Italians saved by the bell on Day 2 of Louis Vuitton Cup finals + what we learnt

The scoreboard stays the same at one-all with no races completed today in the Louis Vuitton Cup final - but the Brits demonstrated impressive light airs performance before the time limit expired

INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli lined up for a tense second day of racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup final in Barcelona today – after Day One’s even match in conditions that pushed the upper margins of acceptable for the foiling AC75s, today was always going to be at the lower end of raceable.

It would also be a key indicator of performance optimisation heading towards the America’s Cup itself – if both boats had proved evenly matched at the top of the wind range, who would have the edge in the light stuff?

In the event no results were scored – but with five and a half laps of a six-lap course completed, there were still learnings to be had.

Key takeaways from the Louis Vuitton Cup Final Day 2

• Both teams have improved their super-light airs moding and boat handling but attempting to foil a 7-tonne 75ft boat in sub-7 knots remains somewhere between marginal and impossible
• INEOS Britannia was just metres from the win when the time limit expired.
• The boat that is supposedly weakest in light conditions today demonstrated an impressive low wind mode, while Ainslie-Fletcher kept good control of the race in fluky conditions. It’s hard to imagine the Brits didn’t feel a bit robbed of a valuable point today after the N flag went up .

Race 3   INEOS Britannia Vs Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli

Skippers

INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainslie & Dylan Fletcher
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli: Jimmy Spithill & Francesco Bruni

After a nerve-shredding two hour delay, the race committee repeatedly setting the clock for a start only to fail the minimum wind reading – a consistent five minutes of 6.5 knots across both top and bottom of the course – racing eventually got away around 4pm local time in 7-8 knots. A six-leg course was set, rather than the extended eight-leg course we saw on Day 1 in much punchier conditions.

INEOS Britannia had port entry – so far the winning starting position of every race in this Louis Vuitton Cup final – and chose to minimise manoeuvres and take a conservative approach to the line. The Italians gave themselves a tougher job, heading to the line with time to kill. At the gun the two boats started fairly evenly, the Brits to windward.

The biggest gains came for the British team when they took advantage of an early significant right-hand shift that left Italian co-helm Jimmy Spithill saying they were in ‘damage control’ mode.

It looked, briefly, as if the race could be sewn up before the first top mark – assuming both teams could stay on the foils. The minimum boat speed for reliably successfully tacking in the AC75s is around 26-27 knots, and the first beat was right on the edge of that.

Early in the first downwind leg it looked as if the Italians might have been able to reverse the situation by some old-fashioned picking their way to better pressure. They sailed to the shoreside of the course to pick up stronger breeze and briefly took the lead.

However, the huge differences just a single knot of wind speed equates to in boat speed was evident. The Brits came down with marginally more wind but 2+ knots more speed to roll the Italians and bounce them back out to the left side of the course.

A heart stopping moment came for the Italians that had Cecco Bruni calling he had lost rudder control, though they managed to save it. As commentator Glenn Ashby explained, in these conditions the AC75s are sailing with very deep mainsails, and some windward heel, which adds to the load on the extremely high profile rudders.

Having maintained a slim margin of advantage over the first lap, the British team were able to choose their route around the course to the better breeze. By the end of the second downwind leg INEOS Britannia were over 1 minute ahead.

Midway up the final upwind leg, INEOS Britannia dropped to the danger-zone of 16-17 knots, the cyclor team putting in a huge effort to keep the British AC75 on the foils, before managing to recover it. “Really focus in here boys, this is everything,” encouraged Ainslie, while the cyclor teams audibly groaned at the huge effort.

One minute later, the Italian team dropped off the foils. Then conditions inevitably got the better of the British too, the crew losing steerage through a tack and also coming off the foils. Both boats were left picking their way up the course in displacement mode at 6 knots or less. Though the British boat had a 600m advantage it would become negligible if either boat could get back up onto the foils first.

With ten minutes left on the race time limit to complete the final downwind leg, Dylan Fletcher asked ‘Are we going to get there, VMG it?’. The answer, sadly, was no – even sailing the most direct route in displacment mode wouldn’t get them across in time. The Brits tried valiantly to get back up to foiling with glimmers of 9-10 knots boat speed, but it wasn’t enough, and the time limit elapsed with INEOS Britannia halfway down the final leg.

All further racing was abandoned – a frustrating day for sailors, spectators, and most of all, the British squad.

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