Editorial- Time for the talking to stop

by nzeditor@sail-world.com on 1 Jun 2007
Welcome to Sail-World.Com’s America's Cup newsletter previewing the Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Against a barrage of winter sporting code action, including an All Black Test in Auckland, it will be events 12,000 miles away in the middle of the night which will consume the Kiwi sailing fans this holiday weekend.

The finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup get underway tonight (NZT) or 1500hrs Valencia time, and three races will be sailed before the first layday.

A lot has been talked of who will what to who, and the expectations are for this phase of the the regatta.

The statistics from the Semi-Finals do not bear out most of the pundits’ thinking.

As would be expected in this phase of the Louis Vuitton Cup, the yacht which was first to rounded the first mark went on to win the race in all but one instance (when BMW Oracle rolled Luna Rossa in the final yards of Race 2).

For all that is made of Dean Barker’s so-called weak spot in starts, he only lost one in the Semi-Finals, two were even, and he won the other three. His Finals opponent, James Spithill, had a three win, three loss record against the maligned BMW Oracle Racing, who were reckoned by most to be well off form.

In the races where ITA-94 won, in only two of the five did they win their start against USA-98.

Obviously these statistics ignore the trade-off for startline victory versus obtaining the favoured side and the nuances of the Valencian windshifts. However they do show Barker in a new light, and something that is more consistent with his results on the Match race circuit.

Maybe there will be a few surprised pundits come the layday on Monday.

In this issue, we present an analysis of the Finalist’s hull shapes, appendages and overall package by renowned New Zealand designer Brett Bakewell-White - a prominent 52 ft designer, along with the supermaxi Konica Minolta, and worked alongside America’s Cup designer Laurie Davidson. His forecast is that this will be a sailor’s cup rather than a designer’s Cup. We feature some excellent photos from ValenciaSailing.com to accompany Brett’s analysis of what is normally a very technical and complex subject.

Bob Fisher gives his unique view of the Finals preliminaries, and we are also featuring several audio interviews with the key players over the past few days.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor