It’s Back to Business in Barcelona With the America’s Cup

The 37th America’s Cup began in earnest this weekend: a preliminary series with all the teams competing in one-on-one match-racing eliminations off Barcelona, Catalonia. Emirates Team New Zealand “won” the event, but it wasn’t that simple, as all the challengers came away with something positive to take into Thursday’s opening Round Robin. We also learned many things over the past few days, such as that in the United States viewing the event or streaming the races wasn’t free as advertised. ESPN+ swept in and snatched the rights here, and, much like last time, forced everyone to either pony up for a VPN or pay the $10.99 per month, but with football on the horizon, all is not lost.

On the water, it was the best of times and the worst for the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic as they managed to beat the Kiwis with ease in their last race, a day after suffering a catastrophic rudder failure and having to give up a point to the lowly French, and after being “schooled” in the starting box by Jimmy Spithill’s losing to the Italians. As for the weather and the sailing conditions, it’s certainly not Auckland or San Francisco. The Spanish Mediterranean is a mix of lumpy gravy, swells and chop, with steady albeit light to moderate breezes.

Louis Vuitton returns as title sponsor, and though the next-generation AC75s have changed dramatically (the boats still look like radical Dali sculptures), the races haven’t for the most part. The starts are critical and then it’s make, shake and bake; over and out!

When there is action, it is quite exciting, but in the modern era of the America’s Cup with foiling monohulls and their insane closing speeds, rubbing isn’t racing, as the Italians [Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (LRPP)] discovered on multiple occasions in their championship match against ETNZ. Each boat has a “buffer” zone or invisible force field that incurs the wrath of the race umpires if infringed upon.

The Italians survived a scare earlier in the day from Red Bull Alinghi. They were uncharacteristically over early and had to restart with a penalty, but then the chase was on. It took a huge bobble from a quick wind blast to drop the Swiss off their foils and allow Spithill and LRPP skipper Bruni to sweep by, and even after incurring another penalty, to stave off the Swiss at the finish.

In the title race, New Zealand were still licking their wounds from that stinging loss just an hour or so previously, and as the race began, the Italians again incurred a penalty in the start box and the Kiwis grabbed a short lead. LRPP refused to go away, and after a poor jibe by ETNZ they caught up and it was game on! With the Italians on the charge, we finally got a taste of what these boats can do in close quarters. Unfortunately, with these “arm-stretched” AC 75s, close becomes too close, and Italy copped a boat-length penalty as they ducked in from behind and broke the virtual boat boundary. UGH!

Another penalty on the Italians occurred on the very next tack, with the Kiwis luffing from leeward and LRPP failing to keep clear as Burling took advantage of his right of way and pounced. ETNZ’s Taihoro managed to stay ahead for the remainder of the race to win by 34 seconds in a taste of what lies in store for the next two months.

“I think just incredibly challenging to sail in those conditions; we had a few issues we were managing on the boat, but we lucked out in the pre-start and got a penalty on them,” ETNZ skipper Peter Burling said. “We were expecting it to be tight and we were struggling to get the shifts right, but it’s going to be a close regatta. It’s all about making sure you get the phases right and sail the boat in the right places.”

“It was painful to lose that race; we fought hard and I’m very sorry for the whole team because obviously part of those penalties are due to mistakes I made,” said Bruni, who needs no apology. “We have to review deeply all the situations because we have very small screens on board that are super-hard to judge if the penalty was for you or for your opponent. Hats off to New Zealand, for a great race. I think it will be a very interesting America’s Cup.”

American Magic sailed well for most of the weekend, but against the French on Saturday it was a different story. A loud bang at the back of Patriot in the pre-start sent shudders through the afterguard as they fought to control their boat, which hobby-horsed briefly before dropping off its foils. Either something had struck the rudder or there was a technical issue. The team retired, leaving the French to claim the race unchallenged. Magic bounced back from their DNS to give the Kiwis on Taihoro a taste of their own medicine after a brilliant dip start put ETNZ on their back foot. Magic then picked up a favorable wind shift to sail away and win by .28 seconds.

The cockpit fairing issue still is out there, and now that the Americans have shown good speed it is not likely to go away. At issue is the legality of the honeycomb fairing covers used on the four side-by-side recumbent-cycler cockpits, which ironically have been on Patriot all summer, but the protest was lodged just last week, seemingly at the last minute. More than likely it will be little more than a “bee in the bonnet,” but it wouldn’t be the America’s Cup without a design controversy.

All in all, an interesting start, but it gets really serious from Thursday, as one of the challengers will be eliminated in two short weeks!