Big Four flop in the fleet racing

Alinghi might be leading the fleet racing of the Louis Vuitton Act 11 of the America’s Cup, but generally this was a tough day for the Big Four. BMW Oracle’s approach to the start line of the first race was incredibly late. USA-87 was the last to get on to starboard tack for the final approach and so Chris Dickson never gave himself a chance of a clear air start.

+39 Challenge, on the other hand, did exactly what they needed to in a slow boat, and booked the pin end of the line where Iain Percy could accelerate and put the bow down. Rounding the first mark in third place was a sensational result for the Italian team in the oldest boat on the race course.

Another Italian team, Luna Rossa, led for the first half of the beat but ITA-86 seemed to fall out of phase with the shifts – if indeed there was a phase to the shifts. Francesco Bruni, who works the traveller on the boat, later explained that because of the sloppy waves the team decided not to send a man up the rig. The waves were out of all proportion to the six-knot breeze, and it was hard to keep boats moving. Bruni said: “To reduce the pitching of the boat we decided not to send anyone up the mast. We missed a big shift to the right and arrived at the top mark with a bunch of boats. We tried a risky tack and we thought we were alright, but the umpires judged that we tacked too close and gave us a penalty.”

So having rounded the mark in 8^th, after the penalty the Italians dropped to 10^th and they never recovered from there. BMW Oracle rounded in 4^th but could make nothing of it, dropping to 9^th by the finish. Alinghi climbed from 9^th to a not particularly inspiring 6^th at the end. Of the big teams, only the Kiwis made anything of that first race, although even they were pipped at the post for 3^rd place by +39, of all teams.

So who did do well? Victory Challenge, who led around the first mark after hooking into a good right-hand shift. Perhaps it was the inspiration of multiple Olympic medallist, Lord Sebastian Coe, who was riding as 18^th man on the Swedish boat. Whatever it was, Magnus Holmberg’s team were on fire, winning by over a minute and a half from another surprise package, Mascalzone Latino.

The second race ran a little more to form but not by much. This time it was Alinghi’s turn to dominate, BMW Oracle again nowhere to be seen. It was the first time the Americans were racing with their jumperless rig, and people were wondering if that was the problem. But it really wasn’t a day for assessing speed. Today was about plain good sailing, and what today revealed is that every team has talented seat-of-the-pants sailors in their midsts. Light and fluky is not the most thrilling spectacle, but it certainly shakes up the pack nicely.

BMW strolls the last race

As expected it was a pretty one-sided affair in the re-match that was called off earlier in the week, between BMW Oracle and +39 Challenge. But as +39’s tactician, Ian Walker, commented yesterday, “We’re certainly not going to learn anything sitting in a coffee bar with hangovers.” So they went sailing with hangovers instead. But Iain Percy and his gang did as well as they could in a dog of an old boat, winning a marginal advantage at the start but unable to do anything with it. ITA-59 is just plain slow below 10 knots wind, and today’s race barely saw more than 6 knots.

I spoke to Percy afterwards, and asked if he had even seen a glimmer of hope of beating BMW ORACLE today. “No,” he said, matter of factly. “If we were racing in 15 knots, yes, but in that wind? No. I don’t want to make the mistake – which I did against Alinghi - of doing something radical. That’s not the way to learn. Where are you in a year’s time? You’ve got to take your weather calls, pick your right side, then you one-tack up and make the cross - normally. Of course you’re not going to do that when you’re 3/10s of a knot slower, but we got to sail BMW Oracle today. You still learn from that.“

Even BMW Oracle’s tactician Bertrand Pacé reckoned they got something out of the one-sided encounter. “We are learning each time we go on the water. It’s quite hard to understand what’s going on with the wind here. We try to learn with the weather team.” While the weather remains difficult to fathom, there is a quiet confidence about the team when talking about USA-87. Pacé said: “This boat is tacking quite well, and I think this boat is quicker in the light and quicker in the heavy. It’s not much, maybe two boatlengths faster in a beat, but it’s quite enough to stay there when you have a bad shift, and make a good gain when you get a good shift.”

Two boatlengths in this game is an awful lot. And when you combine that with the boat’s ability to snap through the tacks, it’s a potent combination. But how much speed has the team sacrificed for that manoeuvrability, or can you really have the best of both worlds? Pacé doesn’t think so. “Everything is a trade-off. To get this boat we have probably compromised the speed but that’s what we needed to do for this racing. It’s hard to know the answer yet.”

Alinghi still holding the aces

BMW Oracle’s victory in Louis Vuitton Act 10 proves that America’s Cup racing is not always won on pure speed. Pundits around Valencia have been marvelling at the ability of USA-87 to turn through an incredibly tight turning circle – a valuable trait not only for pre-start manoeuvring but for executing the killer move that Chris Dickson pulled on the Italians aboard Luna Rossa.

After the young (but older than his years) James Spithill won the better start and bounced Dickson off to the right just seconds after the gun fired, Luna Rossa seized control of the match in the early stages. Things were always nip and tuck between these two brand new Version 5 hulls, but Spithill still appeared to be holding the upper hand as he approached the windward mark on starboard tack. Dickson went to duck (the first and only dip of the regatta) the transom of ITA-86 and Spithill bore away accordingly, looking to make life as difficult as possible for Dickson.

But USA-87 dipped the Italian stern and almost immediately Dickson span the wheel into a tack. Now having dipped a transom and then immediately rounded up the other way into a tack, you might have thought the Italians would have enough pace on to be able to tack onto port and squeeze across the Americans to lead round the windward mark. Clearly that’s what Spithill was thinking because he held on to the very end before both boats luffed to avoid a collision. It was a clear penalty, and from there the Italians faced an uphill struggle that they never overcame. Act 10 went to Larry Ellison, who steered his own boat across the finish line.

Mainsheet trimmer Jonathan McKee defended Spithill’s error of judgement when talking to the media after racing. “If we didn’t get across them, it was unlikely we were going to win the race. There wasn’t any other very appetising option, really.” But he did concede that USA-87 has some impressive qualities. “They do seem pretty good tacking. Whether it’s their technique, or their sails or something else - I’m not in a very good position to speculate on that.”

As for straightline boatspeed, observers thought the Kiwis’ new boat looked pretty tasty, while USA-87 and ITA-86 appeared to struggle at times. But no one really knows what subtle games are being played out there. Without actually saying it, Chris Dickson hinted in a press conference at the beginning of the week that they might not be revealing their full hand. Sandbagging is definitely on the agenda at this stage. At times, USA-87 has looked quite ordinary and at others quite extraordinary. A few people round the media centre certainly believe Dickson is holding back.

Alinghi’s fourth-place finish doesn’t sound great, but the challengers remain concerned about Swiss potential. SUI-75 is still a good boat, as McKee pointed out. “She’s not slow, and they still have two new boats to come, so they’re not in a bad position, but for sure the gap has been closed. That’s good news for all of us and probably good news for the event too.”

Terry Hutchinson was less optimistic. “You have to wonder what they have sitting in that shed over there. They were at least half a generation ahead of everyone in 2005, so if they make another generation jump, they’ll be another half-generation ahead of where the challengers are now. They’re obviously very good at what they do, so I think we all have our work cut out. We need to press on it for the next year.”

Vasco Vascotto, skipper of Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia, was most forthright of all. He belittled the design efforts of the big challengers. “Alinghi continues to be the benchmark. This means that the strongest teams have already thrown away a new boat just to get to where Alinghi was. This is good news for the smaller teams that will only build one boat.”

A chink in the armour

It took until the dying gasps of the 2005 season before Alinghi yielded a match race to another team. Then on that very last day of match racing in Sicily, the invincible Defender lost boat races, one to K-Challenge and the other to BMW Oracle. Apart from that, 31 out of 33 victories was an ominous display from the Swiss, suggesting they could hold on to the Cup beyond 2007.

It took just two days of the 2006 season before Alinghi fell to another team. Yes, the team are still using the boat from last year, SUI-75, but their moments of weakness have come from lapses of concentration at the starts. Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team last year was a team that could barely get out of its own way, let along anyone else’s. With a number of disputes between the team and some key personnel, internal political struggle looked set to overwhelm the Italian campaign. And so when the red boat ITA-77 squared up to SUI-75 in the pre-start, few expected anything other than a walkover for the Defender.

But it seems that some of the firings and hirings in Mascalzone have done the team some good. There have been some key additions to the Mascalzone afterguard, among them the young Danish match racing duo, helmsman Jes Gram-Hansen and tactician Rasmus Kostner. These two have sailed together for years on the World Match Race Tour and have been looking for a way into the Cup scene. Having been given their break with Mascalzone the Danish friends are making the most of the opportunity. Where Alinghi was a couple of heartbeats late to the line, Jes Gram-Hansen took ITA-77 across the line on the B of BANG.

In times past, you could have relied on Mascalzone tripping over their own shoe laces while Alinghi cruised serenely by. And helmsman Ed Baird did indeed find a way past the Italians before the top of the first leg. But ITA 77 was close enough and fast enough to overtake the Swiss on the first downwind run, and the match was back on. Eventually SUI-75 brought her superior upwind boatspeed to bear once more, and the Swiss held off Mascalzone by less than a boatlength. A faster boat would have given Mascalzone the win they deserved.

As a travelling sailing journalist, I get to speak to the world's greatest sailors on a regular basis, so this blog is an insight into the world of grand prix yachting. In the past year I've reported on Olympic events, America's Cup Acts and offshore classics like the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race and the Volvo Ocean Race. Keep on coming back to the Sailing Talk blog for my latest comments.