Dear readers,

Honestly, I'm looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to some interesting duels. The 37th Americas Cup is coming up and the crews couldn't be more high-calibre. That has always been the case with the America's Cup. This year, however, Tom Slingsby, Peter Burling, Nathan Outtridge, Ben Ainslie, Jimmy Spithill, Paul Goodison and Quentin Delapierre really are the greatest of the present day. And that on their teams' spectacularly foiling AC75 machines. Nevertheless, I'm worried that the expected 1.5 billion spectators and I too could be disappointed by the event in the bay of Barcelona.

In our reporting, we have repeatedly spoken of the "probably most exciting cup ever" wrote. I must honestly admit that the Pre-regattas for the Louis Vuitton Cupwhich started on Thursday with the first race between the French and the Swiss, have dampened my expectations quite a bit. So far, the races have been more boring than exciting.

The races were too often too similar: the winner of the start wins at the end with a comfortable lead. Admittedly, this happens more often in match racing, as the leader can react calmly to his opponent. There is simply no danger of five boats on the other side of the course slipping through instead of the direct pursuer, as in fleet racing. It also makes sense that the skippers don't push themselves to the limit, especially in the pre-regattas, and risk their equipment for the slightest gap. Who wants that when you're sitting on a flying piece of carbon whipping across the water at around 100 km/h? Nevertheless, I expect the semi-finals and finals of the Challenger Selection Series in particular to be more exciting races and more intense battles for windward and leeward gates. These were simply too rare in the preliminary regattas.

The makers of the official YouTube broadcast also urgently need to work on their audio design. The mixing of ambient sound, onboard sound, the sailors' radio and the commentators was catastrophic and unworthy of the whole event. If this remains the case for the elimination races and the final race for the silver jug, it will certainly not succeed in getting new people interested in sailing. They would either have to follow the coverage without sound or sit in front of their screens with bleeding ears. Given the complexity of our sport, the former is certainly not possible, especially for newcomers, and the latter is not an option. This is certainly not what the organisers and, above all, the many sponsors involved in the Cup want.

The fact that the New Zealanders are cup defenders themselves have stipulated in the rules that they may participate in the qualifying regattas... without scoring points takes away my anticipation of the Cup. I'm not alone in this opinion: America's Cup veteran and North Sails President Ken Read also wrote in a commentary: "In my long-gone America's Cup days, there was an unwritten law that NOBODY trained WITH THE DEFENDERS. It was the 'all challengers against the defender' days. Full stop."

The Kiwis' participation allows them to make changes to the development of their boat while the others sail out the semi-finals and finals. And that's after they've sailed against all the teams in "real" races. It has always been a disadvantage for the challengers that they have not had the opportunity to sail direct races against the competition. I believe that breaking with tradition this year is a crucial flaw in the regulations of the 37th America's Cup. I fear that the Kiwis will be so far ahead of their rivals in the final that even these races will not be characterised by a great deal of excitement.

So there is still a lot for organisers and teams to do before the winner lifts the world's oldest sports trophy at the end of October. We can only hope that the challenging teams in particular will be able to make some positive adjustments before then.

I, for one, will continue to follow events closely and hope that things will get even more exciting!

Nils Leiterholt,

YACHT volunteer

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