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Interesting in Ben Ainslies post race interview he said that in that final leg cross, he thought they were well clear, but both teams went for a power mode (I assume a short term burst of speed that would cost you in the long term)and LRs was more effective because of their Cunningham issue.
If they managed to win the race whilst suffering a technical that affected downwind speed it definitely bodes well.
LR messed up 2 tacks today which cost them.
Did they fix the cunningham before the race or just put it on and tie it off so they where less than optimum downwind?
Apparently set to about 75% (I have no idea what that means). It was on their list of things that could fail, so had a system on the tender that could pressurise the hydraulics, then lock it at fixed value.
Whats going on with this possible DSQ hanging over them with a problem with the measurement of their outhaul? Shouldn't all this crap be sorted before this stage?
That was fixed I think. The main shouldn't have any openings in it and theirs did for the outhaul - I think it was fixed pretty quickly (sure I saw it taped over for day 2)
Either way it was measured in before the event so they can't get dsq.
Exactly, it went through scrutineering so all good.
They will have to change it for main event.
So not any real chance of being DSQ unless some other measurement/rule is broken?
It's not like previous cups where there have been events on set dates where you have to show the opposition the underside of your boat so unless one of the other teams is holding an ace card of knowing about a violation but hasn't reported it, and the measurers haven't noticed it then it's a nonissue.
Thanks – from a non racer it certainly seemed like LR turned off their racing line to force a penalty as they had otherwise lost.
It's not like motor racing where you get to make one correction per corner then have to hold your line. You can't make a sudden change of course and cause a collision, but LR's tactic was pretty obvious so I'm not sure what nuance it's judged on. To me I think Ineos had all the time in the world to see what was going to happen. Although I suspect LR was losing boatspeed so if Ineos had gybed they would still have won because LR was going to have to luff up again to pick up speed to gybe back for the line.
I don't sail a downwind VMG boat so I'm not sure how the rules work with regard to propper course and downwind ley lines. But if I was on a starboard gype and an opponent was on port I'd be bullying them off the course because unlike upwind they cant tack off and become the leeward boat and luff you, you get to luff them.
If the UK wins the AC, would the next race be a round the island race, as per the original race in 1851?
I don’t sail a downwind VMG boat so I’m not sure how the rules work with regard to propper course and downwind ley lines. But if I was on a starboard gype and an opponent was on port I’d be bullying them off the course because unlike upwind they cant tack off and become the leeward boat and luff you, you get to luff them.
These high speed boats are insane in the way they go round the course sheeted in all the time but although they look like magic is going on I'm sure they are limited by laylines. 🙂
Watching this racing has been great and I've been up early to watch it live for the last couple of hours of the shows. I used to think windsurfing was fast.
If the UK wins the AC, would the next race be a round the island race, as per the original race in 1851?
I think the challenging club and defenders negotiate over the specifics and it goes to the NY Supreme Court if they can't agree. I assume that a major consideration will be financial, they will be looking for public subsidies and TV rights, so nobody will want to go back to the historic format.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deed_of_Gift_of_the_America%27s_Cup
The Club challenging for the Cup and the Club holding the same may by mutual consent make any arrangement satisfactory to both as to the dates, courses, number of trials, rules and sailing regulations, and any and all other conditions of the match, in which case also the ten months’ notice may be waived.
In case the parties cannot mutually agree upon the terms of a match, then three races shall be sailed, and the winner of two of such races shall be entitled to the Cup. All such races shall be on ocean courses, free from headlands, as follows: the first race, twenty nautical miles to windward and return; the second race, an equilateral triangular race of thirty-nine nautical miles, the first side of which shall be a beat to windward; the third race, (if necessary), twenty nautical miles to windward and return; and one week day shall intervene between the conclusion of one race and the starting of the next race. These ocean courses shall be practicable in all parts for vessels of twenty-two feet draught of water and shall be selected by the Club holding the Cup; and these races shall be sailed subject to its rules and sailing regulations so far as the same do not conflict with the provisions of this deed of gift, but without any time allowances whatever. The challenged Club shall not be required to name its representative vessel until at the time agreed upon for the start, but the vessel when named must compete in all the races; and each of such races must be completed within seven hours.
Video about the repairs to Patriot. It's a huge new panel that's been made!
When I watched the race live, I agreed with the jury decision on the starboard protest at the end. Watching the replay from onboard, it does look more like it should have gone to Luna Rosa.
So it’s a first to 4 wins Semi, then a first to 7 final.
Rita seems to be the only boat with a flat bottom. The others all have a pointed bottom to the keel. Is there a technical reason for the difference?
Rita seems to be the only boat with a flat bottom.
No, it doesn't
Nah.
They were bearing away all the time (as shown by their boat speed dropping all the time, the overhead video and the fact that Bruno was calling "down down" the whole time) to try and force the penalty - you can't do that.... If you change course you have to give the other boat room.
16.1.
When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear.
The judge boat was right behind LR the whole time and saw what they were doing - they made their decision in approx 2 seconds.... It was clear to them. Ken Read never thought it was a penalty either.
From Ineos' point of view they would have known they would cross the whole time - it's not difficult to tell.
Close but no cigar.
I agree with that literal interpretation Sharkbait if it was a last second manouver, but it doesn't quite cover pushing the boat down in a slow arc.
I would have argued that GB had time to react to the manouver as it was a very slow deliberate one. Not the last second course alteration the rules are imagining.
That's exactly the point... it was a series of last second manoeuvres.
They changed course continuously.... Each time they changed course they needed to give ineos space.
If they'd done one bigger course change earlier on and stuck with that they may have had an arguement - but they didn't they just kept bearing away to try and get in the right place.
The "Hollywood" thing is the dramatic heading up at the end to make it look like they averted a disaster (of their own making).
The reality is that Ineos knew they'd cross (although it was close) the whole time.
Not sure if this is covered previously in the thread. I have a question re cup format. So whoever wins the Prada Cup goes through to the final head to head series with NZ (the cup holders). Whoever goes through will have loads of up to date race prep, and boat prep, they will be race proven and fired right up. Does that not give the challenger, hopefully Britannia 🇬🇧 a good advantage? TIA😀 I know team NZ won’t have been sitting at the clubhouse drinking G&T but they aren’t racing.
It's team NZ's local waters. Gives them a bit more advantage.
Yep, that’s a good point, they’ve been up and down that stretch a bit in the last few years I would guess.
Whoever goes through will have loads of up to date race prep, and boat prep, they will be race proven and fired right up
The same could be true of the Prada Cup semi-final; whoever wins that will be in the same position re the final.
It’s team NZ’s local waters.
There was quite a row about using courses B & C, the ones closest to the harbour. If I remember right, NZ wanted them used just for the Cup, so that the Challenger wouldn't be familiar with them. Luna Rossa got a judgement that the same courses had to be used for Prada Cup and America's Cup, and were criticised because it was said that it would mean the further away courses would get used and it would be worse for spectators. Not sure how it was resolved, as they've been using them.
NZ decided the rules and had a big head start on the technology and development.
They're racing in their back yard.
They have also raced against the other boats (although they'd have learnt **** all from racing ineos before Xmas) and can see all the speed, vmg and wind data from the challenger races.
They've got the upper hand.
Racing other boats is good but every day you're out racing is a day lost when it comes to boat development.
Cheers, thanks for the background info.
The judge boat was right behind LR the whole time and saw what they were doing
There isn't a judge boat..the judges do it all on land looking at all the feeds. They'd have seen the overhead shot (and LR changing course beforehand) and it was a no-brainer
All the 'Expert" chat on tv commentary was that having 2 weeks of boat development was much better than 2 weeks of racing. Whilst the 3 challengers are racing, ETNZ have been quietly developing, practicing and strategising.
Having just listened to the on-board feeds from the last race it definitely seems there is a language issue on LR. When it all got crazy busy there was confusion with misunderstanding the accented English of the Italian crew members. There were a couple of times in the race the foils were late going down so I wonder if this is causing issues?
Does that not give the challenger, hopefully Britannia 🇬🇧 a good advantage?
Looking at the results from the last dozen or so events (since Australia won it back in the 80s), it's been fairly evenly split between the defenders winning it and the challengers taking it off them. There used to be multiple American clubs challenging to be the defenders, but NZ changed that and focused on a single defence campaign. Mathematically, you would expect a competitive challenger series with multiple teams to be favoured because you are choosing the fastest boat/best crew from several, whereas the defenders really need to get everything perfect with one boat. However, the defenders have the opportunity to see what the challengers are doing and adjust accordingly. The defenders have two boats, so they can compare boat speed in different conditions in testing, whereas the challengers have to show their real boat speed because they are racing competitively.
Ineos seem to be have a very small advantage over the other defenders, but it's so close that a single mistake or gear breakage would be enough to make the difference. If Ineos have a 60% chance of winning the challengers' final, the other two have a 40% chance between them. Then, if the challenging team have a modest advantage over the defenders, there's still maybe a 35% chance of NZ retaining the cup because of local knowledge, gear breakages, etc. That would still only give Ineos a 45% chance of winning if their boat is quite a bit better than the others, with the other two challengers a 20% chance between them. Those are just wild guesses, but the point is that having a small speed advantage still doesn't make you strong favourites when there are multiple competitors and lots of ways to get unlucky.
Not just about speed though. It looks pretty clear that the sailing "talent" is being utilised better than LR and AM - or there's simply more of it!
Don't underestimate the cunningham issue yesterday...I believe it had a big factor in poorer downwind performance coMPared to the last RR.
So many factors. It will be difficult to beat NZ.
I'd be surprised if it isn't ineos who are up against them though.
And if it is GB, I think you'd struggle to think of 2 better people to have in charge than Ben Ainslie and Giles Scott
Having just listened to the on-board feeds from the last race it definitely seems there is a language issue on LR.
The American's also have communication issues it seems as well - listen in to a few of their last races.
I do think Ben and Giles are a masterclass in teamwork and communication. The whole boat are so clean with their communications and you can tell from some of the racing decisions that they both totally trust each other's judgements. For example 'that' cross with the Italians, it was Gile's calling the 'we are OK' - and Ben just steered it out.
I wonder if the cunningham was part of the story in the final port/starboard crossing. From the stats on the video, Ineos were 80-90m ahead at the previous gybe, and holding that, so would be expected to cross well clear. Then LR started bearing away, their VMG went up and Ineos's lead started dropping - they may have known that they couldn't afford to bear away because of the cunningham, which LR knew they had a problem with. The lead at the crossing was 28m, which I think is good evidence that they weren't (quite) on a collision course - still 5m away from being overlapped.
On that last cross, both teams called a power mode, which commentators said was less effective on Rita due to the Cunningham issue.
I wonder if the cunningham was part of the story in the final port/starboard crossing. From the stats on the video, Ineos were 80-90m ahead at the previous gybe, and holding that, so would be expected to cross well clear.
Absolutely - I believe that a 100% fit Ineos would have pulled away on all the downwind legs (assuming they went the right way) as per the previous race. GS said on a Team Ineos video after the race that that's what they would have normally expected.
Their racing rules advisor (who was conducting the interview) dismissed the subject of the final pass pretty quickly saying that, although close, there wasn't ever a case for a penalty.
Then LR started bearing away, their VMG went up
Only for a few seconds as their speed was dropping as they bore away, so their VMG would have very quickly dropped accordingly.
On that last cross, both teams called a power mode, which commentators said was less effective on Rita due to the Cunningham issue.
As their cunningham was nailed on at about 70% the main was flatter than it would have normally been so they had to sail high to match the foil shape of the sail - this would have given them a lower VMG.
I would expect that a working cunningham ram would have been eased to give a fuller main and more power allowing them to sail lower faster (and therefore further ahead of LR).
So what is a power mode? It's not like F1 where they have stored energy they can apply, all they have is the sails, and they will be going as fast as possible all the time. Unless there a risk balance, ie, absolute max speed involves a risk of losing control.
See my last paragraph.
More power doesn't necessarily mean faster - but it does mean more power with which to sail lower (thus pointing closer to the mark which = less distance to sail/better VMG).
But if you sail too low then your speed drops too much and your VMG suffers.
Downwind performance is a balance between speed and angle to the mark. I race in a mixed dinghy class where there are asymmetric boats that go much faster than my Finn - but they have to sail big angles downwind to get that speed while the Finn can almost be pointed at the mark thus sailing less distance.
If the fast boats don't get their angles right then they effectively lose time.
Not this...
Unless there a risk balance, ie, absolute max speed involves a risk of losing control.
Edit:
Below is an example of a set of polars - which is a diagramatic view of a hulls' theoretical speed at all wind angles and wind speeds. When keelboat racing we work with these to check that we're basically doing stuff right - amazingly there's many occasions when we're actually going too fast, which means that we should be heading further downwind (if going downwind) to improve our VMG.
Thanks, sharkbait, I hadn't seen your post when I posted. I've got it now - they would normally sail whatever angle gave the best VMG, but if they had to bear away for tactical reasons, they would power up the rig. Power is normally adjusted to give max forward speed and minimal drag while keeping the boat flat. Because of their speed, the apparent wind drops significantly when they bear away, so power drops with it, making adjusting the sail shape for downwind much more important than in a displacement boat.
Pretty much - downwind is a balancing act between boat speed and angle to the mark.
Sail shape is very important for ANY boat though!!
Although the AC75's generally don't have to take into account things like sea state (i.e. deeper foil profile to generate more power to get through bigger/choppier waves when going upwind but flatter profile to give better pointing/higher speed in flat water)
Patriot is back on the water 👍
That's an impressive turn around...
That’s an impressive turn around…
we see what you did there !
You’d have to imagine it will take a few days to get it finely tuned and at full whack. Will it be too late? I haven’t seen predicted conditions for Friday yet.
loving the sticky plaster on her damaged bit. 
Will it be too late?
They've got a big task ahead thats for sure..... I'm doubtful - they weren't that good before the crash.
Wind speed picking up throughout the semis. AM struggled in the light air, so it could all be over before they get their favoured conditions.