Cup Spy Sept 5, 2023: Wind eases for Practice Day 4
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 6 Sep 2023 12:46 NZST
5 September 2023
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Emirates Team New Zealand - America's Cup Practice - AC40 - Day 2 - Barcelona - September 1, 2023 © Ugo Fonolla / America's Cup
What happened in the Cup - September 5, 2023:
Some private practice training was held between the teams on Tuesday.
Two further Practice Days will be staged in Vilanova on September 13 and 14.
The strong winds and high seas which forced the cancellation of racing on Monday (having also been blowing to excess on Sunday), appear to have dissipated to some extent on Tuesday, but were close to the upper limit for racing.
The wind read-outs from Port Olimpic indicate that breeze was in the 10-18kts range, gusting over 20kts for a period between 1200hrsand 1500hrs. The sea state was diminishing, however there were breaking swells visible from one of the webcams in the Port Vell area, overlooking the 2024 America's Cup racing area.
AC40s were also visible sailing in the area, but no images or reports from the session have been put into the Reconnaissance File System, unlike the first two Practice Days held last Thursday and Friday.
We have loaded a couple of videos of the racing on Day 1, which give some idea of how the racing could look in a couple of weeks. This video is shot from a Recon Boat and is not at the level expected from Vilanova by the official production (broadcast and other details of which we don't have at present).
The top video has 34sec of Prestart; The bottom video has 2min 28sec of Prestart.