Friday review: Image: Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
It was a fired-up, proficient and efficient Emirates Team New Zealand that aced the hardest to interpret wind direction here in Barcelona and took two clean races off the fast-charging Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia who left very little out on the water today but succumbed to a masterclass of weather reading and boatspeed.
In smoother sea-state conditions, Emirates Team New Zealand looked a different boat, able to employ a consistent ride height and smooth, fast manoeuvres whilst their sailing team out-smarted and out-fought the Challenger to now sit just one win away from defending the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup.
Right from the outset, Ben Ainslie and Dylan Fletcher, helmsmen of ‘Britannia’ laid their stall out, crossing from the port side with the finest of margins before circling immediately with intent to get on the Kiwi’s tail who had entered the starting box at pace and very much up for the fight.
Sharp turns and fine execution from both teams yielded a fascinating lead-back to the line with the British making the better time-on-distance but Emirates Team New Zealand crucially held the windward position and immediately adopted a high mode with a smaller J3 jib than the British who had set a larger J2.
With a north-westerly breeze filtering off the land, filling and shifting wildly and delivering pressure between 8-14 knots, this was a day for the ‘wind-whisperers’ and it was Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge onboard ‘Taihoro’ who maintained constant dialogue with their trim team of Blair Tuke and Andy Maloney up the first beat, who read it best. Determined to hold the right, the Kiwis defended hard, first tacking on the bow of Britannia and forcing them left before ignoring the British and heading hard right into a big left shift that secured a lead that was almost insurmountable by the first mark.
Over six legs, Emirates Team New Zealand sailed supremely – with the boat performing immaculately in the flat water – and just extended away whilst never giving INEOS Britannia any kind of positional leverage to get back into the race. At each turning gate the Kiwis gained and by the finish they crossed the line one minute and 13 seconds ahead to take the scoreline to 5-2 after a commanding performance.
With the conditions staying challenging and both boats equalised on the same jib codes, the eighth race was again all about reading the shifts. After a pre-start where Emirates Team New Zealand maintained a controlling leeward position throughout, angling for a chance of shutting out the British at the starboard end of the line, Peter Burling nailed the final approach to the line – starting just one metre back at a speed of 38 knots.
Britannia, to windward, was first to tack away, but the Kiwis ignored the chance to immediately cover, clicking into more pressure and digging into it before tacking back to the right side. The gain was immediate and by the first gate, Emirates Team New Zealand were 15 seconds up and looking imperious.
Throughout the eight legs of a very challenging course, INEOS Britannia could only hope to make gambler’s gains, choosing the left side on the third upwind and narrowing the Kiwi’s lead to 23 seconds, but a masterful seventh leg, the last upwind, saw Emirates Team New Zealand nail two shifts and round the final windward gate with an advantage out to some 50 seconds.
From there it was just pure execution and tactical positioning that allowed Emirates Team New Zealand to gybe consistently on the pressure builds and come across the finish line on the port layline to record a resounding 55-second victory and take the scoreline to 6-2, one race win away from completing a successful defence of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup.
Andy Maloney, one of the key architects today of the race wins as starboard trimmer on ‘Taihoro’ commented on the continual dialogue between the afterguard today, saying: “Hugely satisfying in that offshore breeze, the four of us were reading it very similarly to one another so the comms were rolling very smoothly. We've had a few days in those conditions, one this year and a few last year in October, and we definitely learnt a lot from those days, but I think today we were all just seeing it well and very similarly to one another and that made for really fun sailing.”
Asked whether it had been a pressured day off yesterday, Maloney added: “Honestly nothing different to normal over the last 24 hours, just the same processes and we knew that the boats were evenly matched and that we weren't going to win every race in this America's Cup. It was unfortunate that we lost a couple the other day, but I think we did really well just to stick to our processes and prepare well for today for the different conditions and go out and execute two good races.”
Talking specifically about the technique that the Flight Controllers used in the tricky off-axis swell, Maloney said: “The swell conditions coming from behind on the upwind certainly requires a different technique and both Blair (Tuke) and I were feeling it quite well and we were flying the boat really well and it was just real satisfying that all the pieces of the puzzle came together today in just a great day for the team.”
Asked how he felt sitting at match-point in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup Match, Maloney added: “That's the thing with the Cup, you have to win that final race so it's just one more race at a time and for us if we can put the nail in the coffin then that'll be the final race, but we’ve just got to keep chipping away, prepare for the next race the best we can and know that it's not always going to go our way, and if it's not the next one then we'll just keep pushing on.”
Sir Ben Ainslie, skipper and Team Principal of INEOS Britannia rued a day of shift and pressure reads on a tricky course saying: “I think really it’s just coming off the line and getting the first shift. In that first race we felt we had a good position off the start but they just lifted away from us in a big right hander and did a really nice job from there to protect once in the lead and put themselves in a nice position with the shifts and pressure. In the second, it was a roll reversal, we were on the windward side before we saw some nice pressure on the right, tacked off and they went all the way out left found some more pressure and sailed into the lead. That was the story of the day. It was really all about the shifts and pressure.”
Asked what his message was to the team after a difficult day, Ainslie had a glint in his eye, saying: "Same message. It's the game of the Cup, it’s the first to win seven, and we’ve got to win five more, so we’ve just got to keep going, it’s going to be different conditions tomorrow and of course the pressure is on, we've got to win every race from now on in, but why not? I've always believed that pressure is a privilege, that's why we’re here. We wanted to be racing in the Cup. I would prefer to be 6-2 up rather than 6-2 behind – but anything is possible.”
In the pre-race briefing Iain Murray, the highly experienced Race Director, said that today was “a sailor’s day of opportunity” and so it proved. Emirates Team New Zealand read the conditions to near-perfection and showed some of the slickest boat-handling that has been seen in this regatta. They barely put a foot wrong on their manoeuvre execution all afternoon and at 6-2, the mountain for INEOS Britannia to climb is steep.
Nevertheless, the British will keep plugging away relentlessly in the true never-say-die spirit of the America’s Cup and with Saturday’s forecast looking super-light and possibly unfit for racing, it could well prove to be an interesting weekend.