America's Cup - Grabbing headlines, but not race wins

by Irene Corosu on 13 Sep 2013 In the 34th America’s Cup, defender Oracle Team USA grabbed headlines this morning when the day’s crew lists were released. The defender had changed tacticians, inserting four-time Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie in place of past America’s Cup champion John Kostecki.

Later in the day on the racecourse, it was Emirates Team New Zealand that stole Races 6 and 7 from the defender and now stands two-thirds of the way to winning the oldest trophy in international sport.

Emirates Team New Zealand leads the series 6-0 after winning Race 6 by 47 seconds and Race 7 by 1:06. The winner of the 34th America’s Cup will be the first team to win nine points. For the Kiwis that means three additional race wins and for Oracle Team USA it means 10, due to a penalty imposed by the International Jury.

'We’re very satisfied with the day; it’s nice to get two more points, but there’s still a long way to go,' said Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker. 'It’s only two-thirds of the way to actually winning the Cup. You have to win nine points. Three more races is a lot of hard work, and we know that it’s far from over. One bad day out there and momentum changes and things can be quite different. We’re under no illusion, there’s still a very hard road ahead.'

Emirates Team New Zealand’s road is made somewhat easier by its AC72, Aotearoa. The 72-foot long, 48-foot wide catamaran showed again that it is solid throughout a wide range of conditions. Today the wind blew 10 to 18 knots.

In Race 6 Barker said he was asleep all through the pre-start of the race, which put the team on the back foot. But in a similar scenario to Race 5, the team fought from behind on the upwind leg and passed the defender to gain the lead and then extend.

The win in Race 7 was a wire-to-wire performance. The Kiwis started to windward of Oracle Team USA and crossed onto the racecourse riding on their hydrofoils and doing approximately 38 knots. They rounded the first turning mark in the lead and were never threatened the rest of the race.

Emirates Team New Zealand was untouchable on the two upwind legs. In Race 6 the Kiwis gained 55 seconds on the three nautical mile leg and 50 seconds in Race 7.

'The good thing for us is we’re very happy with the boat, very confident in the way it’s going and the more racing we do the more we learn relative to other guys,' Barker said.

'We didn’t know about the designs before the match started,' said Oracle Team USA skipper Jimmy Spithill. 'Both teams spent a lot of time and energy focused on each other and where we stood. I think it’s a shock they have the edge upwind and potentially we have an edge downwind.'

That upwind speed edge rendered moot Oracle Team USA’s decision to change its decision maker. Kostecki, who guided Spithill to victory in the 33rd America’s Cup in 2010, opened the match in the back of the boat, but after five races came under fire for some of his decisions.

Spithill decided yesterday to insert four-time Olympic gold medalist Ainslie in his place. Ainslie has been the team’s B boat helmsman and is widely considered a skipper, but the team felt change was needed for the sake of change.

'Sure we made a change in the back of the boat. Both John and Ben are fantastic sailors, two of the best sailors in the world. We’re very fortunate that we can rotate guys like that. But we’ll have to study the data and see what we can do to change up the boat.

'We still haven’t seen some conditions. Those guys have an edge upwind and tacking, but we still haven’t seen the light-air end of the spectrum and we haven’t seen the Code 0s,' Spithill said. 'We still have to look at the boat and what we can do to improve it. There’s a long way to go in my mind.'

Racing resumes on Saturday with Races 8 and 9, scheduled for 1:15 pm PT and 2:15 pm PT.

34th America’s Cup Standings (first to nine points wins)

Emirates Team New Zealand – 6
Oracle Team USA – 0

Race 6 Performance Data

Course: Five Legs/10.14 nautical miles
Elapsed Time: ETNZ – 31:39, OTUSA – 32:26
Delta: ETNZ +:47
Total distance sailed: ETNZ – 12.3 NM, OTUSA – 12.3 NM
Average Speed: ETNZ – 23.43 knots (27 mph), OTUSA – 22.91 knots (26 mph)
Top Speed: ETNZ – 38.55 knots (44 mph), OTUSA – 40.21 knots (46 mph)
Windspeed: Average – 11.6 knots, Peak – 13.4 knots
Number of Tacks/Jibes: ETNZ – 14/8, OTUSA – 15/7

Race 7 Performance Data

Course: 5 Legs/10.14 nautical miles
Elapsed Time: ETNZ – 24:48, OTUSA – 25:54
Delta: ETNZ +1:06
Total distance sailed: ETNZ – 11.6 NM, OTUSA – 12.0 NM
Average Speed: ETNZ – 28.32 knots (32 mph), OTUSA – 27.86 knots (32 mph)
Top Speed: ETNZ – 44.73 knots (51 mph), OTUSA – 41.00 knots (47 mph)
Windspeed: Average – 16.3 knots, Peak – 17.8 knots
Number of Tacks/Jibes: ETNZ – 7/7, OTUSA – Americas Cup