Cup Spy: An AC and Olympic super-coach on why Kiwis won the Cup
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World NZ 21 Dec 02:09 NZDT
Emirates Team NZ leads INEOS Britannia in Race 1 of the 37th America's Cup - Barcelona - October 12, 2024 © Ian Roman / America's Cup
Sail-World sat down with Hamish Willcox in November to cover the busy 2024 sailing year and get his analysis of the 2024 SailGP season, the 2024 Olympics in Marseille, the 2024 Louis Vuitton and America's Cups in Barcelona. Here we look at just the America's Cup Match.
British hopes were high going into the 37th Match for the America's Cup Match contested by the Defender Emirates Team New Zealand and Challenger INEOS Britannia.
The tough Review conducted by Emirates Team New Zealand after winning the 2021 America's Cup by 7-3 over Challenger Luna Rossa (ITA) came down heavily on the Kiwi sailing team's performance – triggered by being three wins apiece after three days of racing.
The post-Match Review had it that the Defender had a significantly faster AC75 than the Italians but didn't capitalise on that design advantage.
"I think they did the opposite, in Barcelona, to Auckland," Willcox explained.
"In Barcelona, ETNZ's racecraft was better than anyone. They certainly got it together. And last time [2021], sailing with them, I know we had tons of speed, but our racecraft was not good."
"They reacted very well to fix that. In Barcelona, their speed was still good enough to win, but their racecraft was way better than in 2021."
Willcox says that the two finalists were the two fastest Challengers on a speed basis.
"I think American Magic looked to be a little bit vulnerable in certain conditions. Their boat was quite extreme," he opined.
"Three races in the Final could have gone either way if the Italians had started better. Luna Rossa was certainly way closer than they were to Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2021 Cup."
"There might have been 2kts difference in VMG between Team New Zealand and the next boat in 2021, whereas this time, I reckon if you're measuring the same differences, they were definitely less than half a knot. And if you started better, you'd gain control of the race and stay ahead."
"We also saw that in New Zealand in 2021. If you started better, you stayed ahead, even if the trailing boat had 2kts advantage in VMG speed.
"So I think that in the 2024 Cup, anyone who raced better would have won races, and this time it was the Kiwis who raced better."
In the latter stages of the Louis Vuitton Cup and America's Cup, there was a lot of discussion about communication on board the race boats and within the teams. Much of that was attributed to the influence of cyclors from Olympic sports such as Rowing, where words are a luxury in the epicentre of a race, and a concise word had to convey a lot of meaning.
"Within Team New Zealand, it was more than just communication. They just did a good job of everything.
"If I were doing their 2024 external review, I'd look back and think that they did all the parts of racecraft very well, including communication, starting strategy, their manoeuvres, and all the boat-on-boat stuff.
"The thought they'd put into that was very smart, given they weren't racing, like us, they were starting the at the coalface. They must have made very good use of the simulator."
"They'll put it down to many things, but all under the subject of racecraft.
"Their moding was super good. I think that a particularly big stand out in Barcelona was the Kiwi's moding."
Asked to be more specific on moding, Willcox explained:
"It's just being able to choose to sail a high mode or lowfast mode. And Team NZ identified transitions as a key [sailing] phase.
"It's very obvious from the 2024 Cup that the boats, because of the boundaries, are always transitioning in terms of coming out of a manoeuvre or off the boundary. They're never really sitting at optimum VMG for very long - it's a tiny part of the equation.
"I think Team NZ put a lot of effort into understanding how to transition really well out of tacks and gybes."
Viewers at home watching Virtual Eye - the GPS animation of the AC75 race boats and able to be controlled by the viewer/analyst – may have picked up these key transition differences. Virtual Eye clearly showed the differences between the boats in terms of performance data and sailing/starting tactics, and it visually showed the boat tracks/wakes.
"What Emirates did really well was knowing when they could build thin [sail high and still fast] rather than fat [low and fast to do a quick speed build], out of a tack," Willcox explained. "They did that better than everyone - and not coughing up VMG where they didn't need to.
"There were significant differences in the gybe between teams. INEOS had the least amount of two-board time and achieved this by turning faster while creating leeward heel, which allowed the new board deeper immersion into the water.
"This deeper immersion helped to control skidding - which occurred on the very thin part of the foil arm.
"Getting the mast rotation to the new side at exactly the right time for the wind to hook up on the rig often helped INEOS to gain metres in this manoeuvre.
Early on in the regatta, the analysis of the onboard performance data (available for public and team download) showed this small advantage to ETNZ, at the bottom end of the tack.
The Defender was coming out of tacks much quicker and sooner than the Challengers. Team New Zealand were also the quickest to get to where their target VMG might have been.
Willcox agrees: "I think they were manoeuvring really well. In the end, it became a sailor's race. Barcelona was a Sailor's Regatta."
"The best sailors won, both on and off the water. Being able to effectively link sail and rig controls allowed Team NZ to concentrate on tactics and strategy."
"It made a big difference in the end."
"For the Kiwis, Sam Meech and JJ (Josh Junior) did a really good job, working out what to go after and where the gains were - full credit to everybody on their team. Very proud of the Kiwis," he added.
In Part 2, we look at the Louis Vuitton Cup Challenger Finalists - Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia.
A successful year:
Hamish Willcox is one of the world's most successful sailors, coaches and analysts.
Crewing for David Barnes, he won three consecutive 470 World championships. Since then, Hamish has coached at nine Olympic Games for three nations, assisting sailors to four Silvers and two Gold medals. He moved across to coaching for Great Britain in the 470 classes, winning Olympic medals before moving to the America's Cup teams as a weather strategist for Luna Rossa and then as a coach for Emirates Team New Zealand while continuing to coach Olympic champions.
In 2024, he worked with Luna Rossa as an America's Cup coach and with the Spanish SailGP team, which won the 2024 SailGP Grand Final and the $2million purse.
Willcox continued coaching Diego Botín and Florian Trittel (ESP) to win the Gold medal in the 49er class in Barcelona 2024, before resuming a coaching role with Luna Rossa - which in addition to the Italian's AC75 program also involved coaching the winning crews in the inaugural Womens' America's Cup and the Youth America's Cup, from Luna Rossa.
In December 2020, he combined with a top sailing journalist, Andy Rice, to launch the successful Road to Gold coaching program, which captures the experiences of Willcox and other contributors into a coaching and development program for racing sailors at all levels, including a Junior program to be launched in 2025.