The Louis Vuitton Cup Final between INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli is starting to resemble the most tense of penalty shoot-outs. Every time one team feels they have the upper-hand, the other responds and at the end of another truly outstanding day of super-high-octane racing in Barcelona, it’s all square at 4-4 in this first-to-seven points series.
In a shifting ‘Garbi’ south-westerly breeze that tested the upper wind-limit of 21 knots, the first race got underway with INEOS Britannia coming into the start from the port end, crossing Luna Rossa and then tacking around to take the trailing position.
The Italians went deep into the pre-start box, hunted closely by Britannia, but then executed a fine – and very sharp – turn-up, catching the British by surprise to assume the windward position off the start line. Early advantage went to Luna Rossa who won the bow-to-bow drag race out to the port boundary, before executing a devastating tack right to leeward of Britannia and with metres gained immediately they forced the British to tack away.
The Italians came over to the far-right side boundary on the stadium course, but moments before tacking there were onboard communications about dropping the port (left) foil arm. Once it finally dropped, Luna Rossa tacked and then faced the British who had closed up on a left wind shift and tacked onto the Italian layline into the port windward gate marker.
With the race incredibly even at this point Luna Rossa went for a tack to the starboard marker and bore away hard at over 50 knots. Shortly after though the silver-hulled boat went into a sudden nosedive that brought the boat to an immediate halt.
Onboard cameras caught pieces of fairing around the jib track area on the port side coming off through the sheer velocity of the impact and Luna Rossa were forced to go head-to-wind as they tried to assess the damage. Their race over, the crew were quickly out of their cockpits with helmsman Jimmy Spithill the first on the scene to inspect the damage.
With no retirement called initially, to take the win INEOS Britannia were required to sail on and complete the course. But after two laps, while the British were on the fifth leg, the Italians announced their retirement and Chief Umpire, Richard Slater, awarded the race win to the British.
Immediately, Luna Rossa’s superb on-water support team and technicians jumped into action and boarded the yacht with reels of carbon fibre sheeting to effect repairs. After half an hour of intense work the Italians’ ‘silver-bullet’ was not only back up and running but race ready, and with a fired-up crew determined to perform in the second race of the day.
And perform they did. The second race got underway after a short delay as the wind briefly tipped above the 21-knot wind limit. Onboard Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli the sailors were pushing the boat as hard as they ever would – repair or no repair.
After entering the starting box on port, they led out to the far-right hand boundary, gybed and elected to trail deep to begin their set up for a time on distance run back to the line. INEOS Britannia ignored the gybe option and decided to head up for a tack, but it was a costly error as they broke the far-right boundary and were immediately penalised with a 75-metre ‘get behind’ penalty.
Luna Rossa, realising their advantage, set up accurately for the starboard end of the line marker buoy, forcing Britannia to take their stern and expend their penalty by slowing down. A tack on to port by both boats soon after compounded the British problems and handed control fully to the Italians. With a lead now in excess of 100 metres, Luna Rossa were in charge and not offering up anything in the way of passing lanes.
The Italian crew covered tenaciously early on, forcing the British into uncomfortable corners and tactical positional gambles, but as the race progressed the increasingly confident helming duo of Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni were largely able to sail their own race, picking shifts and pressure beautifully and executing their manoeuvres to perfection.
Bear-aways at the top gate were next level by Luna Rossa today as Andrea Tesei and Umberto Molineris, the Flight Controllers onboard the Italian yacht, nailed the exits and compounded the tactical gains.
On a course that saw pressure builds both out of the left and right sides at various stages, calling the puffs was a tricky task. On balance, the Italians got more right than wrong, particularly downwind where they negated any seeming advantage that the British had in this area, gaining at will and making sharp roundings at the leeward gate.
With the gusts up around 23 knots, Luna Rossa made no mistakes up and down the final two legs, covering loosely and crossing the line 16 seconds ahead to level the series, once again, at 4-4. A remarkable team effort from both the sailors and their support team to bounce back so convincingly.
A very calm Jimmy Spithill, starboard helm for Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli came ashore but refused to be drawn on exactly the issues that the team faced, saying: “The important thing was that the guys were able to effect a repair to allow us to race that second race. It was quite a large open area so it would’ve been a huge performance hit if the guys weren’t able to fix it.”
Asked if he felt momentum was with the team after a dominant second race today, Spithill commented: “Yeah I do. I really feel like after a day like today you can just feel the momentum starting to swing and again the team has really been under some pressure a few times now and every time it feels like we’re responding even better. So I think, as a team, we will really take that into tomorrow and if the weather plays its part, I think it will be two great races.”
Commenting on the repairs to Luna Rossa, Spithill added: “The guys will just work all night like they always do, to effect these repairs, get those fairings back in and then, also we will go through the data pretty heavily just to try and understand what happened.”
Sir Ben Ainslie, skipper and Team Principal of INEOS Britannia broke down the day, ruing the error in the starting box in the second race: “Firstly, it’s unfortunate for Luna Rossa to have the damage in the first race, as I think that was shaping up to be a close one. In the second race we just had an issue which kind of put us out of position for the start, we weren’t where we wanted to be but in that amount of breeze you can’t just throw the boat around or you’re going to wipe out or break something – so it really put us on the back foot. But we tried really hard, they had a great race and did a good job defending and I thought the performance was pretty similar today with both boats ramping up in that top end.”
Asked how he sees this tie eventually being broken, Ainslie alluded to the fine margins that each team are operating on, saying: “Ultimately somebody has to get to that seventh win first – and that will be it. But there’s not much between the teams and we’re all either having slight issues or making mistakes and it’s making a difference. Other than that, I think both teams are sailing really well and pushing each other to the limit, which is great and what we want to see.”
Again we go into another evening at the Louis Vuitton Cup Final with the series all square between two incredibly evenly-matched teams. With nothing to choose between them, the shoot-out goes on with neither side willing to blink first. Two more races are planned for tomorrow, Wednesday October 2, when there is expected to be a change in the weather as the current southerly conditions give way to a lighter, potentially shiftier, easterly airflow.
Barcelona shoreside is reeling in awe this evening after seeing the fastest ever recorded speeds in an official race of the America’s Cup. INEOS Britannia are claiming the record having logged 55.6 knots during a bear away, something that the packed crowds at the Race Village and the Fanzones at Bogatell and Plaça del Mar appreciated and applauded.
At 4-4 in the series, this deadlock must be broken eventually. Could it run to a last race decider? Only time will tell in this epic contest for the right to take on the Defender of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand.
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