Sail-World NZ: Oct 12 - Tonight's the Night
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 12 Oct 21:13 NZDT
12 October 2024
Emirates Team NZ chases INEOS Britannia - AC75 - Louis Vuitton Preliminary Event - Day 2 - Barcelona - August 23, 2024 © Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for October 12, 2024
In a few hours the start gun will fire for Race 1 in the 37th America's Cup.
At this stage no-one how the Match will pay out with the Royal Yacht Squadron's Challenger pitched against the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's Defender.
Statistically there is very little to go on. The NZ team have only sailed against the British team once in the Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
For the purposes of a wider discussion, we're discounting the two races in which Luna Rossa was scored DNF/DNS, and also the LV Cup Race 5, when Luna Rossa came off their foils and handed the British a 100metres start.
Before the Louis Vuitton Cup Final, there have been five matches sailed between the three AC75s (New Zealand - we're not counting the sail-over that Royal Yacht Squadron team had over the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron team had over the Kiwis when Taihoro was dropped by their crane and missed a day's racing on Day 2 of Round Robin 1.
Out of those five match races, RNZYS won 2, RYS won 1 (plus the sail-over) and the team representing the Italian club CVS (Circolo della Vela Sicilia) won two races.
Of the Matches where they have sailed each other twice - the Kiwis and Italians have won one each, as have the Italian team against the British club.
The one match where NZL and GBR did race, the Kiwis won by 3min 2sec in a light breeze.
Of course, the way the Semi-Finals have been structured the two Finalists by definition didn't sail against each other - so there is no performance comparison available.
We do have the the performance data from the boats which is interesting. There is no shortage of it - each race for each boat is a 300,000 line spreadsheet but to do proper analysis we need more boat on boat races between the two Finalists, in the Louis Vuitton Cup. After the first day's racing from the Louis Vuitton Cup will give us four races, which should start to get interesting - and as the Final plays out we will have nine races per team which can be offset against what we have available on the Defender.
There is no real point in comparing the data between AC75s sailing in different races. The times we've looked at the wind (measured at 10 points around the racecourse boundary there has been a variation of 5kts in strength and 20 degrees in direction. That statistic alone tells you that this is not a boat speed race, but rather a boat positioning and strategy contest - particularly with boats sailing at three to four and very occasionally five times windspeed.
We've also had access to the AC37 Reconnaissance Program reports, images, and video starting soon after the first AC40 was launched. We made very sure to keep weather records of this parallel period, 12 months out from the start of the America's Cup when only two of the teams were racing AC75s at Barcelona.
But for those who have been following the Womens America's Cup, will be well aware that the weather in Barcelona at this time of the year is highly variable - much worse than Auckland. A year ago the conditions in Barcelona were more conducive for America's Cup racing than what we have seen lately.
What are the key points of difference that will be of relevance when racing does start?
First is takeoff foiling speed. The Recon team reports attempted to measure this each session, by pacing the AC75 with their spy boat - provided the target teams didn't deliberately frustrate them. The lowest we ever saw recorded was 14kts. Most were in the 16-18kts mark, and occasionally up to 20kts. From what we have seen on screen and by reviewing the data and Virtual Eye 17kts looks to be a pretty average takeoff speed.
The next point to look at is when they fall off the foils. This speed seems to be above the take-off speed, but from what we have seen to date anytime the speed gets below 23kts and is declining, then the inevitable is about to happen.
Several races were lost in the semi-finals when one of the AC75s came off their foils and was unable to self-launch, flopping around like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.
That brings us to the point, when both boats are foiling but one is better able to head downwind. The giveaway is when the boat speed looks high (say 25kts) but the VMG is much less (0-8kts). The AC75 will look impressive, but is going nowhere, other than reaching back and forth across the wind and trying to put their bow down and aim at the bottom mark. We can't really pick up who is better on this point off the racing data, but it is more apparent in hindsight, using Virtual Eye and then working back to the data.
Going back to our two Louis Vuitton Cup Finalists, Our view is that neither ITA or GBR are strong in this area - as evidenced by the Semi-Finals a when both Alinghi Red Bull Racing and American Magic were able to take races off them.
Both the Italian and British were scored as DNF when they could not recover from a foil-flop.
However it also comes down to the crew's ability to spot pressure bubbles and be able to ride these downwind, like a glider riding thermals. This is where the variance in wind strength and direction come into play. If one AC 75 can get a slight increase in pressure and the direction comes ahead a few degrees, then the AC75 should be able to point lower and sail a more direct and faster course to the mark. We saw Alinghi do this with INEOS, who either missed the puff/shift, or didn't have the low speed foiling ability of the Swiss. Given that the AC75s sail at 3-4 times windspeed quick gains are very possible.
We didn't really get much opportunity to see any of the three in a breeze, except on one occasion where INEOS with its higher freeboard looked very comfortable and easy to drive fast. That will be a point of interest in the future.
However it may be significant that the Brits say they have only sailed in winds of up to 25kts, while the Kiwis sailed in a 30-35kt breeze just after their launch - so one would think they were very comfortable in winds of 20-25kts.
The other point will be whether either team has been able to effect significant changes from the last time they sailed - this could be better moding or fitting a new wingfoil, sails or maybe a rudder.
Given the time available the Challengers are less likely to be able to effect these changes and test. However the Defender has had almost a month - plenty of time since the Round Robin racing ended on September 9 and until racing resumes today, on October 12.
At Sail-World we have access to the publicly available performance data from the AC75s. There is a 300,000 line spreadsheet of data which we have had a top software developer in yacht racing apps develop a set of reports based on our experience, covering 12 America's Cups. From the one match between NZL and GBR, the British seem to be more adept at picking wind pressure and shift opportunities - where they make substantial quick gains at the expense of their opponent. New Zealand is foiling lower (a better end plate effect) and as a trend has better speed over the ground.
But one swallow doesn't make a summer, and we'll be watching and running these reports on every race, and will be sharing these in our reporting.
At Sail-World we will be covering live from New Zealand and UK - so you will get all perspectives, and of course you can see the live feed of the racing by just going to www.Sail-World.com
Between newsletters, you can follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com/nz or by scrolling to the top of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.
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Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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