At last it was a race. Luna Rossa with Chris Draper at the helm made a good start in the fog of San Fran, bow to bow with Team New Zealand. However, the Italians were upwind and had to let the New Zealanders go after 40 seconds with inside position at the first buoy. That was enough for the Kiwis to win the race, especially as there are virtually no overtaking opportunities in this area when the tide is rising, as it was in this race. Unless something breaks on the leading boat. And it did. On the second cross, the clip of the jib halyard flew around the Kiwis' ears, whereupon the sail had to be recovered and thrown overboard. The video clearly shows that the dinghy obstructed the Prada boys, who were already far astern at the time, when they were picking it up. It looked a lot like a protest, but strangely enough there was none.
Of course, it made no difference in the end, as Dean Barker and his colleagues managed to distance themselves from the Italians by 2 minutes and 20 seconds on the 15.4 nautical mile course, even without a headsail and with a boat that was not ideally balanced. What was striking was the clear difference in speed between the boats when they were sailing on the same bow, with the New Zealanders often being 3 to 5 knots faster according to the TV feed. Mathematically, it looked like Luna Rossa was half a knot slower on average than the winners at 23.77 knots and also had to cover half a nautical mile more distance.
Kiwi skipper Barker called the incident "frustrating and annoying", adding that a defect like this had never happened before. The positive thing was that the boys quickly got the situation under control. Colleague Max Sirena from Luna Rossa said that his team sailed better than the last time they met, when Luna Rossa finished outside the time limit. They had sailed without a jib during the tests in New Zealand and realised that a first-generation boat without a headsail was significantly slower, "but unfortunately not the new boat, which still goes very fast (even without a jib)..."
On Tuesday, also at 12:15 local time (21:15 CET), there will be a new edition of this duel, which means that the racing programme for the coming week is already exhausted. In the meantime, the other dates are just a one-boat show until Artemis Racing is ready for action. Supposedly it will be ready soon. Could this be a decisive addition to this Louis Vuitton Cup, which has been so grotesque so far?
