Gladwell's Line - Portsmouth Rewound

by . on 30 Jul 2015 Sail-World New Zealand editorial from the newsletter of July 28, 2015 on first round of the America's Cup World Series:

The weekend marked a vital milestone for Emirates Team New Zealand and the 35th America’s Cup.

The former came out of the one race day series rather well. The latter showed how out of touch they are with sailing fans.

Much will be made by Cup organisers of the visitor numbers and impact in the Portsmouth area, however in terms of world impact what was supposed to be the America’s Cup firework proved to be a fizzer.

The tight racing schedule – two races a day for two days - meant that half the program was wiped out in one day of the English “summer” – in fact more time was spent in Practice Racing than on the points counting stuff.

A flurry of TV deals announced in the final days leading up to the regatta masked the fact that most fans would not get to see the racing on TV.

The America’s Cup World Series Regatta is part of the 35th America’s Cup. Since New Zealand’s first foray into the America’s Cup in 1986/87 every race of every series has been broadcast live on free to air TV. That almost 30-year tradition was broken on Saturday night after TVNZ and America’s Cup Events Authority could not reach agreement on a fee for the NZ America’s Cup rights.

The off-course substitute – a pay per event App that can be watched on a variety of online devices including PC’s is very good when you have worked out how to make it work. At approximately $10 for the series – which turned out to be just two races – or about an hour of sailing action - is probably too rich for most. Certainly the 1 million Kiwis who watched the free to air broadcast of the last America’s Cup won’t be paying $10 to stare at a mobile phone screen in the middle of the night.

On the more positive side, the America’s Cup World Series Portsmouth was an excellent regatta for the New Zealand team.

Officially the results will show that the Kiwis came second – one point behind Land Rover BAR (GBR). But a deeper analysis reveals the New Zealand team led for eight legs, The home team Land Rover BAR, led for five legs and Oracle Team USA led for one leg.

A most encouraging result for a team where only two of the five crew had previously sailed in an America’s Cup event.

Also encouraging was the way in which the Kiwis were able to recover from poor starts. They didn't lead around the first mark in either race but got the call right on the first downwind both times. This is quite different from what we have previously seen from Emirates Team NZ at this level of racing. Sure it was only two races on one day, but there would have been plenty of good excuses if Team NZ had gotten a thumping. Far from it.

In fact, from the photo below, at the final mark rounding incident in Race 1, it is clear that Emirates Team NZ is first into the 'Zone' and also has inside yacht, had full mark rounding rights. The room was theirs to spend, not the fast approaching Oracle Team USA's and it was hard to see why Oracle Team USA were not penalised. There doesn't have to be contact - from the camera position it was not possible to see the gap, but Team NZ did have to turn very sharply, and it is not possible to say that some of that turn was not to avoid contact, with a boat which had no rights.

A penalty in that incident would have seen ETNZ finish second in the race and tied the series with Land Rover BAR. As there are no rules published it is not possible to say how a tie would have been broken, but it is most likely it would have been on the basis of the last race sailed when all other places are equal.

(Note the variation in boat speed in the shot - Oracle closing at 28kts on Port, Team NZ sailing at 17kts, and BAR rounding at 7kts)

A tied result would have placed an interesting spin on the outcome of the series with the Black Sheep of the current America's Cup finishing at the top of the points table along with the White Knight.

With the exception of Groupama Team France, all teams behind ETNZ have major questions to answer, they were soundly beaten by the youngest and most inexperienced team at this level.

You can read about some of these people and events, in the latest edition of Sail-World.com's e-magazine and website.

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