A drift-off and a ‘pointless’ race: Wind doesn’t play ball for the Louis Vuitton Cup Day 2

A single full-length race between America's Cup challengers Alinghi and American Magic was all that could be managed in today's Louis Vuitton Cup racing

The second day of the Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robbin series – the America’s Cup challenger selection series – took place today Friday 30 August in Barcelona, but it was not far from the most thrilling day with only one full race completed in the very, very light winds.

One team that will be somewhat happy about the conditions will be America’s Cup Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, who were forced to withdraw from today’s racing while they try to repair damage sustained when pulling their boat out the water after the first day of Louis Vuitton Cup action.

It’s unclear just when the Kiwis will be back on the water and today did see them missing out on one match – against INOES Britannia – but they were also due to race the Frech and this race was cancelled due to a lack of wind.

Race 5 American Magic Vs Alinghi Red Bull Racing

Skippers
American Magic: Paul Goodison & Tom Slingsby
Alinghi Red Bull Racing: Arnaud Psarofaghis & Maxime Bachelin

As with yesterday’s racing, today saw a delay to racing as the race committee waited for the wind to fill to the required 6.5knots across the whole course that is needed to get a race started. Yesterday in these conditions American Magic dropped off their foils in the pre-start agains INEOS Britannia and lost that race as a result.

Today the Americans had a bigger headsail up and it was something of a reverse of fortunes in the start sequence as Alinghi just managed to get into the dirty air of American Magic and dropped off the foils in the light winds and it would be easy to assume that was the race won for American Magic as Alinghi were fully 550m behind by the time they got foiling and crossed the startline.

Things looked even better for the American squad as Alinghi dropped off their foils at the bottom of the first downwind. However American Magic also dropped off their foils at the top of the course.

The race very quickly became a case of watching the boats pop up on the foil and then either just make it though a manoeuvre or drop off the foils.

Ultimately when the US-flagged AC75 was 1/3 of the way down the second downwind – and with Alinghi still low-riding upwind – the course was shortened to 2 laps. At that point Goodison and Slingsby made the call to low-ride for the rest of the donwwind with 20 minutes of the 45 minute time limit still to run.

It’s not what these boats are built for and it’s not exactly spectacular watching but the US-flagged team managed to limp across the finish line in the lead. there was briefly some tension as Alinghi popped up in the foils with 200m still to go to the finish for the US, but by that time they couldn’t be much of a threat.

“It wasn’t pretty at all, but it’s just tough conditions. You get a nice gust at 8.5 knots and then it just drops off and it’s a real struggle to stay on the foils,” summarised Slingsby at the finish of the race.

What did we learn from the Louis Vuitton Cup Race 5?

This latest generation of AC75 have had some rule changes to try to make them a little better at foiling in low winds, after a couple of races saw the boat sailing in low-riding mode in 2021. But once again we were treated to the non-spectacle of just that.

What did we learn about the relative performance of American Magic and Alinghi Red Bull Racing? Pretty much nothing, but two losses from two races is far from positive for the Swiss team.

Race 6  Emirates Team New Zealand (withdrawn) Vs INEOS Britannia

Skippers
Emirates Team New Zealand: Pete Burling & Nathan Outteridge
INEOS Britannia: Ben Ainlsie & Dylan Fletcher

After a very, very long delay waiting for sufficient wind at around 15:50 local, there was finally enough wind to watch INEOS Britannia cross the startline alone – with Emirates Team New Zealand ashore fixing their damaged boat – and immediately being awarded the ‘win’.

A pointless experience in more ways than one, as this ‘victory’ will be scrubbed from the scoresheet when the Round Robin stage of the Louis Vuitton Cup concludes. This will be the case for all New Zealand races, so the Defender cannot influence which boat is eliminated from this stage of the regatta.

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