Did You Check Out the First Two Days of AC Racing?

Racing has begun for the 37th edition of America’s Cup with the pointless Louis Vuitton Preliminary Regatta. Not that there’s no point in having the event, but none of the points earned will count toward a result beyond reinforcing or undermining whatever confidence the teams have in their chances of success. The point of the Preliminary Regatta is to give teams a chance to warm up for the actual Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series, starting next week on August 29, and to give all of us on the sidelines some hints regarding who might have the best shot at winning the Cup.

There’s no doubt these boats are fast and technically interesting, but once the crew climbs into their gopher holes there’s not much action to see except the relative position of the boats, aided by computer graphics that now include visualizations of the wind on the water.

The teams will rapidly develop refinements from here, but after this first glimpse it looks as if the English and French have the most work to do and New Zealand, the US, Switzerland (which recovered from a dismasting two days earlier) and Italy all look competitive. They have this four-day series and a few days’ break to dial up their boats and get ready to get real on the 29th.

The following video shows highlights from yesterday’s racing:

It was a great couple of days of sailing in Barcelona, with somewhat patchy southwesterly winds of 12–16 knots that had the boats racing at 40–50 knots. With each team carrying its own peloton of cyclists inside the hull, there’s not much human activity to watch, but foiling at almost 50 knots is a spectacle.

The results after two days of racing show New Zealand (3-0), Italy (2-1), America (2-1), Switzerland (1-1), England (0-2) and France (0-3). We’ll have a more complete report with insights from four days of preliminary racing on Monday. Like so much of sailboat racing, it appears most of the races have been won at the start, with very few passing lanes available to a second-place starter. See the results here.

To watch the racing live you’ll need to subscribe to ESPN+ or be willing to wait 24 hours to watch replays on YouTube. You can see your viewing options (which include flying to Barcelona and chartering a boat) here.