon. This proved that NYYC American Magic is not invulnerable, even with its superstar Tom Slingsby and co-pilot Paul Goodison.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing had to concede to the Americans on day two, who stormed away at high speed after a better start timing. After just two races so far, the Swiss team's score is level at 1:1. This is not the case for Sir Ben Ainslie's Ineos Britannia team: the Brits have also only contested two duels, but are 0:2 behind. They are continuing their intensive search for "more horsepower". After the unsuccessful start in the match against the New Zealand America's Cup defenders, helmsman Ainslie also announced a debriefing with seven-time match race world champion and British starting coach Ian Williams.
The interim results of the Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta after two of four days of racing:
- Emirates Team New Zealand: 3 wins/0 defeats
- Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team: 2 wins/1 defeat
- NYYC American Magic: 2 wins/1 loss
- Alinghi Red Bull Racing: 1 win/1 loss
- Ineos Britannia: 0 wins/2 defeats
- Orient Express Racing Team: 0 wins/3 defeats
The half-time results of the individual matches with the intermediate scores:
