Gladwell's Line: The big Shows step onto centre stage as sailing's dark era ends
by Richard Gladwell 28 Jul 14:30 NZST
28 July 2024
49er - Olympic training - Marseille - Paris2024 Olympic Regatta - July 26, 2024 © Gilles Martin-Raget
Today the 2024 Olympic Regatta begins in Marseille.
It will bookend a long period of Sailing history and an era, which most would probably rather forget.
The last full Olympics were staged in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Since then the world has been rocked with economic crisis, and the COVID pandemic. The former is still ongoing, but in recovery. Tokyo2020 was deferred for 12 months and then sailed under very strict quarantine conditions which resulted in a very basic Games being conducted and completed three years ago.
The America's Cup suffered a similar fate, with the 2021 regatta being conducted in a region which was locked down for 185 days. Outside the teams, few attended the two events, with just a handful of international media being present in Auckland, and not much better in Japan.
In its wisdom, World Sailing opted to change five of the ten Olympic events, by dropping them altogether in the case of the Finn and the Mens 470. The windsurfer class changed to a foiling board, and now five of the ten events use foiling "Equipment".
We are on the cusp of a very busy seven months in sailing.
Just ten days ago, SailGP wrapped up Season 4, with Spain being a surprise winner of the $2 million purse, which hangs on the final race and the title of Season 4 winner.
As so often happens with SailGP, the team that just scrapes into the Final goes on to win the Event. So maybe the Spanish win was no surprise.
It was a great day for Spain and the sport. It was pleasing to see SailGP champions put into the same peer group as F1, Tennis, and Golf. It remains to be seen if the Spanish SailGP helm, Diego Botin, can emulate the feat and win the Gold Medal in the 49er class. He is the nephew of Marcelino Botin, a top America's Cup designer and Design Chief for American Magic.
With the SailGP series complete, attention will shift to the 2024 Olympic Regatta in Marseille, which starts in three days on July 28.
Unlike previous Olympics, this one is hard to read, given that five of the ten events have changed since the last Olympic Regatta. Five of the events are now sailed in foilers - a big jump from just the Nacra 16 multihull three years ago in Tokyo2020.
With the change in classes, many established sailors who have dominated the past three Olympics have retired rather than change to a new event.
It is also a maxim of Olympic sailing that competitors rarely win a medal at their first Olympics. Given the event changes that have been made, it is hard to pick likely medalists except in the Nacra 16, Mens and Womens ILCA, and Mens and Womens Skiff. However, in the latter two events, several top crews have retired, and those two classes are opportunities for new talent to come to the fore.
We will carry full Olympic coverage on Sail-World via our international editorial team. We will work through the New Zealand night to ensure that Sail-World readers have the latest reports and results from all classes and teams. Our first report in the "Olympic Diary" series was posted on Wednesday and will expand significantly as the Event gets up to full speed.
The arrangements we have in place are similar to those in the Media Centre in Marseille. The downside with remote coverage is that you are very much in the hands of others. With coverage from the venue, at worst you can just describe what you saw, and at best you have that plus access to the full media system. The Olympics stopped producing full paper results after the 2012 Olympics in London. Now all the records, times etc are online only - but able to be accessed by accredited media.
Sail-World's coverage will be from an international perspective, with individual country reports appearing in that region only. You can look around the seven Sail-World regions from the drop-down tool bar ay the top of the screen. On another position on the drop down toolbar you can change the language in which the reports are written - so it is not just for English speakers only.
The America's Cup gets underway with the third Preliminary Event in three weeks or so, on August 22.
We have had intense coverage for a year, thanks to Sail-World and others being given access to the AC37 Joint Recon Program information compiled by a team of 12 reporters and photographers. These reporters and photographers have trailed each team every day they have been testing in either a 40fter or AC75.
That program stopped on June 22 and has not been replaced with an alternative. Several other high-rated sailing sites were running regular video compilations and commentary on the Cup developments, which have also been wound down. From a fan perspective, shutting down the recon system and media feeds without putting an alternative in place was a wrong move, from a fan engagement perspective.
We've seen nothing from the teams in the way of images or reports that were up to the standard of coverage from the recon teams, who were, of course, an independent source of information and analysis—even if they did make the occasional error—which is a hazard of any independent, unauthorised commentary.
We have some back content, including several editions of Cup Spy that were not published due to time pressure and will be run when time permits. Some very interesting historic America's Cup videos—mostly from the 12 Metre era—are popping up on YouTube, which will also get an airing. There's one sequence of Dennis Conner driving a crane and offering to haul Australia II from the water for maintenance.
When the Recon System shut down, four Cup teams had been sailing for 25-34 days in their AC75 and were well into their development. The other two—Emirates Team New Zealand and Orient Express (France)—were well behind in terms of days on the water when the Recon program shut down.
Since the beginning of May, we have been treated to various sights of the AC75s being revealed ahead of the start of the 2024 America's Cup in Barcelona on August 22.
The Swiss team Alinghi Red Bull Racing were the first, on April 6, after the dark blue hull of the radical AC75 design was rolled out from the shed door for a 20-minute glimpse. Any serious appreciation of the design produced by the team led by Marcelino Botin had to wait until ten days later, on April 16, for their creation to be tow-tested and sailed three days later. The Swiss were the first team to sail an AC75 at the 37th America's Cup venue and have since had 12 days sailing off Barcelona.
Emirates Team New Zealand put the other teams, and all Cup fans, on notice to expect the unexpected when their AC75, to be later christened 'Taihoro', emerged just after noon through the doors of their Wynyard Point base, alongside Jellicoe Harbour in downtown Auckland.
After an inclement morning, the skies cleared, and the Kiwis went through the now-familiar routine of commissioning an America's Cup yacht.
However, on this occasion, they excelled themselves, managing to rig, launch, tow test, sail and make the first dry foiling tack - all on the same day, or rather, the same afternoon. It was a first in America's Cup history, and the Defender became the first team to sail a Version 2 AC75 in the 2024 America's Cup.
[American Magic repeated the feat, but they were coming off a pre-dawn start, unlike the Kiwis, who started after lunch.]
The Kiwis went on to sail for an impressive and intense 14 days out of 18 available, including sailing in a 30-35kt breeze, before decommissioning 'Taihoro', which is about to be loaded on a fruit ship heading for Europe.
A day later, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli presented their new AC75 concealed by a black shroud, which was dropped for the christening ceremony and first splash. They sailed six days later, in a breeze that was bordering on the fresh - an early finish was called on the session. The Italian team are on their sixth America's Cup challenge. It is really their seventh - if you count their 2017 effort, which was shut down after Golden Gate Yacht Club, in cahoots with a group of Challengers, changed the class from the AC62 to the AC50 18 months into the cycle.
Like the Kiwis, the Italians have decommissioned their AC75 and shipped it to their base in Barcelona. Except Luna Rossa travelled less than 400nm instead of the New Zealanders' 13,000 nm.
The British team were next to emerge on April 18, the day of the Italian's tow test. The Brits took their now usual, very precise approach to set up the AC75 - a process which lasted eight days before they went through the setup, measure and check for one last time and went sailing. The four-and-a-half-hour session finished at 8.00 pm. Then, it was another four days in the shed before the next sail on May 1. From there, the Brits found their sea legs and sailed on six of the next ten days.
American Magic shut down their AC40 two-boat program on April 23, had a day off, and then the base doors opened, and their AC75 rolled out into the daylight, or more properly, some airspace, to allow the mast to be stepped and the supplied rigging checked. It was 12 days before we saw the US Challenger repeat the exercise. This time, with a pre-dawn start, they were sailing for a period before being warned off by forecasts of thunderstorms. They sailed for two more days that week and seemed satisfied to have put their commissioning process behind them.
On May 26, the sixth team, Orient Express Racing Team, revealed their AC75, which was built from a design package supplied by Emirates Team New Zealand. The French flew for the first time on May 30.
Quite how they or any other team is performing is a mystery.
From past experience, we know that all AC75s look super quick when sailing by themselves, but the awful truth is only revealed when they are put together in a race. You only have to look at INEOS Britannia's performance in the last Cup to verify that statement.
Whether that remains the case in the 2024 Cup remains to be seen. Of course, all the teams talk down their performances and praise others'.
In the weird AC75 world where the teams are not allowed to sail against each other, heading in the same direction for more than 20 seconds, we see the "world of criss-cross"—where one tacks and the other quickly responds, falling onto the opposite board/gybe. In the days of the Recon System, the teams claim they don't learn anything from these encounters and put any differential down to wind shifts, changes in pressure, etc.
It's like listening to kids explain why they haven't done their homework.
Your mind goes into fog mode as you mentally count the days until the racing starts - and then the truth may emerge.
And that, folks, is it for the content from the Recon system, which shut down over a month ago, We are no wiser since then.
A couple of weeks or so after the America's Cup is over, the Vendee Globe gets underway on November 10 from Les Sables-d'Olonne in Vendée, in western France.
The singlehanded, non-stop around-the-world race has a limited entry of 40 - sailing IMOCA60s of varying vintages. The race has a massive following in Europe and France in particular. The finish of the last one out-rated the America's Cup on Sail-World. Conrad Colman sails USA/New Zealand entry MS Amlin and has covered over 16,700nm in qualifying races. He is 22nd of the 40 qualifiers and is on his second Vendee.
Colman will be remembered for his previous race, in which he dismasted 700nm from the finish, completed the race under a Jury rig, and ran out of food for the last few days. Colman was also the first competitor in Vendee history to finish the race without using fossil fuels.
The top qualifier is Samantha Davies. Although listed as a UK competitor, she lives in France, like Colman. Davies is on her fourth Vendee and has sailed just under 24,000nm in qualifying for the current edition.
Following the Vendee Globe, or while the race is in its last stages, the action comes to New Zealand with the International Moth Worlds, which will be sailed out of Manly Sailing Club, starting on January 4, 2025.
The Event, recognised as the unofficial singlehanded foiling world championship, attracts the world's top sailors. Some great names on the trophy include Nathan Outteridge, Peter Burling, Paul Goodison, Tom Slingsby, and Dylan Fletcher, all of whom are competing in the 2024 America's Cup.
Season 5 of SailGP gets underway on November 23-24 in Dubai before moving to Auckland on January 18-19, tying in nicely with the conclusion of the Moth Worlds in Manly a week earlier in January.
At Sail-World we will be covering all these events, and many others, using a mix of remote and on-site coverage. The Olympic Regatta will be covered remotely due to the near non-arrival of media accreditation card - which is normally provided three months before the start of the regatta.
However we are very happy with the remote access we have been able to arrange, and will be reporting in a similar style to the "Cup Spy" series - except the first section will be published within a few minutes of the completion of racing each raceday. We have Sail-World Editors covering our live race-day content from UK and New Zealand - 24 hours a day.
Our plans for America's Cup coverage are fluid - and will depend on how the coverage of the Olympics unfolds from a technical perspective.
Looking back over my recent coverage for Sail-World on the America's Cup since 2000, New Zealand has had an interesting outcome, if you are superstitious:
2000 Cup - I was on the water for all races in Auckland - Emirates Team New Zealand won.
2003 Cup - Stayed ashore for the first and fourth races in Auckland - Emirates Team New Zealand failed to finish both, and lost the Cup.
2007 Cup - I did remote coverage of the regatta in Valencia - New Zealand didn't win scoring a losing margin of just 1sec in the seventh and final race.
2013 Cup - Reported from San Francisco, but left on September 18. At that points Emirates Team NZ was on 8-3 on wins, but didn't win another race.
2017 Cup - Reported from Bermuda for all races - Emirates Team NZ won.
2021 Cup - Reported from Auckland for all races - Emirates Team NZ won.
2024 Cup - ??
And in the last four Olympic Sailing Regattas, I have never attended one where New Zealand hasn't won at least one Medal.
Will Marseille be a breakpoint?
Should be an interesting few weeks.
Good sailing!