Virtual Eye sees incidents galore on Day 4 of Audi MedCup

by Virtual Eye and Richard Gladwell on 14 Jun 2009
There were many incidents on the Rade Nord course off Marseilles during the fourth day of sailing in the Audi MedCup.

Using Virtual Eye from Animation Research (www.arl.co.nz) Sail-World is able to bring our readers a view not seen in the official reports from the regatta. Click the enlarge option under each image to see a full screen version.

Race 8 Artemis v Emirates Team NZ

First was in Race 8 where Artemis (with Russell Coutts on tactics) was able to trap his successor at Team New Zealand, Dean Barker in an incident at the leeward mark.

As first yacht into the three boat length circle (it was very hard to tell from the overhead shot as to whether ETNZ had established an overlap - and if there is doubt it is presumed that there was no overlap).

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Following the track of the boats, Artemis swung a little wide as ETNZ was going to go on the outside of her

Seeing this, and thinking there was enough room, ETNZ swung back towards the mark and was committed to passing inside when she had no rights.

Artemis rounding the mark - swung wide to allow ETNZ to pass inside. It is presumed there was no contact between the two hulls or rigs.

After sailing someway up the track, about a minute after rounding the mark, ETNZ swung off and started her penalty turn. (The racing rules require the penalty to be taken as soon after the incident as possible, and given that there were no boats close to ETNZ either astern or to windward, it is hard to see why ETNZ did take their penalty more quickly.)

Race 9 - Premature Starters

In Race 9, three yachts were called as being premature starters (or OCS for On the Course Side).

Two of these Quantum, Bigamist 7 returned and re-started. A third Bribon also came back and restarted however for some reason made a second attempt at restarting.

It is not clear why she did this as an overhead shot of the startline at the time she re-crossed showed that Bribon was on the correct (pre-start) side of the line by a small margin. On her second attempt at restarting she sail deeper into the starting box to clear the start line by an even greater margin.

Normally the startline position in the graphics would be queried to explain this miscalculation. however as can be seen from an overhead of the actual start, the three yachts (Bribon, Bigamist & and Quantum Racing are clearly over a second or two before the starting signal and presumably the start line is in the correct position in the ARL Virtual Eye system.


Race 9 Pisco Sour v Artemis

A second incident occurred in Race 9 when Pisco Sour, one of four yachts coming in from the port layline to the windward mark, having picked up a nice lift and overlaid the mark.

Artemis approaching the windward mark on starboard for a bearway rounding was forced to luff to avoid Pisco Sour as she rounded the mark.

Pisco Sour did her penalty soon after clearing the mark (just seven seconds - which would satisfy the 'as soon as possible' test), and rejoined the race on the off set leg, dropping three places in the process.

Race 9 Prestart

The prestart phase of Race 9 was like a Day at the Dodgems certainly there were a lot of close calls between many of the boats, and maybe even some minor contact, but no penalties were done.

So maybe there were no incidents in reality, however the graphics produced by Virtual Eye were spectacular - such as in this incident between Matador (windward) and Artemis (leeward) - but it was certainly very close.

Graphics courtesy of Virtual Eye www.arl.co.nz to see more of their very cool applications across many sports.

And don't forget to click the enlarge option under each image to see a full screen version.